Inspiring Words:Babystep Challenge To A Peaceful Home Day 11

Today's babystep is to add an inspirational page to your control journal. I like this. As you know, I've done many of these things before; I already have a control journal. But I never added this page. I'm not sure why-I guess it seemed sort of silly to me and I didn't want to waste my time.

About 6 months ago, I decided I wanted to try to change my habit of negative thinking. I felt I was heading into a depression of sorts. I'd just had my 5th baby in 7 years and I was struggling. Greatly.

I had come to believe that negative thinking is something that a person can actually become addicted to just as much as an addiction to any other drug/food/chemical. Watch this edited clip from the movie What The Bleep Do We Know. It's fascinating and will show you what I mean.

Watch it to the very end. The most powerful statement is the very last one. "If you can't control your emotional state, you must be addicted to it."




If my negative thoughts are an addiction, then I've got to break the cycle as I would another addiction. So, I started to formulate a plan.

I remembered listening to a Flylady & Friends show on BlogTalkRadio in which Marla was describing how she helped Kelly to quit smoking cigarettes. She told her to write down some mini-missions (2 minutes or less) on little pieces of paper and put them in a jar. When she felt a strong urge for a cigarette, she was to take out an assignment and do it.

What that would accomplish is to divert her mind onto something productive, something good during the time of her desire for the negative thing. If she could get past the 2 minutes, the urge would be lessened.

I figured that something like this should work for my negative thoughts. So I started a Happy Thoughts Box. I went out and got a very cheerfully decorated box, some cutsey happy but small paper, and a girly fun pen (purple with glitter!) and started writing inspirational phrases or mini missions on each paper. I planned to put them in the box, and whenever I felt myself getting into a funk I'd pull one out and do it. I thought it sounded like a good plan.

I still think it sounds like a good plan, and though I never continued on with it (it seems like just starting the project plus a little more alone/bible time was all I needed to get me back on track) I think that I should do it now.

This inspirational page in the Control Journal is the same thing. I'm going to spend 15 minutes today writing down more thoughts for my box and start a page in my notebook. Maybe if I have something positive in there I'll look at it more!

What are some of your inspirational quotes? What do you do to get yourself out of a funk?

You Can Do Anything for 15 Minutes! Babystep Challenge to a Peaceful Home Day 10

You can do anything for 15 minutes.

Yes, anything. Things you don't want to do. Things you think you can't do. Things you think you shouldn't bother with because you think it won't make a difference.

You can. You should. It WILL make a difference.

How do I know? I learned from Flylady. Over and over I am amazed at what 15 minutes of focused time will do. And then I don't do it (see, it hasn't become a habit), and then when I do it again, I am amazed. Again.




This is my entrance hall. The view from our dining table (lovely for ambiance, isn't it?) and the view as you walk in the front door.







How welcoming.










FOUR minutes it took me to make it like this. FOUR.
Including quickly spraying it down & giving it a wipe. I've been looking at that stuff for DAYS, thinking I didn't have time to do anything about it and wishing someone else would, feeling a little sorry for myself that I have such a messy place and obviously I can't handle this by myself...



A little more welcoming, don't you think?

















What am I going to do with 11 more minutes?














This. This is our liquor cabinet & we also keep our keys&sunglasses basket here. As you can see on top, it's also got bottles up there. I hate that. Besides looking messy, it makes it seem like we must drink a LOT. Which we don't. And off in that little nook there is stuff piled on those drawers.


And here's what it looked like afterward. Notice the CLEAR SURFACE!



















Still 3:33 on the timer. (yes, I stopped it to take the pictures!) What else?



This is our hall closet. It has a curtain that falls down when my toddler plays with it because it's not really attached. It's been down for days, and I just "haven't had the time" to fix it.












And here it is with the curtain. Much better.














Still 2 minutes on the timer. I guess I can take care of this little hot spot.






















You can do anything for 15 minutes. I dare you!

Declutter. Babystep Challenge To A Peaceful Home Day 9

This is where the challenge heats up for me. Where it becomes....a challenge. Where I have fallen short in the past.

I've done these things before, but I've not made it a habit to do it every day. And it NEEDS to be done every day.

Flylady's babystep #9 says to declutter a few minutes at a time. I have a few minutes. I'm sure I do. I just don't know where I left them. Have you seen my few minutes? Maybe they're hiding under all this stuff...

A 5 minute room rescue is the assignment. I can do that. I'm going to take 5 minutes before I go to bed and see what I can do with all those clothes that get piled up. You know the pile. It's the not quite dirty but not clean.....unless it's the clean laundry that didn't get put away.

I'm tired. I want to go to bed. But, how can I say I don't have five minutes? I can't. Because I do. And afterward, I'll be glad I did it.

Here's Flylady's explanation on how to declutter.

What have you decluttered today?