Don't Stop

Once upon a time, I had a clean house. A very clean house. I had half as many children, (and none of them were being schooled, therefore...), a lot more time, and an overly thorough cleaning schedule. I had dust-free ceiling fan blades, clean baseboards, fresh sheets, and a silky-soft clean doggy.

Now, I love having a sparkling clean house, I do.

But that is not my season of life right now. Perhaps it is for you, and maybe my old chore chart up there will help you out. :)

But my life right now is just not there. And what I'm trying to tell myself right now is something I remember hearing when I was struggling so much with breastfeeding and a final-sentence of PLF:

Don't stop doing what you can, simply because of what you can't.

I just can't do the white glove clean twice a week. But I can take 30 seconds and wipe down the counters when I use the restroom. And maybe the toilet the next trip.

I might not be able to sweep and mop together, or dust and vacuum in one single day now, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't take 5 minutes to sweep the kitchen and dustbust the pile. Then take 5 minutes to spot-clean where the peanut butter and jelly sandwich hit the floor open-faced, and I left it for the time being because the entire cup of milk that just got overturned because someone is still not sitting properly in her seat during meals was a little more immediately important, and then I totally forgot about the PBJ smear until I was sweeping.

Oh, I'm sorry. :) I digress.

See what I mean? I can't do it all in one fell swoop like I used to. And, for better and worse, I am very all-or-nothing (which is why FlyLady doesn't work for me), so I often put things off because I know I won't be able to finish them. (Case in point: I've been meaning to overhaul my personal cookbook for over a year, and have been putting it off because I wanted to be able to do it in one sitting. Finally yesterday I realized that that isn't gonna happen, so I started working on it in small chunks, and now I'm already nearly done, yay!) But I should never stop doing the little things that I can do in a few moment's time just because I can't do it all at once. This works for sewing and cleaning for me. I'm still working on finding a way to make it work for exercise. ;)

This might seem like "homemaking with littles 101" to you. :) But for a former Type-A poster child who God is gently breaking down by grace, child by child, this revelation has been very freeing, convicting, and encouraging for me. Hope it's a help to all the recovering type-A mommas like me. :)