• Help, Lord! My House Needs a Cleaning!

  Our homes “say” a lot about us.  Our homes are part of our Christian testimony.  I am not speaking about having immaculate homes, but I am speaking about having clean, neat, and orderly homes—homes that are “homey” comfortable places to be, homes that may not be large or fancy, but are in good repair.  Home is where we live with our best friend, rear our children, have hospitality, and serve others.

  Keeping our homes clean is very important.  Either our homes are clean or they are dirty.  If we do not stay on top of our cleaning and upkeep, by virtue of doing nothing or doing little, they will fall into disrepair, become buried in clutter, and our homes will not be good places for us or the Lord to use.

  We know that we all need to clean our homes and keep them clean, but we often lack knowledge.  I know that as a young wife, I knew nothing.  It is probably truer to say that I knew less than nothing!  About ten years into my marriage I began to read books on the subject of homekeeping and I gained some knowledge, but I still lacked the know-how to make it work for my family and my home.  My husband says that our house should always be clean, and I should always be prepared for company so that I never need run around and say, “Company’s coming!  Company’s coming!” and throw everyone in a tizzie because I need to get everything clean and in a hurry!  Yes, I have done that, and might on occasion still do that, but more often than not, I am ready for what the day will bring.  Through the years I have learned how to have a clean home and to nearly always be ready for company, and I have lots of company!  I thought I would share some things along this line about cleaning and being prepared and making a comfortable home.  Take what you can use and toss the rest!

  I think that the most important thing to realize is that you have to make things work for you and your family.  What your friend does will not work for you; what your mother did will not work for you; what the book teaches will not work for you.  Why?  Because you are you!  Your family is your family!  All families are different, do different things, and have different interests.  One size does not fit all when it comes to homes and families.

  We will focus on cleaning for now, so, the first thing is to take a good hard look at your home, your family, and what you do with your lives.  Next is to figure out the best system for maintaining and cleaning your home.  How do you do that?  What is the best system?   In my mother’s day, it was clean in the spring—every room in the house—top to bottom—wash walls, windows, curtains, etc.  She would spend about six weeks cleaning.  I always had a bit of trouble doing that myself.  I never quite got it all done, but then my life was different from her life.

  There are those who portend that cleaning needs to be done in the spring after a long winter, but others say that your house is actually dirtier after the summer is over because the windows have been open, kids have been running in and out, and more dirt has been tracked in.  But then spring and fall are such busy months, and who wants to clean in summer?  What’s a good keeper at home to do?

  Every woman has twelve months in the year, fifty-two weeks, 365 days and many hours and minutes.  Some of this time must be spent on cleaning.  It is a necessity.  So, look at your life and what you do with your months and weeks.  Also, keep in mind that nothing remains the same in your life, so your cleaning schedule will always be changing.  It will never stop changing.  What you did last year will not work this year because your life is not the same.  You must plan a schedule that flows with your life not runs against it, and plan it for this year.

  These are some of my thoughts for my schedule.  Summers are very short in the Northland.  I do not want to deep clean during May, June, July, August, or September.  These are the only months when you can be outside (if you are my age) and in September I do some canning and freezing.  I also do not want to do any major cleaning during December.  We have lots of family time during that month.  So, in actuality there are six months where I prefer not to do deep cleaning.  That leaves six months with which to work.  And, I usually plan an outside project once a year.

  Now, back to what my husband said: Our home should always be clean and be ready for company.  Thus, if a home needs be ready at all times for what life brings, fall and spring cleaning will not work, but what will work?  After years of struggling, this is what I figured out. 

  There are three types of cleaning: deep cleaning, weekly cleaning, and daily cleaning.  Let’s tackle the deep cleaning first.

  Deep cleaning—Divide your home into rooms.  Do you have six or seven or eight rooms?  Give each room a month for deep cleaning.  If you have more rooms than available months, you might have to double up a couple of rooms.  Give every room a month in your yearly planner.  During the course of the month you will give this room special attention.  Does it need repainting?  Do the walls need to be washed?  Does the woodwork need touching up?  Does it need new curtains?  Make a list of what needs to be done to put it in tiptop shape.  Purchase what you need to do the job.  Schedule time during that month to work on that room.  Clean …

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Recent Articles

• Questions? Need Input!

  Hi Ladies,

  I receive lots of email.  My questions from women are varied.  I suppose that is so because there are so many different ages reading Susan’s Corner, and different ages often reflect different types of needs, problems, and questions.  So, I’d like to do a little survey or present a short list of topics.  Feel free to write in the comments below or email me privately at susan@keepersofthefaith.com.  Where are your concerns?  And, you can add your own topics too!

  Keeping your home

  Scheduling

  Organizing

  Rearing Children

  Marriage

  Growing Older

  How to be a parent of grown children

  Life after menopause

  Spiritual issues

  Christian Walk

   

  Looking forward to lots more emails!

  Susan

   

   

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• How Do You Find the Time?

  That is a big question!  Most of us have too much to do, and if we were totally honest about it, that “too much to do” would be partly our own fault, but we won’t talk about that today.  Today I want to share with you my daughter-in-love, Elley.  She is Tony’s wife, mother of six wonderful children, cooks from scratch, bakes her bread, gardens, cans nearly 1000 quarts of garden vegetables, plus freezes a number of things, sews, knits beautiful garments and is a first-class quilter, and more . . .  One day when I was visiting with her …

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• The Value of Today

   

  Hello Everyone!

  Well, here we are into January.  In fact, as I write this, it is January 10th.  By now most people have made their New Year’s resolutions, and probably forgotten them in the hustle and bustle of life.  You know, Jesus never taught us to make New Year’s resolutions.  He never said to make monthly resolutions, or even weekly ones.  In fact, I can’t find that concept anywhere in the Word of God.  What I do find is a lot of “today, daily, now.”

  “For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of …

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• Week 41 – Fruit of the Spirit

  Hello Ladies,

  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”  (Galatians 5:22-23)

  There are many books written about the fruits of the Spirit, and we all love to talk and teach about these verses, but the question is: How many of us actually possess these fruits?  Be honest!  Do you really know many women who are peaceful, joyous, gentle, and meek?  Women who are temperate in all things, and really love as God loves?  Probably not.  And why not?

  I once did my own Bible study on these verses.  …

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• Week 40 – Being Fruitful

  Hello Ladies,

  I thought it would be a good idea to reprint the entire set of verses because this lesson is a conclusion to the previous weeks. Read them again, and read them slowly. Let them sink into your heart and mind.

  “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world …

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