Housecleaning

The other day, after I spent hours trying to stem the tide of disorder which arises spontaneously in our house, I had this thought: "any intelligence I used to have has surely been squeezed out of me by the endless hours of tedious tasks I do every day."  And I meant it, at least kind of. 

Every parent would agree, I think, that keeping the home at an acceptable level of cleanliness is an arduous task. Things that are clean don't stay clean. Even after we have cleaned the house on Saturday, by Monday morning it looks like a tornado touched down.

And shall we talk about laundry?  It never ends - at least not in our house.  I am in awe of several of my friends who manage to do the laundry on a scheduled day about once a week, and then they efficiently  remove any trace of dirty clothes from the home completely. I feel like I have to stay on top of the laundry monster EVERY DAY (or almost every day), or it takes over my life.  And there are always a few dirty clothes in view in our laundry room, which happens to be visible from the front door of our home.

I don't believe in doing all the chores myself, even though I am lucky to be home during the day. I make sure to leave the kid's assigned chores for them to do, even though it is more work for me to enforce their chores than it would be to actually do them myself.

I believe in the principle of "if it doesn't look dirty don't clean it."  And I do my best to not look under things very often - like couch cushions.  When we recently sold a couch and chair, I vacuumed and spot cleaned under all the cushions. It did occur to me that the hidden areas of the couch and chair had not been that clean since the day we purchased them from the store. It's just not a high priority.  The only exception to the "if it doesn't look dirty don't clean it" rule are bathrooms and kitchen sinks, which harbor all sorts of invisible pathogens, so they get a regular scrubbing or swipe with an antibacterial wipe.

Dust in the corners of my home or under the furniture or on high shelves bothers me not at all. I'll get to it when I have time.  Ha ha ha ha . . . that was a joke.

I don't stress over sorta messy kid's rooms. I figure, for the most part, that their rooms are their domain and stewardship. As part of their Saturday chores they have to straighten their rooms, and I try to model for them the advantages of a tidy room and made-up bed the rest of the week, but it doesn't worry me that their rooms aren't design-magazine-worthy the rest of the time.

Oh, I could go on and on about the very un-fun topic of housecleaning, but then I would never get to my main point.  This is my point . . . I was talking to my Dad last week and he said that he had really enjoyed the privilege of cleaning the temple recently. Their ward is regularly assigned cleaning duty after-hours for the Draper Temple. We talked about what a sacred experience it is to do the mundane tasks of vacuuming and cleaning the temple so that the Spirit can be present within and so those who visit will be comfortable.

And right at that moment a thought popped into my head . . .cleaning the temple is really not that different from working to keep a home clean.

I want our home to be a place where the Spirit can reside and where our family can be comfortable.  It is very true that in our home we have a harder time feeling the Spirit and feeling peaceful when we are surrounded by chaos and dirt.  Like I said, I don't believe in striving for housecleaning perfection, but I do think it is important to consistently restore order and cleanliness - I think it makes a difference.  Now that my time is a little more flexible during the day, I really try to sweep through the house at some point during the day and restore order. Not perfection, but order.  My hope is that when family members walk through the door they will feel the peace and calm which I want to exist in our home. And I hope to not be distracted by things like laundry or dirty counters when everyone comes home so that I'll have time to talk to them and listen.

I do feel it is my sacred opportunity to do the mundane cleaning activities which create an environment where the Spirit of the Lord is welcome.  It is sanctifying to continually offer small acts of service, mind-numbing and repetitive though they may be, for a greater purpose.  Like vacuuming the rooms in the temple.  Like vacuuming the rooms in my home.