Intentionally Living...A Clean House!

This is the fourth installment of my series on Intentionally Living. I am so happy that I started this series! If your new to this series over the past few weeks I have been posting about my goals to Live Intentionally.

My 2010 word of the year is Intentional. Check out my post HERE explaining just what that means in my life. This series was built off of 12 main statements that I said at the beginning of the year. All twelve things are ways that I am going to Intentionally Live this year.

This weeks post will be similar to last weeks post on cooking. You can find that post HERE.

Okay so this weeks Intentionally Living statement is:

I am going to be intentional about keeping the house clean because it causes my husband stress.

Now this isn't just one that causes my husband stress but of course also causes me stress. The more cluttered my house gets the more cluttered my mind gets. I get anxiety when dishes pile up and when clutter starts appearing. And the worst part about all of this? I'm a total pack rat!

I'm super cheap so I can't bare to throw anything out because I may one day use it again. So I keep everything!! This doesn't work when you live in a one bedroom apartment..I don't have room for everything so stuff just piles up in little piles around the corners of the apartment.

And yes I know the clutter and mess that I deal with is nothing like what you mothers have to deal with! I just pray that I learn how to work really hard on keeping the house clean before we have little ones running around messing everything up so I can better stay on top of it.

Anyway during the summer time I have no trouble keeping the house clean! I have plenty of time to do all that needs to be done! But during the school year forget about it! We both are full time students and my hubby works full time and I work nearly full time. By the time the busy work/school day is over I have to head home and work on homework for hours. The last thing I want to do it clean!! forget it! I just want to sit on the couch and zone out or sleep.

So this year I have decided to be extra Intentional about

making sure the house stays clean. My dear sweet amazing Hubby is taking 19 units (YIKES!!!) which by the way is over full time and works a full time job during the day. (He is graduating in less than a month by the way!!) So this semester I have been trying to help him in any way that I can with being less stressful. God has been amazing to us in all that he has given us and I want to create a stress free environment while at home.

So to Intentionally live out this goal I have decided the following:

1. I will not let the dishes pile up! Right after dinner they need to be washed (otherwise they will make themselves at home in that sink!!)

2. I will not let our laundry pile up until we have no clothes left! I will work on getting our laundry done every week.

3. I will organize things better in our house so that clutter does not build up! {Not to brag but I have been very good about this lately}

4. I will make sure that after I try on my tenth outfit of the morning that the clothes don't end up on the floor.

I have more than this but I can't think of any at the moment.

Who I strive to be: The Excellent Wife

She looks well to the ways of her household

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

"Many women have done excellently,

but you surpass them all."

{Proverbs 31:27-29}

What do you do to keep your house clean? Got any good tricks to pass along my way?!?