The day escaped me! I was very busy with both work and housework. But it’s Sabbath now! Blessed, blessed Sabbath. The day of rest.
Tomorrow we’re visiting a church that we’ve been to before but can’t seem to visit when the pastor is speaking. Maybe we’ll be lucky tomorrow!
I’ve a lot on my mind – disappointment in people’s (including mine) priorities, a sense that I’m not giving God my best, and an unrealistic impatience to understand the Bible.
I’ll be back tomorrow.
Today’s post was about being overwhelmed. I only feel overwhelmed when the house gets trashed. If I’m behind on dishes with a dirty bathroom and a huge pile of laundry, I start feeling overwhelmed. Thankfully that doesn’t happen very often! I try very hard to keep on top of things so that I don’t have hours of work to do at one time.
The Day 13 Challenge is about imagining the big picture of what I want our home to be. Right now, the only thing I want is cleanliness. I would love to put up pictures, buy a new couch, and decorate somehow. But there is no money in the budget to improve our home. Our apartment is actually more sparse now than it was six months ago. We have no bookshelves and no tv now!
In order to avoid fostering discontentment, I’m going to skip this challenge. If I can keep our apartment clean, that is good enough for now. But I did make an extra effort to remain on top of our dishes today!
Woohoo! I just made a payment on our car that dropped our loan balance to just under $5,000. We’ve paid off 2/3 of the car. The end is almost in sight!
“So much attention is paid to the aggressive sins,
such as violence and cruelty and greed with all their tragic effects,
that too little attention is paid to the passive sins,
such as apathy and laziness,
which in the long run can have a more devastating effect.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Today’s thought is about laziness. I will admit that I can be very lazy sometimes and I will often blame it on being tired. However, I believe that by forcing myself to be active, I can overcome the feeling of being tired and instead become productive.
The challenge is this: Every time I find myself being lazy by procrastinating, I will stop and pray that God will give me a spirit of service to Him and to my husband. Then I will immediately do that task that I was putting off until later. If I fail, I will ask for forgiveness and try on. If I succeed, I will thank God for His grace in allowing me to succeed.
I spent some time today in “home maintenance.” There isn’t much deep cleaning that needs to be done. Instead, I worked on the laundry, washed the dishes, and picked up around the house. I’m going to try keeping our home clean instead of letting it become messy and dirty. I never want to be embarrassed by our home when someone shows up unexpectedly.
Dannie pointed me to a free personality test. This personality test matches up to the 31 Days to Clean personality assessment. Now I can determine ways to keep me motivated around the house.
My test results pegged me as personality type D. The results were very skewed in this direction.
The “D” Style
You are very results oriented and you like the bottom line. You’re not into routine, and you want the fastest way possible to get your work done. You thrive on challenges, and you are also a great motivator. Let’s use these qualities to get you moving!
Motivation: Challenge
You need to be challenged; so try giving yourself a challenge each day. Maybe it’s one big challenge, or a few small ones. Either way, you will achieve real results if you meet your challenges. If, for example, you want to go to sleep in a clean bedroom each night, challenge yourself to spend 20 minutes a day straighting up your room and making your bed. Challenge yourself to do it during a particular time of the day until it becomes habit (say between 9 and 9:20am every morning). You need to see results or you will soon give up, so developing a habit for you is imperative! Heck, challenge yourself to form a new habit, just one, and give it all you’ve got!
Bingo! I am extremely results oriented and I love challenges. Jeff and I were just discussing how the Julie and Julia project (365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen) is the sort of thing I would tackle. I’m not sure I would enjoy that specific challenge, but I love big goals and challenges that have concrete results.
My second strongest personality type is the “C” style.
The “C” Style
You are a super detailed person, and you love structure and quality. You are a natural organizer, but you can sometimes be critical and perfectionist, which can get in the way of the big picture. You seek facts, and you want to know the most systematic way to get things done.
Motivation: Structure
Make a schedule and get yourself into a routine. You won’t have much trouble with this, but what you may have trouble with is how to do everything “right” and still relax to spend time with your husband or kiddos. You need to have realistic expectations – get what you need done, but don’t expect perfection. Strive for excellence, but land in the softness of grace.
The last couple personality tests I’ve taken have nailed my personality type. Even though I’m an overwhelmingly D personality, C type fits as well. I agree with everything these personality types have suggested – I am a perfectionist, critical, an organizer, and love challenges. Now it’s time to turn this knowledge into practice as far as being a housewife is concerned!
One third of the way through the 31 Days to Clean challenge! How time flies…
Today there was no cleaning challenge. Instead, I took a personality test. The link on the original post was broken and I couldn’t find a free DISC exam. I appealed to my friend Google and completed the first free personality test that Google presented me with.
Some of these results are spot on!
Inclined to choose luxurious things, which are gratifying to the senses. Turned off by things which are tacky and tasteless. – True, which is interesting as we are broke, broke, broke and cannot afford anything nice. However, I refuse to compromise and will usually choose to buy nothing rather than buy something of a lower quality.
Feels empty and isolated from others and wishes to overcome this feeling. Believes life has more to offer her than what she was experienced thus far, and doesn’t want to miss out on anything. – True, especially lately. I have an unsettled feeling that I’m not fulfilling God’s entire will for my life but I can’t quite put my finger on the problem.
Quickly becomes an expert in any field she pursues and can sometimes come off as overbearing and nosy. – True/False. I like research and try to learn as much as possible but I’m far from an expert in anything. Unfortunately, I agree that I can come across as overbearing and nosy.
Is bothered when her needs and desires are misunderstood and she feels there is no one to turn to or rely on. Her self-centered attitude can cause her to be easily offended. – True. Very, very true. I am self-centered and I am easily offended. This bothers me as 1 Corinthians 13 says that love is not easily offended. I’m afraid I don’t know how to demonstrate true love because I fail to display characteristics described in the Bible as God-like love.
Seeking to broaden her horizons and believes her hopes and dreams are realistic. Worries she may not be able to do the things she wants and needs to escape to a peaceful, quiet environment in order to restore her confidence. – Also true. I believe my hopes and dreams are realistic but are out of reach right now. My biggest dream is to become a good wife and a good mother. I am able to work on being a good wife but having children is not possible due to financial choices earlier in life.
Takes on too much and is easily overwhelmed, but she wants to be successful despite the pressure she is feeling. Proud but tries to keep her attitude in check. She needs to feel a sense of recognition and security, and not take on so much. – True. When I commit to something, I take on too much responsibility. I am also proud and crave security, both emotional and physical.
Jeff agrees that the personality test pegged me pretty well but thinks that I need to stop focusing on the negatives. He says that I’m too hard on myself and I know he’s right. However, I demand perfection of myself and usually fail to succeed. This is something God and I have many discussions about but I still feel like I have much to learn.
Today is day 9 of the challenge. I have very little energy today and have spent most of the time reading. The dishes are all washed and I ran a load of laundry. I also installed an operating system on my husband’s work laptop for him.
The 31 Days to Clean blog post was about distractions. What are my biggest distractions?
Internet – The computer is a terrible time waster. I seem to be spending less time on the computer lately, but it still takes up a lot of my day. I need to make sure I limit my personal time on the internet.
Books – I read like crazy. I love books – historical fiction, Christian fiction, nonfiction, history, biographies, memoirs… If I’m not careful, I’ll lose hours to a good book. While books are beneficial, they shouldn’t be taking up my entire day.
The cleaning challenge was a continuation of the bedroom, something I don’t need to work on. Instead, I just spent some time picking up our apartment after having houseguests all weekend.
I went running this morning. I can’t believe it’s 88 degrees that early. I ran 1.95 miles without stopping. My oh my, but that felt good. First time running in over a month.
Today has been a very productive day.
I think that’s it, but that’s enough. 🙂 Yay for it being almost Sabbath!
Today was another day devoted to work. I set aside my housework, except for a bit of scrubbing on the tub, and worked for four hours. I’m finally going to get a decent paycheck!
My boss assigned me another two hours of work for tomorrow morning. For once there is actually more work than you can handle! It’s a very nice change. 🙂 I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth so that we can send an extra credit card payment to the card with the lowest balance. It’ll be nice to make an extra payment where none of the money goes for interest.