Day 1: Why do I want clean?

 For the month of October I am joining other bloggers by linking up with The Nester for 31 day blogging challenge where we post about one topic each day for the whole month.  After lots of consideration, I have chosen to take a journey through this book, 31 Days to Clean: Having a Martha Home the Mary Way, by Sarah Mae.  Check out more information about the book from my 1st post here, and see my intro post with the links to the entire series here.

Why do I want clean?

Today we are contemplating the “WHY”.  Why is it that I want my home to be clean?  I easily came up with this quick list, simple things of why.

I want to feel relaxed in my home.

I want to invite others over and have them feel comfortable here.

I don’t want to do the mad dash to clean when I hear someone may be stopping by

I don’t want my kids to inherit my bad cleaning habits as normal.

I want my home to be clean and bug free for health reasons

I want my home to be a place for spontaneous hangouts.

This list is simple, it tells a very easy story.  I don’t like to be stressed about my home (1, 2, 3, & 6), and I care about the home environment (4 & 5) for the sake of my kids.

I really shouldn’t be surprised that my home causes me stress.  I hate the staying up late to clean before people come over the next day.  I hate that I can’t let people just “stop by” because I would be super embarrassed the vast majority of the time.  I also feel guilty, and feel like I can never truly relax in my home because the list is never done.

The Mary Challenge today was to create some sort of statement to post in your home to help motivate you.  I wrote one last year during my home on purpose series, and while I still really like it…  It has not motivated me enough.  I think it is good, but too “big picture” to motivate me daily.

Here is the bottom line, super simple statement I am going with.

“Clean so your life can be lived in a home where kids can play, guests can enjoy, and you can relax”

I like it.  It speaks to my heart right now.

I also looked at all of the awesome Martha challenges, and I’m going to have to change a few of them around a bit (so the harder ones happen on the weekend) and there are some days for which I don’t have that specific thing to clean, so I can split up the harder ones.  Honestly, I’m excited to tackle these projects. 

I think this is going to be a very productive 31 day journey for me.