Cluttered

I have been bombarded lately by a clutter induced funk.  I say lately, because it has seeped into my soul and started to really, really nip at me lately BUT it truly has been a life-long struggle.  The other day I started to say to my husband that I was in a clutter funk and then I went to put a time line for how long this has been going on and then I almost put an actual time on it like a few weeks or a few months and then without much thought the truth came out my mouth, "I have been in a clutter funk (pause) for well, my whole life."  Yikes!  The reality struck as I truly acknowledged that this has been a never ending cycle. 

In some areas of my life I can be so organized and on top of things and then there is "the clutter".  Some of the clutter is simply papers that I am not sure what to do with.  Some of it is a pile of clothes left to be hung in the closet.  Some of it is hidden behind closet doors or bathroom drawers but it is there.  Some of it is things that have been started that came to abrupt halts and were left to be finished at a later time. 

Always, without fail I hit a more severe funk and determine, "That is IT!  It will never get this bad again."  And then, once again, without fail it begins again.  Some of it results from laziness.  Some of it results from too much stuff in too little of a space.  Some of it results from children who add to the mess and then give me a hard time when I try to clear up the clutter.  Some of it results because of having a husband gone several nights a week and dishes get left in the sink  (once again after dinner has been made the children are ready for there Mommy, not ready for a Mommy to be in the kitchen even longer).

Now I am not saying that my entire house is always a complete tornado of a mess but more often than not I feel behind, overwhelmed, and quite simply stressed by the task that lies ahead of me. This weekend I was determined to get some things done and told my husband that the kids would be his for a while and I was going to work, work, work.  And after several hours of working I feel like a very small dent was made.  Far less than my expectations had demanded. 

And there my friends is half of the problem I presume...EXPECTATIONS.  I see other's houses looking pristine, emaculate, and well quite near perfect and wonder what I am doing wrong, what is the matter with me, or how do they do it?  And then I place an expectation of what our home should look like and the guilt and frustration just pile on.  The last thing someone who has a pile filled house needs is a pile of frustration and guilt to add to the top of it all.  *Sigh*

When I started this post I was merely venting my feelings with no real direction or end in mind and then I found THIS...a much needed read.

Here is a small glimpse of Stephanie's words at Diapers and Divinity:

"I don’t think we’re supposed to have a clean house. I think we’re supposed to WANT a clean house and work toward it.  This phrase from April’s General Conference about Mary and Martha’s house fit in perfectly with my philosophy on this:

“It was a welcome place for the Master, where He could rest and enjoy the surroundings of a righteous home.” ~ Elder Gregory A. Schwitzer"

Her words gave me relief and comfort.  I still have some issues to work on but I think more importantly I will work on my expectations and spending quality time with my little ones.

A Cleaning Frenzy and A Toddler's Lesson For Mommy

Well...our house has been one of chaos and clutter. For a while there it seemed that every where we'd look there was a pile of this and that and a whole lot more. In short, our house was an absolute wreck and well, ummm, completely Disgusting! Basically it was 4 months worth of cleaning that needed to be done (pregnancy yuck can do that to a house :)

So this last week I felt good enough that I became fed up and felt a large amount of motivation and disgusted determination to get things back in order and even better than they were before the joys of pregnancy arrived. Along with my pure motivation of disgust, my Mother-in-law was coming over to watch our little boy last weekend and thus a second motivation to pull it all together.

I was like a robot cleaning from room to room, closet to cupboard, laundry load after load, vacuuming every crevice of our house, and tackling the most putrid refrigerator I'd ever seen.

As all of this took place my two year old was really quite a good boy. He was my little helper on many tasks and actually played solo in his playroom when I asked him to, which is a rare occurrence. The week was exhausting to say the least and my back, hips, and legs ached due to pregnancy. It was a long but very rewarding week.

The putrid refrigerator that I tackled was near the end of our week of cleaning madness. My little boy was loving it. I had him take out all of the condiments from the door shelves and put them on the table. Meanwhile I emptied out the items from rest of the fridge and added them to the table. Then the process of removing and scrubbing drawers and shelves began. I had to hold my breath and plug my nose on several occasions (a pregnant momma's nose can be like a super-sense). I was working hard and my little man seemed content doing whatever it was that he was doing and it was then that I witnessed the happenings...A gallon of milk tipped over chugging out in gulps onto the table consuming every ounce of good food in it's path. I managed to scramble to the table and wisk the remaining milk up just in time to save the third of a gallon that remained. It was a mess. I tried to fetch this food and that..snatching the barely covered produce first and then the rest. The table, the underside of each food item, and the floor were covered in the white wonderfulness of a toddler's mischeivious acts.

I, in that moment, remained calm and collected with not a harsh tone in my voice. I gave my son a hug and asked him to help me clean up. Oh, I wish that my good side would've shone through in that moment but the fatigue of a weeks worth of toiling and the frustration of an added "opportunity" to scrub brought out less than the best in me and I said in a harsh tone, "Go to timeout, now!" I couldn't even bring myself to take him there. He walked away and then walked back again and I again said, "You go to timeout! You can't spill milk!" He left for a few minutes while I tried to gather myself and salvage the milk covered items and then it happened. I was taught. I was taught well. I was taught well by my two year old boy who came in singing in his sweet, sweet voice one of his favorite Hymns.

"Carry On, Carry On, Carry On", he sang loud and clear. I hugged him, apologized, and chuckled at his perfect timing and his perfect message. We then proceded to clean up the milk together and enjoyed watching the milk race up the paper towels. I carried on through the rest of the week and we finished our task.

I will forever remember the lesson of my two year old and try to take it to heart. Now just a few days later after an hour and a half battling with a nap time with no binkie what more can I do but remember the lesson of my two year old that I must, "Carry On!"

BRitD

This post was written a little while back and was posted only partly on this blog and entirely on Modern Molly Mormon where I am a small contributor (known as Mystery Molly). I decided to post the whole thing here, enjoy!

My husband and I have been trying to get our house in order. This means cleaning out closets, going through boxes, and taking a whole slew of things to the D.I. It has been quite the undertaking and is still a work in progress. But as I have gone through some boxes of things I haven’t seen in a very long time I came across a t-shirt, in fact I came across way to many t-shirts. Most of them I put in a box to carry downstairs and sort them later. One of the t-shirts ended up in my drawer. It was a shirt given to me as part of an extended family reunion. I have many of these kinds of shirts all with a different acronyms on them. I was unable to attend this specific reunion but still was given a shirt.

The back of the shirt reads like this:



The other night I chose it as the shirt I was going to wear to bed and I quickly remembered what those letters represent – Be Righteous in the Dark. At first glance I felt like I knew what our reunion was about even without being in attendance but then my brain started stewing over this seemingly simple phrase. What did it really mean or what could it mean?

So today I decided to ponder this a little and came up with four different ways to look at Being Righteous in the Dark. Many questions floated around in my head and ended up here as well. And of course with my love of the meaning of words I decided to look up the word dark.

1 - One meaning of the word dark is hidden or secret –

Are you righteous behind closed doors? Are you righteous in your hidden thoughts? Are you righteous in the darkness of your own solitude?

We must learn to be righteous when we are alone.

2 - Another meaning of the word dark is evil or wicked -

Are you seeking for righteousness in the darkness of this evil world? Are you taking to heart the phrase “be in the world but not of it”? Do you shun evil and worldly things and seek after the things of God? Do you stand up for what you believe even when you stand alone?

We must learn to be righteous amid the evils of the world.


3 – Another meaning of the word dark is gloomy or cheerless.

Are you righteous when in the midst of your trials and days of gloom? Do you seek the healing power of the atonement? Do you pray more fervently? Or do you question the love of God and forget to turn to Him in your times of need?

We must learn to be righteous during the battle of our trials.


4 – The last meaning I chose for the word dark is hard to understand or obscure.

Are you righteous and filled with faith even when a doctrine of the Gospel or the weight and purpose of a trial are hard to understand? Do you follow the words of the Prophet or other church leaders even when at first the purpose may seem unclear or unnecessary to you?

We must learn to be righteous and have a greater faith in God’s plan for us.

Brigham Young was the one to make this statement, “…we must learn to be righteous in the dark.” (Brigham Young’s Office Journal, 28 January 1857.)

What a powerful and true phrase that is. It is and will more profoundly continue to be a necessity, a must, an essential to Be Righteous in the Dark.

I challenge us all to find our greatest struggle in the dark and become more righteous there.

Organize Yourselves

So my husband and I are on a cleaning and organizing kick. We've set a goal to have our home all organized and in order by tomorrow night. It'll be quite the task, hopefully we will reach our goal. We worked like crazy yesterday and our bedroom looks like a whole new room. It is amazing how much more relaxed you can feel in a room that is free of clutter and chaos.

It is so easy to become lazy and just add another item to a pile here and another item to a pile there. But soon, as we all know, the piles get quite big and the task to clean up becomes daunting when it could've taken only a few minutes to put a few dishes in the dishwasher, to hang up that coat, to match those last few pairs of socks, or to simply put the toothpaste back where it belongs.

As I was typing that last paragraph I started to recognize a parallel to how we live the gospel. It is easy to become lazy in the gospel. It is easy to add reading your scriptures to your pile of to-do-laters and it is easy to add a little mistake here and a little sin there. But it is not so easy to meet the daunting task of cleaning up that pile of mistakes or getting back on track at doing the everyday gospel essentials.

We not only need to make our homes an orderly, organized, and clean place to dwell but we need to make ourselves, our thoughts, and our actions clean and orderly.

I love this scripture from Doctrine and Covenants 88:119, "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;"

I once had a seminary teacher who had us substitute the words woman or man in the place of house in this scripture. So first we can literally relate this to how we keep our house and the things we strive to do there. But then when we substitute these words this verse takes on a whole new meaning and it reads like this:

"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a woman, even a woman of prayer, a woman of fasting, a woman of faith, a woman of learning, a woman of glory, a woman of order, a woman of God;"

I challenge us all to organize and prepare ourselves and our homes and I challenge us all to become better women and men of God.