I love, love, love having a clean house to live in, clean clothes to wear, and a clean kitchen in which to prepare home-cooked meals. I, however, do not enjoy being the one to clean the house, wash the laundry, and clean the kitchen after I have cooked.
I also do not enjoy the woman I become when our home is messy or cluttered; the laundry is past-due; and the kitchen is crumby, sticky, or just cluttered. I am unloving and unlovely. My stress level rises as my guilt over "not getting it done" rises.
And guilt is a terrible motivator (at least for me). I'd rather let love motivate me into what I need to do.
See, it's loving for me to take the time to make things tidy and neat before the house becomes a natural disaster. It's a loving thing for me to "work ahead" on Friday and Saturday so that Sunday is peaceful (as much as it can be, anyway).
My husband enjoys a clean house, too, especially a crumb-less floor. (He goes barefoot in the house.) My children are more creative when things are neater, when they don't have to shove stuff over in order to create, or just play. And I am far more pleasant to be around when I have taken the initiative to make things clean before they "need" it visibly.
So, today is "clean the house" on my weekly chore list. And I'm going to start right now, before I become an unloving and unlovely wife and mother.
And after it's done, I will be glad I did it. I will work on my attitude about cleaning as I clean. Because I have a terrible case of the "don't-wannas."
Sigh. No one ever said love would be easy all the time.
(Note at the end of this post: The children do, in fact, help with this. However, I must start the process, and there are certain things they are not old enough to clean yet.)
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