Good morning!
I know that I do not normally post in the morning, but I had some free time this morning, and decided to not procrastinate any longer! I know that I have been MIA for a few days, and I have to confess I have just really let myself get overwhelmed with my normal daily life.

Let me back up a little bit:

The other day when I was so worried that I was going to have our place flooded, I sat at work with that thought in my head for almost 8 hours. Over and over, I kept making a mental note of what things I HAD to have saved from the first floor of the house. What both surprised, and disturbed me to know is that there isn’t much that I care about losing down here. Besides my sweetie and my two dogs, I have a chest that belonged to my grandpa – he was an artist, and it is where he kept his art pens, that I would want saved, and the other thing would be my books that live downstairs. Not all of those, but a few that I consider “friends”, I would feel sick if I lost those too.

What does that mean in the big scheme of things???

Well, what kept going through my mind as I was thinking of these “HAD TO HAVE” items, is that maybe I have surrounded myself with things that I thought were bringing me happiness, when in reality, they might just be taking up space in both my home and in my life. I don’t want things that just take up space, I want things that add joy and value to my life. Even in saying that I know that things will never really do that, only people and experiences will bring me joy and value, but I live here. This is the place that should rise up to meet me when I get home. I started to wonder if that was what was making me feel run down and overwhelmed in my life.

I literally spent all weekend wallowing about this, and pining for the life I might have been if I would have not been focusing on unimportant “things” (yes, it was a very deep weekend for me!)  This morning I woke up and decided I was done wallowing. Today is that day that I start taking some kind of action to clean it all out, clear it all out, and decide what I am going to surround myself with from now on. No more unconscious living for me, thank you very much.

So, this morning as I sit in my living room, writing all of this down, I am surrounded by all of our Christmas containers, both old and new. I am working on getting all of the Christmas decorations cleaned out and re-organized into new, un-mangled bins/drawers  so that I can help make Christmas decorating more fun, less chore. It may take me all week to get this all put away, but as in all things baby steps, baby steps.

In the meantime, I have also created a daily chore list for my sweetie and I, so we can get make the cleaning of this place a little more manageable as well. No ladies, chore charts are not just for your children any longer!! 😉 Before I zip off to work this morning, I just thought I would share this new chore chart with you!! 😉

Daily:

• Make the bed
• Cycle the dishes through the dishwasher
• Wipe down stove top, counters, and microwave, if needed
• Take the garbage out, if needed
• Wipe down the dining room table
• Straighten the sofa
• Clean the dog’s water bowl, if needed
• Fill the dog’s water bowl
• Pack lunches
• Empty lunch bags as soon as get home so it is ready for next days’ lunch
• Cycle laundry, if needed
• Remove garbage from car if needed
• 15 minutes picking up after ourselves before heading up to bed

Whew!! between the two of us, we should be able to manage that pretty well!! and I bet it will make a nice difference on how well this place looks. I will keep you posted!!! 😉

Have a FABULOUS day!