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#11 ABC's of cleaning

**********S***********
for Sandra
my mom
this is what she always said when we were growing up:

"See, that wasn't so bad."

And she was right.

Don't we always honk and make a bigger deal out of things than we should?
In the time it takes us to whine about doing something, we could have done it.
right?

Think of some jobs you don't like to do.



Then think about how really long they take to finish.


I know my mom must have gotten tired just like any housewife....but I never remember her complaining about housework.........everything was kind of fun!  


.......she didn't have the joy of the Lord, she didn't have encouragement from the Bible, she didn't have direction like young Christian moms do........yet what I remember about growing up, is all good about her being my mom.  She played games with us in the snow, she loved company, she did dishes after supper, she kept our clothes nice, she was also very organized.......I don't remember frowns and sad days.


She dressed us pretty and I have never seen a picture where it appeared that we weren't take care of.


She made gizzard gravy, made dressing with white bread, made strange jello salads, fed us toast, planted flowers, did crafty things, hung clothes on the line, made sure we had fun records and books and bought us carrot seeds.



 We've lived on a farm and she had chickens.  The year we lived in a basement apartment, we got little or nothing for Christmas, but all of our pictures show us smiling.  She let me have my friends stay over night, knew just what books to check out of the library for me, she always had something for a visitor to eat....even if it was a tomato on a plate with salt and pepper.



She was a school cook........and everybody loved her.  She always paid attention to little things, and I love her for it.......She also put up with my dad........but that's another blog post.


I can hear her in my heart where good memories are stored, when I've completed something I didn't want to do.
"See. That wasn't so bad."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*T*
Totally finish what you start.
If you start a lot of things and never finish them, you probably ought to check your *start up* list!
Lots of times when we do things on a whim, we leave them undone because we weren't all that interested anyway........but we still spend our resources in one form or another.

time
energy
money

Those three things can easily be wasted.  That's why we need to only spend them on things we are sincerely interested in.

How many people, in the cool days of Spring,  have tilled up their back yard all in the name of a huge garden, only to find out it isn't as easy as it looked.  And now it's hot.



We can be easily moved at home-school book fairs, grocery stores, places like Lowe's, paint stores, ordering  gadgets, Hobby Lobby........

We can buy books we never read or use, a fancy dancy type food we will never cook, bricks, rocks, trees, plants, tools, fixtures, paint, and ooooooooooooooh, there's always Hobby Lobby to make us think we just may want to stamp or make a collage of last year's Christmas tree and have it framed, or latch-hook, or decorate the bathroom in zebra.......or how about buy all the things you need to start making wedding cakes? We can buy a bike for exercise.......a blender for smoothies......muffin pans for breakfast......and special fabric for a King Size Quilt...........and year after year....



......those things snarl and laugh at us when we open up the closet or cabinet where we put it, so we don't have to look at it.  Those silly things we bought because we were moved and excited at the time.  Every single thing you start, every single things you buy, every single thing you agree to do, will probably not go away on its own.  It will need to be completed or gotten rid of.
It will either be a waste or a success.

You can go to Hobby Lobby with a plan, a well thought out plan and buy fabric for a quilt.  You can have the pattern ready because you've thought about it for a couple of months, you know what kind of fabric you'd like and you've saved up some money.  Buy it all, take it home, sew it up, finish the quilt and say: Success!
Or you can be toodling around some day and happen to go into Hobby Lobby and see some fabric you really like, buy ten yards of it and four other mixy-matchy fabrics to go with it.....go home, look for a pattern....cut a couple pieces out and then put it on a shelf.  That would be a waste.



 It can happen in Home Depot, too.  You didn't realize you wanted to paint the hallway, re-seed your whole yard and get new gutters until you got there, right?
I'm not against fixing things up, sewing quilts, or making cakes.  I just know it's easy to buy things in a moment of false energy, which is not the same thing as having a plan.



A very long time ago, I saw a program about a woman taking a tour of her house and pointing out everything her husband had started, but never finished.  Undone projects and honey-do type jobs were all made public.  (could somebody do this to you?)

So, before you buy 50 lemon trees to line your driveway, think twice.  Don't start something you don't have time for, can't afford, or have the energy and heart to finish.

Comments

Dee said…
Cute pictures of you..It is nice to see that all your moms work ethics and attitude was passed down to you.I am sure your children will acquire them also.
Little Penpen said…
I love these posts....keep at it! I'm learning a lot and feeling guilty about some things too...LOL.
Mo said…
I feel like I'm going in circles and repeating myself! 26 is a lot of letters! But I'd better finish....right?
Anonymous said…
I think I need 50 lemon trees now...

And learn to decorate wedding cakes.

:D

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