40 Day Challenge update

We are half way through our 40 day challenge and I must say that I can see God's hand working with us. The car is still clean! I even got a comment from one of my neighbors on how nice it looked. WOW!!

The kitchen is taking shape and is clean most of the time. I have a new work schedule and so I am adjusting to it, but otherwise things are going well. I am getting back into the habit of planning out my meals. This helps with grocery shopping as well as having meals on time. One habit that I am working on is cleaning out my refrigerator before going to the grocery store. This helps in SO many ways. It helps me know what's in my refrigerator and it helps to cut down on wasted food. Sometimes I just forget what is in there, but cleaning on a weekly basis helps to eliminate the science projects that tend to grow in the fridge! :-

On to the bedroom, now this is an area that I really need some serious deliverance from. My room is mess MOST of the time. I just don't understand it. It's almost like I find comfort in the mess or something?! At any rate. I have broken my room up into zones and it works so much better than trying to tackle the whole thing at once.

One thing that I found is that I am really bad at putting things away. So I am working on the habit of always putting things back after I use them. There's no telling what you might find on my bed, from cookbooks, to calculators, to notebooks. Even my Bible has been known to wind up on the floor because I just lay it next to me after reading it. :-/

Even though we have a way to go we are definitely making progress. I am confident that God who has begun this work in me will finish it!!

40 Day Challenges

As I was thinking about us becoming more orderly and building habits, I thought of how many breakthroughs in the Bible came after 40 days. So for 40 days we are going to concentrate on areas of orderliness. First up on the dock is our bedrooms, the kitchen and the car.

I'll begin with the car as it has been the easiest and most effective so far. A while back, the kids and I were riding in the car with a friend. I marveled at how clean his car was. He said that when he was a kid, his father taught him to always take out of the car whatever he brought in. How is that for simple. And it works!! So as we speak, my car is clean!!

On to the kitchen. We have not mastered keeping the kitchen clean, but it sure has gotten better than what we were doing. Sticking to our established meal times helps by eliminating snacking and by helping my mind be in a mode of preparation for the meal and cleanup once the meal is done.

I have established a habit of having the dishes in the dishwasher be clean at all times. So if I put any dirty dishes in the dishwasher, it's only right before I run it. Otherwise, I wash them before putting them in. This is a little extra work, but it's worth always having clean dishes in the kitchen.

Meal time is not over until the dishes have been washed and put away and all food has been put away. We then declare the kitchen officially closed! No meals in between means healthy appetites for the next meal and it also means our stomach has a chance to do its job and rest up before the next meal.

And then finally are the bedrooms. Yikes! My bedroom is looking better everyday, but it's still not to the point where I would want anybody to come in here. My prayer is that by the end of the 40 day period, it will be company friendly and that it will stay that way.

Looking forward to deliverance from the bondage of bad habits.