One Small Step

Yesterday, after a few days of much schooling and not much picking-up, I enlisted the aid of the munchkins to pick up the living room and kitchen. Just to get things back to where they belong. And we did that; and we were pleased.

This morning I woke up and brought my coffee to my red chair in the living room and was struck but something out of order:

This rocking chair was covered in towels and jeans. I had put them there 2 weeks ago during the height of the stomach bug as I was trying to quickly switch laundry. I remember throwing the pile of clean, dry towels and sheets and jeans on the chair as I ran back to the 'bucket-brigade' thinking I would take care of it in a couple minutes. And as we picked up this room last night, not one of us thought to take care of this pile. We had grown so accustomed to the pile and mess, that we just picked-up around it.

So, I decided to take some time to pick up this mess. And 3 minutes later I had this:

And now, I have my chair back and neatly piled laundry to put away. And while I was at it, I decided to take another couple minutes to clean out the fireplace for the next snowstorm coming our way. So now I see this:

This took a grand total of 14 minutes. Yep: A SMALL STEP, but what a huge leap.

And I had a small "AH-HA" moment: there are alot of messes that I am so accustomed to, I don't notice the wrongness of the mess. It is normal. It is time to change my normal