Restoring Order

Our family likes to keep the Sabbath Day holy which pretty much means that we don't work, watch TV (except maybe a little Iron Chef because the Food Network is holy), listen to secular music, or participate in sporting events or recreational activities, or weed the garden, etc. Taking a day to rest like God did on his seventh day of creating the Earth is good for the soul. It's a good day to devote time to family, eat a simple breakfast, cook one big meal after church so you don't have to expend energy to cook another meal in the evening, snack on popcorn for dinner, study the scriptures or church lessons for next week, and engage in wholesome family activities. Of course, facebook and blogging are totally fair game.

Keeping the Sabbath holy also means that I don't clean or do my normal chores such as laundry, organizing, vacuuming the couch, etc. because that is my "work" as a homemaker. The only cleaning I do is the normal daily dishes and general pick up after the children. Lately my house has been in extreme disaster mode. I took a few too many days off from regular maintenance and it has caught up to me. I actually consider it unrestful for me to relax in a cluttered home. So instead of cleaning, we did some "restoring order" because the scriptures say:

"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house,
even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of
learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;"
(Doctrine and Covenants 88:119, boldness and larger font added)

So there you have it. Restoring order is a good Sabbath activity! My house is getting there. I put the stack of DVDs that were accumulating on the DVD player back in their proper cases. I brought things that didn't belong downstairs upstairs. I put all the plastic Easter eggs in two plastic grocery bags and set them on the back porch to sit there for 3 weeks until I get around to putting them in the garage. I tried to clear the cabinet countertops in the family room of the clutter, but didn't quite acheive it 100%. It drives me crazy that there always seems to be a gazillion little items in every corner of my house that don't seem to have a home. For example:

• a pair of choking hazard Barbie shoes
• hair bows that need to be fixed
• kid artwork that needs to be signed and dated before I forget who drew it
• 9 Easter egg halves that I don't want to throw away because as soon as I take the trash out, I'll find the other half.
• a scratched up kid's song CD (only a couple of the songs skip)
• a naked Madonna CD that I need to find it's case for
• a juggling book that I don't want to put on the kid's bookshelf because it will surely get wrecked, but won't fit on the parent bookshelf because it is full.
• A Magna Doodle magnet that went to a Magna Doodle that I threw away about a year ago. (I can't throw it away the magnet, because surely I can eBay it for $0.25.)
• Wendy's birth announcements that somehow resurfaced from unknown location
• random random papers and articles I tore out of magazines of kid's projects that I will likely never ever attempt with them because they involve paint, my attention or too much planning.

Tomorrow is Manic Monday and I think I'm going to be wishing it were Sunday.