Today’s Homemaker

How’s the curb appeal? Does it need renovations?

I just read this post on LifeGoalAction, and I was so intrigued that I had to share. The title is priceless — If your life was for sale, would you buy it? Well…would you? It’s a little scary looking at my life this way, but it definitely helps me to pinpoint areas that need changing.

It’s also empowering to realize that you CAN change. You are completely in control of your choices. You can choose to work on a relationship or drop it. You can find a way to get motivated to [insert goal here] or decide to let it go. You can react to someone else’s annoying habits with grace or indignation–it really is up to you.

When it comes to housework, I’ve tried to sum up what is important to me and what simply is not. These help me to figure out how much time I’ll spend on a particular thing. I run this website about The Home — people probably imagine me with a duster in one hand and a vacuum cleaner in the other. But go ahead, ask my friends — that is NOT me! I spend half an hour a day on housework on most days (habits like picking up after myself not included). My house is not immaculate, but it’s generally clean. If people drop by on an afternoon unannounced, I don’t mind. It’s definitely a lived-in space with two creative adults, two kids under the age of three, and a dog, and that’s what it looks like.

But there are definitely areas in my life I do want to change — relationships I want to develop (and those that I want to distance myself from), time I want to spend doing creative, life-giving, memory-making things, attitudes I want to correct (in myself). I’m finding that it’s important to create the life I love NOW regardless of the circumstances I find myself in.

And at the risk of sounding trite for quoting a pop song (okay fine…cliche and cheesy, as well) “because it’s not who you knew, and it’s not what you did, it’s how you live.” That’s some high-falutin’ philosophizing right there.