To Clean or not to Clean 🤔

I think it’s time for a good spring cleaning.🤔 I found this journal entry from a year ago that will help motivate me. Maybe it will help you too.😂

Nat’s journal – July 21, 2017

I wanted marry Ben not long after we met. We were engaged in nine short months and were married nine months after that.

I remember being a tad disappointed in the sermon Pastor Tom delivered at our wedding. He talked about picking dirty laundry up off the floor for each other and making food for each other and eventually taking care of the kids for one another. He said to think of the other person when we were doing those things and it would make for a good marriage.

I was young and naive at the time and thought his dirty laundry reference was not romantic at my what was supposed to be my “perfect” wedding to begin my “perfect” life.

Our first year as newlyweds we lived in this cute little two bedroom apartment. I cleaned faithfully every weekend. I remember looking at each thing I owned and absolutely feeling blessed for each item. We didn’t have a lot but what we did have, I cherished.

After a year in our apartment, I cried one night and told Ben that I wanted our OWN house so that we could plant our OWN flowers and do what WE wanted with the place. We found a small two bedroom house right away. It wasn’t much bigger than the apartment but it had our OWN basement and our OWN backyard. It was small but it was ours. Again, I cleaned every Saturday and would look at each item as I dusted and realize how lucky I was as I placed each item back where it belonged.

Four years later, I cried one night and told Ben that I wanted a BIGGER house with MORE bedrooms so that we would have MORE room to have children. A few months later we were living in the bigger house across the street.

At first, I would clean regularly every Saturday but after I had Josh it became less and less frequent. The bigger house was not something I enjoyed cleaning as much. I started to get busy at work and Ben did the same. The thought of cleaning the house was disgusting. We eventually hired a lady to do it for us. It didn’t take long after that to forget to appreciate everything we had. Along with the loss of touch of dusting things myself, I lost the appreciation for everything I had.

After Aiden was born, Ben told me that I could work part-time. I worked the numbers and made sure that I had enough for my cleaning lady. At the time, I couldn’t possibly fathom doing it myself again. Maybe it was because I wanted to sit and do nothing with my perfect life except sit back and enjoy what I had worked so hard to accomplish.

After Ben decided to quit work and return to school, there was no way that a cleaning lady would fit in the budget. Ben said he would have time to do it himself so reluctantly, I gave her up. Ben became so busy with work and school that there wasn’t much time for him to clean so we let it go and let it go. It looks much cleaner when you wait until you can actually see a difference. 😂 At least that is what I told myself.

The past several months I have been trying to talk Ben into either building or buying a tiny house. I think part of me wanted to rid of all of the stuff that we accumulated so I could appreciate what we had again. The timing hasn’t worked out so we are still in our much too large house that I HAD to have.

Ben is at work today so I decided to clean the house that is completely covered in pet hair. After all, Aiden is allergic to our cat and has been having a little trouble breathing. I know, mother of the year. I started up in our bedroom that is much to large for any two people. I decided to move the furniture away from the walls and scrub them. I then called the kids up to help me and we ended up rearranging the entire room. It is one of my favorite things to do.

Something happened when we were putting everything back. As I was dusting, I started to look at each and every thing and I actually appreciated it again.

I thought of Ben the entire time we were working. I thought about how much I loved him and how every little thing I dusted had a story of us. He sent me a text and asked how my morning was. I told him the kids and I were cleaning. He sent me another one thanking me. When I read he text I was reminded of Pastor Tom’s sermon. That it’s the little things that appear like work that you do for each other that make a marriage work. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself at how romantic Ben’s thank you for cleaning had become.💜