Reordering...A Work in Progress

I am still reading Reordered Love, Reordered Lives. And I still think it's excellent. The trouble is, I haven't put the whole thing into practice yet. The premise is (or at least part of the premise is) that our happiness (and he unabashedly and unashamedly uses the words happiness and happy, which I really like) can only come in abundance when our love is properly ordered. When properly ordered, our love for God is first, and our love for other things follows in its rightful place, leading to a shift across the face of our entire lives. This shift makes way for happiness, the deep, real, true happiness that we are supposed to know as God's children, even here, this side of eternity. 

Tomorrow is Sunday, and I think a Sunday is a very good day to start fresh on just about anything, but especially to start fresh on how I am living, on what I am placing a high value (making a priority), and from where my heart, my very self, finds meaning. 

I know I'm not alone in this. I have struggled for a long time with, oh goodness, there are so many things. Ha. Ever since getting married, I have had a hard time keeping a home tidy (and I can't totally blame the kids because I'm pretty sure the FSS was a problem before they came along), keeping up with laundry, making meal plans, and just enjoying my job as a homemaker. As the days go by, it seems so overwhelming, and while I want to do a good job, and I get excited about doing a good job, I turn around to face the mess and I immediately shrivel back away from it and think,"This is a job that I'll never be able to do!"

That is BS. I can do it. I just need to do it. I was walking through the back of the house a minute ago (I had heard a very weird sound in the kitchen and went to investigate) (certainly you might think that the thought of creatures possibly running through the kitchen ought to make me get it straightened up) and on my way back to the computer (my laptop on the couch in the back) I saw again all of the unnecessary disaster that is here and there (and that was just in the back of the house) (Oh, the coffee table! It is the bane of my existence these days!) and instead of that heavy, overwhelmed feeling, I got mad. 

I'm mad at myself for teaching these mess-making lessons to my kids. I'm mad at us for having so much stuff and not putting it away where it belongs. I'm mad that if something doesn't have a place, it hangs around anyway. 

I'm not a fan of making plans, but I do need to set some goals. Put books on shelves. That's easy! I can do that! Unload the dishes in the morning. That's easy! I can do that! (Or Michaela can do that...even better!) Clear off two flat surfaces by tomorrow night, and work to keep them cleared off for one week. I really should be able to do that!! 

So. That is three goals. Definite, concrete, manageable. How do you accomplish things? Do you like to set goals? How are your resolutions? (One of mine was to start training for a marathon. So far, so good...I've gotten the eating-carbs-after-the-race down to a science!) (I should probably start running soon.) 

And now I'm off to make sure that there is not, in fact, a creature of any kind running around down here. That would make me quite the opposite of happy. And most likely spur me on to a faster reordering of a different sort...but hopefully in a similar direction.