September 2, 2013 Change of focus

I realized this morning when I woke up that I have not written a blog post for the last two days.  Instead, I've been focused on clearing my space.  I haven't so much been decluttering, but cleaning and catching up.

I spent Saturday on paperwork:  paying bills, downloading the last 8 months worth of bank and credit card transactions into my accounting program and reconciling everything.  I've saved myself hours worth of work at the end of the year and may actually get my taxes done early for a change!

Sunday (and a good part of today) was vacuuming and floor scrubbing day.  After emptying both cat boxes, I vacuumed the floors within an inch of their loves, then pulled out the bucket and mop instead of the handy spray and mop thing I usually use.  Today will be for laundry and the kitchen and office floors plus the carpet in my bedroom.  The cats will be quite annoyed at being displaced, though some don't seem to mind the vacuum.

While working on the living room yesterday, I started to move one of the cat trees, only to find that it was inordinately heavy.  Looking up, I found Mr. Dylan draped across the pagoda, looking completely at ease, unconcerned by either the noise from the vacuum or all of the furniture moving.  Meanwhile, Miss Munchkin had pride of place at the top of the other tree, though she wasn't nearly as understanding when I started vacuuming around her perch.

By the end of the day, I had de-furred furniture (a temporary state, I'm sure), and lint, sand and fur free floors in about 2/3 of the house.  I have to say it felt really good!

It does make me wonder if, in the process of clearing my chakras, this need to clean my space became even more insistent, to the point that I've really gotten off my tush, as I've been promising myself for weeks (in fact, since the last holiday weekend) and really gotten the deed done!!!

Looking around my office, I see lots of potential for this wild cleaning bug!  Too much to complete by the end of today, but lots of opportunity for me to continue to clear my space.  Clearly, the time has come!

So now I'm curious.  Does anyone else out there suddenly find that they have a driving need to complete tasks which they've been putting off, and when the driving need arrives, so does the energy and necessary resources to complete the task?

I ask because, in the past, it was all I could manage to clean the sandboxes and vacuum and spray and mop the floors.  Now, I'm managing a great deal more, sweating my tush off, and feeling great afterwards!  Sure, it takes me the better part of the day as I allow myself lots of breaks, but the breaks come after I've finished a room or two, rather than every few minutes.  Even better, I'm not the least bit stiff or sore this morning, though I exerted a ton of effort yesterday, and even weirder, I'm looking forward to completing my tasks today!  Am I turning into Stepford Sheri????


I finished floors today, except for my office, but the carpet in my bedroom yielded the equivalent of about 3 more cats and I scrubbed the kitchen floor within an inch of its life while doing two loads of laundry, so I'd say that the weekend was highly successful in the cleaning department! 

Sadly, all of my hard work resulted in aches and pains in my back from all of the unaccustomed labor, causing me to cancel plans for a party and a concert but if I'm being perfectly honest, I think I needed the alone time more this weekend.  Dancing on Saturday night, my brief foray out into the world for groceries, baskets for my baker's rack and dinner were quite enough of society for me.  I also did a practice session for my healing class, which can, after all, be somewhat draining, so my weekend was complete, people wise.

I really enjoyed the clearing of my space, even if most of it involved just cleaning and not decluttering.  I enjoyed the time spent reading some mindless e-books and snuggling with my cats.  Although, with all of the cleaning and book work I did, it wasn't, technically, down time, for me, that's exactly what it was.

My daughter teases me about the fact that my idea of a vacation is staying home. reading, hanging with my cats, having my coffee on the patio....simple things.  But when I do take time to myself. that's exactly what I want...time to myself.  I don't want to be rushing through airports or fighting traffic or eating out every night.  I want to enjoy the comfort of my own space without any obligations from the outside world.

These days, I might spend part of it writing, but whatever I do, it is the decompression I need, and not what someone else does to decompress.

At any rate, I'm thrilled with the amount of energy I was able to put into my cleaning project this weekend, and believe that I'll be able to get the smaller tasks done between now and next weekend because the ball is in motion.

But for now, I've given myself the night off from making the week's meals (but not from setting up the coffee pot!  Some things just can't be put off!) as a reward for two days of really hard work.  Interestingly, I never bothered to put music on while I worked this time, as I really just wanted to be alone with my thoughts.  The couple of times I turned on the tv, I watched for a little while, but was soon bored and turned it off.  Again, it was more of an invasion of my time than I wanted.

With my thoughts explored and exploded on the page. I give you my gratitudes, and for myself, an early night in preparation for facing the world, once again, on the morrow.

1. I am grateful for time spent clearing my space.
2. I am grateful for feeling better about inviting people into my space after this weekend's efforts.
3. I am grateful for the companionship of my often demanding cats over this weekend spent mostly without human company.
4. I am grateful for the abundance of energy I found when I set my mind to a task.
5. I am grateful for the exhaustion I am feeling after a job well done.

Love and light.