Releasing the Myth of Done

Another thing added to the list. They come so much faster than they get crossed off, all these various to-do's, and it just keeps growing. It feels overwhelming, never-ending, why bother?

A new bit of work to tackle. A new mess that must be cleaned. A new email that deserves a thoughtful reply. A new thought that demands to be written down and fleshed out. Another meal to cook, another load of laundry to do, another dustpan's worth of crumbs under my feet. My head hurts.

It's never going to end! I think. Never!

But that's just it, isn't it? It's never going to end.

Have I been expecting, all this very long time, that the list will ever be empty? That the work will ever be done? The laundry, done, even as we wear clothes that will soon make their way to the hamper? The dishes, done, even as we look forward to our next meal? The work, done, even as we count on its continuance for its meager income? The writing, done, even as words ever rise within us?

It's never going to end - and praises for that!

If I look at these daily tasks as things to accomplish, things to check off, there, done, finished, I will feel endlessly frustrated. Because they are never finished. They will be there again, sometimes days later, sometimes mere hours later.

But if I view them as ways to bless myself, serve my family, and worship my God, they become good things, satisfying things. Not fun, not always, let's be real here. But Good.

These daily tasks nourish me physically. As I write these words, I feel the ache in my arms from an afternoon spent on my hands and knees, scrubbing every bit of tiled floor throughout our home. It's a good ache, a satisfying feeling, evidence of having pushed my body even in this silly small way. All day I lift and bend and scour, and maybe it's not a 5K run but some nights I collapse into bed as though it has been.

These daily tasks nourish me emotionally. They give me time and space to let my thoughts drift, to rest my mind, to let words swirl and form within me. The mindlessness of these duties is blessing in disguise, allowing that which is creative within me to bubble to the surface. Yet too often I spend that time grumbling instead, acting the martyr, silently stewing as I do what must be done. Why do I choose anger over daydreams, complaints over creativity?

These daily tasks nourish me spiritually. They mirror my own inner dailiness of confession and repentance, renewal of mind and heart, pushing back the darkness within as Christ shapes and forms and fills my heart. Always the dust and dirt returns, and always I wash it away it again. Always the mess returns, and always I tidy it again. Pushing back the darkness and the chaos again and again and again, what holy work this is!

I want to say No More to the grumbling and the overwhelm, but I know myself. Perhaps, though, I can remember more often? And then more, and still more? This is blessing. This is good. I am privileged to have these daily moments of mindlessness in which to think and pray and create and worship and bless and serve. Thank you.

Do the needful

I am tired and everything seems More. More demanding, more frequent, more weighty, more.

Two babies need their diapers changed and all three of them need lunch and I need food and the breakfast dishes are still on the table and my bladder is weighing in with its own demands and all of it needs to be attended to now but I only have two hands!

Overwhelmed by the growing urgency of all that must be done, I stop, remind myself: Do the next thing. Simply do the next needful thing.

I clear a space on the floor and kneel amidst the sea of toys to change two diapers.

I move the breakfast dishes to the dishwasher and empty the rest of the table.

I set one baby in front of his mama-sent lunch and begin slicing fruit and veggies for my own boys, scooping hummus and tearing up pitas and peeling boiled eggs.

They begin eating and I slip away to the bathroom, then return and eat my own lunch.

Everything is calm again.

Just do the next needful thing.

Again later in the evening, everything demands attention at once. Dinner is finished and the table needs to be cleared and the pots need to be washed and the laundry needs to be switched over before bedtime and it's time to start the boys on tidying up the living room and the floor needs to be swept and once again my bladder is making its presence known (thanks to the tiny human sitting on it) and oh, deep breath. Just do the next thing.

I feel annoyance rising as I move quickly from one task to the next, but then I remember: All is worship when done as worship. Thank you, Lord, for these dirty dishes, because it means that we have food. Thank you for this warm water. Thank you for the happy, if slightly chaotic, day that led to this mess. Thank you for this opportunity to serve. Thank you for this home.

I wash the pots while the dishwasher takes care of the dishes, humming along beside me, my steady companion in this daily repetitive work. Soon everything is done - laundry, sweeping, tidying - and children are ready for bed and I know the exhale will soon come.

In the meantime, I will simply do the next needful thing.

Never-ending cleaning

I scrub house, even though everything just gets dirty again.

Never-ending dishes.

Never-ending laundry.

Never-ending sweeping.

But I do it and it is good and holy work, because all is worship when does as worship.


I scrub heart, even though it just gets dirty again.

Never-ending repentance.

Never-ending forgiveness.

Never-ending sin-scrubbing.

But I do it and I cling to the promise that He will complete this good work He has begun in me.


Never-ending cleaning of home and heart: This, along with my ceaseless thanks and praise, is my daily offering to You. May it bring You glory.

All is worship

Another long day is over.

Three kids, the rain keeping us inside, pent up energy spilling over in noise and chaos. Two loads of laundry, one more waiting in the hall. Dishes, dishes, endlessly dishes. Diapers and nursing and preparing meals. Relief and gratitude when my husband cooks supper. More cleaning and tidying and parenting. Too much impatience on my part met by the freely given forgiveness of these sweet boys, leaving me wondering how can I learn to extend such complete and utter forgiveness?

I feel tired straight through, even after slipping off for a quiet nap.

Now the baby is falling asleep beside me while his daddy puts his brother to bed. The extra pre-bedtime work means I can soon slip out to the calm and quiet of a tidy home - except for the laundry waiting to be folded and the husband wanting to spend time together. Perhaps there will be a few minutes left over to read a book of my own (every earlier attempt met with two children clamoring for me to read a book to them too) before heading to bed early.

A reminder for myself tomorrow, and if you need it, for you too:

All's worship when does as worship.

Such a little thing

When we first moved into our new place, my least favourite thing about it was the kitchen. If you can call it a kitchen. More like a hallway lined with appliances and one itty-bitty square of counter space. I could live with pretty much everything else in the house, but that kitchen? I couldn't even begin to imagine how I could cook proper meals in there.

Funny how things work out. I never expected it, but having a small (small, ha! tiny!) kitchen has not only been bearable, but it's finally forced me to smarten up as far as cleaning that area of my home goes. The kitchen has always been my weak point. Yes, I'm one of those people who would shove all the dirty pots and pans into the oven before someone showed up at the door. The dishwasher tended to be slowly emptied through use rather than intention - and then filled back up and immediately turned on when those clean dishes ran out. I'd dig in and clean up when I could force myself to, but in no time it would be out of hand again. A bigger kitchen simply meant more room to stack dirty dishes, more time to procrastinate while the mess grew, more counter space to fill up before I ran out of room, more opportunity to feel overwhelmed by the mess and choose to put off cleaning it for "just one more night". I'd do it tomorrow. Really.

Now? I couldn't let the kitchen get to that state if I wanted to. There's just no room. It's either keep the kitchen tidy or not cook at all. It also did terrible things to my mental state in those early days of living here, waking up to a cluttered and messy kitchen and not being able to ignore it like I could in a bigger place. I was grumpy, I was frustrated, and of course it must be my husband's fault, since he chose a house with such a ridiculously small kitchen.

So I switched back to a habit I had tried (and failed) to develop several times in the past - spotless kitchen before bedtime, every night. This time, though, the habit stuck. And wow, does it ever make life easier. Who knew?

Cleaning food off a pot I used that evening takes a matter of seconds; scrubbing the same pot that has sat out for a few days involves much soaking and scrubbing (and is just plain more disgusting). Keeping up with the dishwasher means having an empty surface when I need it, rather than having to clean off a space before cooking dinner or baking cookies. Dealing with only one set of dishes and pots requires a few minutes of my evening; days' worth of dishes require an exponentially larger chunk of time to get on top of. And those few minutes in the evening mean I get to wake up to a clean kitchen every morning, which leaves me feeling far more calm and peaceful.

Sometimes I do it immediately after supper; sometimes I wait until the boy is asleep. But it's always done, every night. Dishes in the dishwasher, pots washed and put away, counters and tables washed. Common sense, I'm sure, for most people, but an entirely worthwhile new habit for me. The difference it makes is amazing.

I've actually grown quite fond of my little kitchen. Time to go fix myself some breakfast there - and thank my husband for choosing such a perfect home.

When the cat's away...

What a week this has been! My husband, who has been unemployed for seven months, had a week-long temporary job. I love that man dearly, but I find it hard to keep a good house with him around 24/7.

A week without him has left my house mother-in-law ready. It's that clean.

The kitchen is scrubbed, clean (including the inside of my toaster) and completely reorganized. I feel like I have so much extra room in there now! I even tackled the top of my fridge.

Before:


After:


I sorted through the boy's toy baskets, tossing out all the miscellaneous "stuff" that had collected in there. Even though his baskets were suddenly much emptier, he has rediscovered all of his favourite toys and been playing with them much more often. Less is, indeed, often more.

I *coughputawaytheChristmasdecorationscough*, but we won't talk about that. Because it's February. And ow, my pride.

I cleaned and reorganized and tidied and cleaned some more. I have this odd desire to dance around my house now.

And the boy and I! We had so much fun.

I made a batch of playdough using a recipe a friend had given me. He played with this frequently and for nice long stretches of time, which I took full advantage of to get more cleaning done (and some web surfing...and some playdough playing...because who can resist playdoh?). I made a playdoh snowman, which the boy insisted needed a hat - so a hat was made. I give you, Cowboy Playdohman:



And Cowboy Playdohman after a few modifications done by said boy:



We played with bubbles (while Mommy washed the dishes).



We went outside! In the snow! For hours!



We walked to the produce market and picked up all sorts of wonderful fruits and veggies (and the obligatory yogurt, which the boy would eat several times a day if I let him). We tried our very first blood orange, which, though the name has always turned me off, was very good. We bought bananas, battered though they tend to be in the winter, with plans to make banana muffins in a couple days.



I hate to sound so giddy about having my darling husband out of the house for a few days - but seven months! You can't blame a girl, really.

Kool-Aid Playdough

2 1/2 cups Flour
1/2 cup salt
2 small packages of Kool-Aid
3 tablespoons of oil
2 cups boiling water

1. Mix flour, salt, oil and kool-aid until blended
2. Add boiling water, mix with spoon until cool enough to knead, knead until colour is well mixed
3. Store in air tight container or bag in the fridge.

I fail at housekeeping

This evening I pulled out all our furniture and swept underneath.

I found a potato under our sofa.

(But in my defence, I have a toddler who loves to pull the potatoes out of the pantry and play with them.)

In Which I Clean

Ah, how wonderful it is to have a tidy uncluttered clean home.

We had company last weekend, so I used it as a good excuse to do a deep clean of our house ahead of time. How oddly exhilarating a day of good hard cleaning is! Since then I've been tidying up twice a day, as I know that I do much better when I keep on top of things rather than end up overwhelmed and avoiding the mess after falling behind.

I did a bit of a mini-clean this weekend again,
sweeping,
mopping,
vacuuming,
ironing,
doing laundry,
washing diapers,
handwashing and relanolizing the wool diaper covers,
cooking,
tidying,
marking (I teach an online course),
baking (the best banana bread ever, according to my husband),
before finally putting my son to bed and, after one last quick kid-free tidy, relaxing for the evening.

It's so much more peaceful to spend the day in a tidy house (or, even better, outside).

My biggest difficulty as far as cleaning and decluttering goes is throwing stuff away. I'm terrible at it. Firmly against it, actually. After all, you never know when that desk calculator with the dead batteries and broken pen might come in handy - and, in any case, it was a gift. And that sweater you've never worn - it is really quite pretty and one day you might want to wear it. And all those empty containers - well, containers can be useful for so many things, right? Countless things! You can't throw them away. And that old tennis ball that doesn't bounce anymore - it's still a ball. You can, you know, roll it around or something.

It would seem I have issues.

BUT last week I forced myself to let ago of a few things (including the above-mentioned broken desk calculator and flat tennis ball). My husband is much better at this than I am. A little too good, I thought, as I pulled a Christmas card from his Oma out of the trashcan. Honestly! Not a sentimental bone in his body.

Now, perhaps someone could tell me - what do I do with all these rescued greeting cards??

Baby Steps

The other day I picked up a spray bottle from the Dollar Store, mixed together 1 cup water and 1 cup vinegar, and cleaned my bathroom.

It's not much, but it's a start. When I was done, I was able to go pick up my son without worrying about my hands being covered in chemicals. The house didn't smell like harsh cleaners. I wasn't worried about what my family was inhaling.

Baby steps.

I've also been faithfully going to the organic farmers market every Saturday to pick up meat and produce for the week.

This week marked a milestone - it was the first week that I didn't need to make a second trip to the grocery store to pick up additional groceries that I couldn't get at the farmers market.

When I first started buying more organic and less processed foods, it seemed horribly expensive at first. But now that we've been doing it for about a month, I find that I'm actually spending less on groceries. I think mainly this is due to less trips to the grocery store, where all sorts of extra foods always mysteriously make their way into the shopping cart. Now, if I have to go, I go only to pick up a few very specific things. Our meals seem more well-rounded and definitely healthier now.

My fridge and freezer are satisfyingly full. We have fish, chicken, and beef. We have potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers. We have strawberries, blackberries, blueberries. We have eggs, cheese, and orange juice. (We also have milk, but it is admittingly not organic. I just can't bring myself to pay the same amount for 1L of organic milk as I would normally pay for 4L or non-organic milk. I just can't.)

What more could we need?

Tonight I'm making a salmon and fruit salad. Grilled salmon served on top of lettuce, cucumbers, strawberries, mandarine orange slices and a sprinkle of blueberries. Perfect for a gloriously warm Labour Day weekend.

Last night I made banana bread. Yum.

The night before, we had soft tacos for dinner. We made our own soft taco shells. They tasted so good, much better than store bought ones.

So that's our progress so far. They may just be baby steps, but they're still steps forward.