Spring Cleaning

Words that can strike fear in your heart.

I usually plan 2-3 days for spring or fall cleaning

• We don’t do school.
• I have lists and lists of things I want to get done – more than our three children and I could ever accomplish in the amount of time I’ve set aside.
• I act like a slave driver and after a few hours everyone is tired and crabby.
• I’ve had a fight with at least one child and we are all in terrible moods.
• With each passing hour our work becomes less efficient and we do a poorer job.
• I become more angry and frustrated and eventually give up with about 1/10 of what I had hoped to finish.

Sound familiar?

The next time I caught “the bug” I decided to ask the Lord for a better way.

We have five “collectors”. Asking someone to part with a few books was like asking them to cut off their arm.

“Let all things be done decently and in order.” 1 Corinthians 14:40

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• The new plan was to take one small area at a time.
• We would all work on that and then quit for the day.
• When I proposed this “new” idea it was met with groans and, “You’ll never stop after just one thing.”
• So I asked the Lord for grace and we picked our closets as our first project.
• After praying and putting on some good music we got started.
• The girls and I finished first so we decided to go help Eric since he was feeling overwhelmed. We finished his closet and stopped to look at all we had accomplished. Then I told them they could have a snack and go play.
• By the grace of God I was able to stop after just one area.
• I checked our closets off my list and thought about what area we should tackle next.

There were advantages and disadvantages to this plan, which I will share in my next post.

How do you do your spring cleaning?

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And Now For Our Link-up

My favorite post of the week – probably because I need it so much!