Where do I start?

Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him.  1 Chronicles 16:11 (NLT)

I have mentioned my scrapbooking/photograph problem, but my house ,in general, is a cause of great distress.  It seems that no matter how much I do as far as picking up, de-cluttering, etc, it remains cluttered.  It's not disgustingly filthy or anything like that and I know, I know, it's lived in, I have young children, we're busy and I shouldn't concern myself with a perfect home.  I'm not concerned with a perfect home, but I would really like to walk downstairs to my basement and not want to scream, vomit or throw a tantrum.

And it's funny how the kids seems so unconcerned about this.  We have kids over all the time.  I will hear them head down to the basement and I'll think NOOOOOOOO, it is a disaster.  Then I hear that they're playing hide-and-go-seek, which means they're trying to find the nook and crannies down there...and they're even worse than the open areas.  Aahhhhhh. 

A week or two ago, Lane (so I'm told by Madolyn) dumped the little trash can out all over the floor.  Why, I have no clue.  Kids have been down there and no one seems to care that there is trash all over the basement floor, it's not messy, disgusting garbage, but just trash.  Why won't anyone throw it away?  There has been a box of paper on the top step to go downstairs for at least a month, no one has decided to take it on down with them.  There are blankets piled at the bottom of the stairs from when we clean in a frenzy...blankets are tossed down the stairs out of sight.  We walk over them to get up and down...we don't move them.  Sometimes I feel like I don't even know where to start!

When I finally do snap and we clean the basement out, together, because I refuse to do it by myself when 95% of the mess is from the kiddos, they act like they are in toyland heaven.  They find things they have long since forgotten about, or suddenly now is the moment that they really, really, really want to play the Wii - although it sits down there 12 months of the year, available for play on a moment's notice.  I have to continue to redirect them to the tasks at hand.

I get these big ideas early in the day that I will go home after work and hit the basement hard.  Then when I get home, I'll get something ready for supper, take someone here or there for this or that, do some laundry, eat supper, clean it up, etc...by that time, the last thing I want to do is go downstairs and begin cleaning!  I need some motivation.

On my way home from work, and after I had posted the other day about losing my focus, I decided that I was going to ask God to give me some direction, focus and the strength and energy to follow through with those plans.  I went home and worked like the Energizer Bunny until 10:30.  I did a whole slew of things, I even got Lane to help me work on the basement.  It's not completely clean, but I'm not going to cringe when kids come over and go downstairs.  I need to de-clutter down there and organize, but it's a process that will take longer than one evening after work.  I even carried up four boxes of steno notes from my freelance work '08-'10 to go to the attic.  Why were those still down there...almost two years later?  Ahhh.

It felt good.  I felt like I had accomplished many things.  It's so awesome to know that God helps us with the trivial things.  As you can tell by now, my life is stocked full of trivial, petty things, but they're real to me and I am so grateful that He cares enough about me to answer my pleas for strength and direction.