Are You 'The Perfects' or 'The Slobberlys?'

There's been a lot of discussion around here lately about 'keeping up.' Let me rephrase that...it's more like about how we're not keeping up. You know, it's the same old story...you take care of the yard and the house goes to pot. Keep the house clean and you're too tired to weed the flowerbeds. Not to mention having a job and a social life. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do it all.

 To make things worse, we have these friends...I'll call them "the Perfects." Their place is spotless. I mean, you could eat off of their garage floor it's so neat. When we go to the 'Perfects' house, we come back feeling like "the Slobberlys." Then comes the inevitable discussion about how we need to do better.

 And really, most of the time, our place looks pretty good. It's just that you can't drop over to my house and find it tidy all of the time. Whenever we ask somebody over for dinner, I go on a massive cleaning binge that leaves me tired for days after. Well enough already! I know what the problem is...consistency. I just don't want to work that hard every day. So I let things pile up until it takes an act of Congress to catch back up. (Bad example. Congress doesn't get anything done.) But you know what I mean.  So I've devised a little schedule that so far, is working pretty well. I listed all of the tasks I need to accomplish daily, weekly, every 2 weeks, once a month, and every 3-6 months.  I put little check marks next to it so I can feel great when I complete a task. I printed the list and slipped it into a clear page protector and dug up a dry erase marker so that I can erase my check marks and use it over and over. It's posted on the fridge.

Now when hubby goes over to the "Perfects" to borrow a power tool from their pristine garage and he returns complaining about how we need to 'do better', bless his little pea-pickin' heart, I will smile sweetly and hand him the list. "Well Dear, which one of these items would YOU like to do? As you can see, I've already made the beds, washed and folded laundry, swept the floor, vacuumed rugs and upholstery, cleaned the baseboards, and washed dishes several times this week. But don't worry, there's still plenty left here on the list. Perhaps for starters you'd like to empty the litter box and sweep the garage. After that you could scour the bathroom and maybe clean out under the kitchen sink..." ;)

Friends, Rome wasn't built in a day. Even God's creation took 6 days. It's silly to let things build up and then spend the whole weekend cleaning like a woman possessed. This schedule helps you do it a little bit at a time. I got up today at 9 am. Ate a leisurely breakfast, did some meditating, some prayer, then tackled my list for an hour or so. The dishes are done, rugs and upholstery vacuumed, laundry is completed and the beds are made. I've been blogging for quite some time and its only half past noon.
I realize that many of you work outside the home and don't get to do anything at a leisurely pace. I'm lucky enough to have summers off...but in two weeks my nose will be back to the grindstone. I'll have to get up a bit earlier and do a few chores each evening to keep up. Maybe some of the daily task will even have to slip now and then so that I can get the weekly ones done. And that's OK...it's a plan; not a prison sentence! Just a way to keep on track.

Who knows...maybe our friends will start calling us "the Perfects." Stranger things have happened!

Here's the front side...

 

 

Here's the back

 

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