Monday, December 29, 2008

Monday Morning

I did not awaken early this morning but the cats were determined to get me up to fill their food dishes. They succeeded.

The coffee is brewed. It is a new pot, a Cuisenart, probably not spelled correctly. It is capable of grinding the beans and making the coffee in one action, all together. Interesting. But today I just scooped six portions of already ground coffee into the filter and pressed the button. Of course, the grinder started right up so I had to stop it all, push the no grind, and then press the ON/GO button. Interesting. My coffee is a bit weak compared to the brew that my husband has been making for us since Christmas. Interesting. I need to add more grounds.

The dryer is working hard in the laundry room. One load in and another finishing up in the washer. A good portion of laundry is washed, dryed, folded and put away on Mondays, if not all. I add dryer sheets to the magnetic dry erase board now residing on my refrigerator door, another holiday gift to me from my husband. It is interesting those things that make life run a bit more efficiently.

The rugs are shaken and draped over the deck railing to get a bit of air, while I sweep the kitchen and laundry room floors. This could be done twice a day, but it isn't. We have a couple of indoor cats and with that comes the litter box. I am not complaining. I am thankful for a good litter box and odor absorbing litter, always waiting to be purchased on the shelf at Wal-Mart.

I used a broom on the floor this morning, rather than the semi-new swivel sweeper contraction that I had ordered from QVC a while back. Sometimes you just need a broom and today is it. It a quiet process and if I were smart, I'd mop it now. But usually I reserve that activity for after I vacumn the bare floors, an even more exact cleaning, if there is even such a thing.

I notice as I walk through the living room that the surfaces are dusty. It is particularly noticable as I have opened the front door, allowing in the suns warmth and light. I wonder if the couch is dirty and pop the arm with my hand to see dust scatter everywhere. Yep, it's dirty. I should drag out the Kirby and tackle the surfaces today, but I don't know if I will or not. We'll see. After all, the sun is shining and it might be the perfect day for some outside leaf cleanup, and Will and Bruce are both home.

There have been times in life when I would find this list of activities a bore and possibly even unimportant, but now is not that time. I have learned better. It is an illusion to think that life if a canvas of everchanging tasks, each one more interesting than the first. In reality, we do many things over and over again because they continually need to be done. We get them clean but for a moment and then it's time to do again, depending on the level of clean you require to be satisfied. That is a varying measure to be sure. The list of such is endless really and that in itself is proof that we look at it wrong to come to that conclusion. There is bill paying, grocery buying, laundry, cleaning, emptying the trash, cooking, maintenance on any and everything mechanical, to name just a few. It all counts. A novel statement but remember it. It is important.

I'm glad that God is gracious enough to provide me with a continual cleaning of my sins. Just about the time I get cleaned up, there's another mess in the making. He knew there would be and so, there is my Messiah. The good news is that we get to share Him. Now 'that' is satisfaction in a job well done. Thank you God. I must be about the Fathers' business now.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Confessions of a pack rat

I confess. I am a pack rat. It is official. I inherited the gene, from my Dad, best I can tell.

It started innocently enough with the tissue paper, gift sacks, store sacks, box, bow & assorted ribbons and such like. Let us not forget to acknowledge all of those clear plastic zipper bags that linens and such come in these days, yes, I saved those too. Well, you know, they come in handy sometimes, something to put 'stuff' in. :)

But, it is 'out of hand'. Most things like this do get out of hand eventually, when you 'store up' things.

I just opened the chifferobe doors and won't tell you how much of this stuff is packed into it and falling out of it. Time to repent, recycle and purge it. Yep, I confess.