Fix up my house - clean, organize, repair, maintain, decorate

Our County waste management takes in leftover paint and recycles it, or mixes what is donated for reuse for others. This past week I started with my living room and painted up a storm. I wasn’t planning to paint my kitchen, but I gave it a quick coat as well as the hallway. (I am considering it primer at this point.)

I also painted over this ugly splotch on my porch that sometimes showed up in my porch writing self portraits (phew!).

I am part way through my curtain project. My kitchen curtains are going to be the happiest curtains EVER! ^giggles

on the front of my house. This is exciting!!

Oh, and four of my trees are getting trimmed, including my teen aged palm which really, really needs it.

Quadruple yay!

There was some stubborn gunk on my dining room floor, left from pulling up the carpet…. and I was sick of it.

Yesterday I said, “I wonder if vinegar and baking soda could break through that?” and guess what… it did… I feel so brilliant and inspired.

Now that I have a calmer schedule, I want to pick up the painting and maintenance. Just yesterday I found someone who could help me install new ceiling fans in the girl’s bedrooms. I am excited about that.

and yet, some things have changed and some have remained the same (as with any goal, eh?)

I have my sacred writing space, which sometimes gets cluttered but now includes a comfy-not-meant-for-outdoors-chair I got for cheap at an almost thrift store. I would love to have a new desk or refinish my current (for the last seven years on the porch) desk… but the space still serves me wonderfully. I even have a bird family in my tree now that keeps me company. They are probably only wintering here and I don’t know what kind they are, but I am excited.

My garage, well… ever and always a work in progress.

My house is actually the tidiest it has been in… dare I say years? Yes, that would be accurate. We had people over for Kat’s birthday and I wasn’t completely humiliated. I am aware the floors REALLY need attention. True, the stinky carpet is gone but they need refinishing… and I am working on making them more palatable in the interim. (and maybe a fairy godmother WILL appear!)

This week I worked on two mini projects which delight me to no end. I created a space for my hats and scarves which I have many and often have ended up all over the house (and therefore not findable) and I organized what had been a sloppy bookshelf in my living room.

My next “big” (for me) project is to build two book cases to flank my fireplace. I want to shelve my books in category to make them easier to find and yes, to actually have a sort of library so I can have my friends over for coffee and mention a book and actually go to exactly where it is for easy sharing.

How dorky is that? And am I?

Perfectly dorky.

Here is a photo of some of my beloved books.

since I created subgoals.

I can’t even tell you how remarkable it has become for me… and how it is impacting other (seemingly non-related) areas in my life.

I will aim to check in weekly.

March Goal: Clean out my garage

March Goal: Decorate the Purple Room

March Goal: Create a sacred writing/reflecting space on my front porch

and the mindful aspect of it managed to make me feel so much better than I had felt when I started sweeping.

As I was sweeping I was thinking about which part of my house I want to focus upon first, in a project way.

I never got to Katherine or Emma’s room this Summer. I hit barriers that I couldn’t have foreseen. (Feels like the story of my life for the past several years actually, but rather than dwell on that, I want to claim a room.)

The room I decided on is what I call “My Purple Room.”

It is at the front of the house – is meant to be a dining room but I set up our eating area in the kitchen and meant to use the purple room as a girly sitting room where I can write, paint, think, entertain… away from the noisy-ness of the other rooms which have electronics and media type things.

Its time for me to reclaim that room, turn it into a mini-sanctuary for me and the girls, tooo, when they want to entertain.

I wrote this in my journal today and thought it was worth sharing here, also:

Cool things are happening today.

I just spent the last forty or so minutes in my kitchen, eating my breakfast (a bit late), scrubbing the sink, cleaning out the fridge � a task I started yesterday, taking photos, journaling and doing some sacred reading.

I don�t know when I felt so accomplished in so short of a time.

I don�t remember oatmeal with a smidge of brown sugar ever tasting quite as flavorful.

Right before my time in the kitchen I visited gaia.com where I oftentimes use the �Questions and Reflections� as a writing (and contemplative) prompt.

This is the question that came up:

�When do you feel the most accomplished?�

I wrote the question on the top page of my journal and began scrubbing. I knew when my initial scrub was over, I would go to my journal and write. I was having a splendid time, cleaning with the same passion I usually use for my art.

I sat down with my cup of coffee as my oatmeal cooked and wrote, �I feel most accomplished in this exact moment. I am on task witih my personal studies. I am working on my business, actively. My creativity and art is consistently flowing, my relationships are flourishing�

AND�.

I had a huge a-ha yesterday (well, it was several yesterdays ago actually, on Friday, when I was seeing my therapist.) This �a-ha� springs from my home, my house, this place I have lived for nearly 18 years now.

I have come close to losing this house more times than I feel comfortable admitting. It is one loss God managed, somehow, to spare me from each and every time.

My house has sheltered me. My house has protected me. My house has been the place where I have grown as a human being in ways I never expected. My house has put up with my apathy towards it for wayyyy too long.

Now it is my turn � my long overdue turn � to fully love my house back. To show up and hug my house, cuddle my house.

It started several years ago, actually � on a New Years Eve when I painted my dining room a gorgeous shade of purple with a deeper purple ceiling and gold accents on the wood. I have continued in fits and starts, like in pulling up most of the carpeting last Summer revealing hardwood floors again. Now, I see the hugging, the cuddling, the caretaking of my house as a part of my complete and overall life alignment.

I see this alignment reappearing in so many ways.

Now, here it is, in my beloved home.

Today I scrubbed my kitchen sink with a toothbrush. This may seem ordinary for some of you. I have read about it on Flylady, but I have never actually done it myself. I knew of it, but I wasn�t intimate with it through experience, through touching, through the process. Today, I became intimate with the joy of scrubbing the sink with a toothbrush, working towards making it sparkle and shine. I think it even winked at me, although I am not completely sure.

Maybe that was Divinity winking at me.

My hand smells like cleaning solution.

Today that is what accomplishment smells like.

Dietrich Bonhoffer said, “Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”

I am ready for the responsibility of loving my home deeply and showing that love outwardly. It isn�t talking about �Oh, I can scrub my sink with a toothbrush� it is about showing up and doing it. And then repeating it. And being grateful for each part of the process.

Showing up in this way feels so good.

Maybe its Spring, I don’t know, but I am just about ready to get rid of the crap in my purple room and yank up the carpet in there. It will be the last communal room to be rid of carpet.

I still need to do this room, too (my bedroom) but that dining room decarpeting will be huge, huge.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can….

Prep will begin Tuesday, when Emma and Sam are back in school.

I have been mostly focusing on the cleaning, organizing, maintaining, decluttering phase.

This goal is really important to me.

I realize I should make some entries to show it.

Katherine and I were watching “Flip this House” this weekend. That show is SOOO inspiring to me!

Then we watched a “Greening” show and THAT was inspiring to me!

My kids are great partners in this project.

And yeah, more “stuff” has been making its way to goodwill, salvation army and tomorrow, after school, Sam and I may take a loud of junk to the dump. Maybe as a bonus prize to getting a massage earlier in the day.