chaos

The House That Cleans Itself {Book Review}

October 26, 2010 by Dana

The House That Cleans Itself by Mindy Starns Clark

Paperback from Harvest House Publishers

$12.99 at local bookstores

This book was written with the unorganized home-keeper in mind. Mindy Starns Clark discusses her battle with disorganization and her way of overcoming it, through creating a house that cleans itself. The book creates a unique way to look at your home and keep it organized and clean, all of the time. If you can successfully follow the plans detailed in the book, the result should be a well-organized and fairly clean home. Mrs. Clark’s methods could be very helpful to many disorganized families in need of guidance in an efficient way to keep their home clean and straight.

For me, this book was yet another housekeeping book full of good ideas that I will never utilize. Most of the ideas are common sense and a great many I already knew. There were a few new surprises that I may utilize but overall it was just a refresher of ideas I’ve already heard of elsewhere. It took me a few days to read this book because I was honestly bored by it. I think this was because it was not a book of “fresh” ideas for me. For someone who has not thoroughly researched home-keeping, this book would be a great asset but for those of us who have read almost everything possible on the subject of keeping a home and learning to organize and clean a home, it comes as a repetitive territory. So I will be placing this book into my box of things that can be sent on to someone else to enjoy and I will continue on my search of the perfect housekeeping method for myself and my home.

Boys Room Done {July 28, 2010}

July 28, 2010 by Dana

I’m happy to announce that my boy’s room is now finished. I do have a few things to do in there, like reduce the amount of cars they own and rid of half-bodied Transformers that have slipped through my trash radar but overall it is done.

It took three days of work but it was well worth it all. I still have to find their mattress pads for each of their beds and wash their comforters to finish making up their beds but all the rest is finished.

Toy bins

These Pennants were passed down from my Mom.

Winston’s bunk with his animal collection and purple sheet (fav color).

The TV zone

These three cubbies were passed down from Grami to the boys. They were used with baskets for storage by her but now are sitting on top of the dresser to hold the boy’s personal items/collections.

A shot of the stuff inside the cubbies.

I’ve had this picture forever but it never really went with Winston’s old bedroom theme (Cowboys). It fits perfectly with the new sports theme.

This is a before… note the ruffled edge.

Without ruffles. A less feminine curtain for the boys.

The curtains hanging above the play table. Win’s X-men collection is hanging on both sides of the windows and more stuffed things top the windows. A baseball rug brings the sports theme down to the floor.

The kids love the new made-over room. It only took a few minutes for the girls to tear it out for Win.

Next I’m going to work on the classroom/dining room and get things set up for us to begin school work again. I think the rest of the house has become a huge disaster but they always say things look worse before they look better. We are hoping to be able to purchase a storage building to place on our property within the next month since there is not nearly enough space for things in the house. I look forward to that purchase but for now I’m managing to declutter and put things in their place slowly. It’s a never-ending process but I’m finding it fun to work through.

Til next time…

Update and a Thought {July 14, 2010}

July 14, 2010 by Dana

Update and a Thought…

I’ve been extremely busy lately re-organizing the house and doing a late-summer cleaning. Plus kids, a terrible two-dler, working on Saturdays and keeping up with the day to day, hasn’t left much time for fun stuff and online. Good news is that it’s all getting done and bad news is that I’m still no where near the end of the tunnel (HELP! I can’t find the light! LOL).

While I was cleaning up earlier, going through the monstrosity of stuff I’ve accumulated (with my dear Mom’s help) over the past 31 years (and let’s not forget to add the kids’ over-abundance of possessions that are never played with), I had a lot of thoughts. For one, why do I keep all of these things? And why do I feel guilty to get rid of a simple ugly doll just because my Mom gave it to me at a time when she didn’t have a lot of money to give me anything? Why do I feel sad to toss Grandpa’s old steel cup that I never once saw him drink out of? These are just things, material possessions, not the persons or memories themselves.

Then I began to consider even more stuff. Like why do we teach our children the same things that we have been taught from birth. We come into the world with nothing but a Mother and possibly a Father who hopefully loves us more than life itself. We have no possessions. We are naked and as basic as we can be. It’s then that we are taught to want and need and that we begin to crave these unnecessary things in life.

We are taught we should grow, we should walk, talk, play. We are taught we should need a Barbie because Sally has one, or a bike because Joe peddles his like a mad fool. We should attend schools with 1000’s of other children and spend our days with them, until we come home to a Mom who has a great meal cooked waiting on Dad to come in from work. And we should want a similar life, with a nice home, a car, dog or cat, and beautifully well-behaved children. The American Life. Our life’s goal is to grow into a very old person, with a loving family and something to show for our time here.

Truly, life doesn’t work that way at all. Many children don’t have that home-cooked meal from Mom, or a Dad who works hard to provide that meal. Some don’t have a Barbie or bike or that cool new Zhui Zhui pet. They’re home may not even be there in the morning. And life can be taken away in a flash. Tomorrow is not promised, only this moment we are in.

So my thought is, why do we teach our children to want and need the American Life? Why not teach them instead to live in the day, in the moment and to love and appreciate what they have in this instant in life? The Now. Life is short, and God is calling each of us every day. I, for one, want my children to be ready to live in the Love and Light of the Lord. To hear His will and be guided by Him and to want all the treasures of Heaven, for they will be there before we know it, in the blink of an eye, when He calls us all home.

Till next time… Dana