Home Making, an Exercise in Creativity

Have you ever considered how home making is creative?

I love Mary Ellen Smoot's talk--"We are Creators." There is "so much scope for the imagination in that concept." This is a seriously profound thought and changes how I look at life and choices.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/04/we-are-creators?lang=eng

The Hebrew word for create, bara, in the Genesis story of the creation, means  to prepare, form, fashion, organize! So, when I plan my life, I am being a creator, tapping into my creative abilities. Those abilities are part of my spiritual DNA. So, yes, when I am organizing, I am being creative and I am making space and time for my creativity, by establishing a default rhythms in my home.

I am an artist and I have an artistic mind! For years "I flew by the seat of my pants." That really means I did things by mood and usually in crisis mode. Ever heard "I work best in a crisis?" Why would that be a problem? Because I had put things important, but non-urgent things off and could no longer endure what it was doing to my home and family. Yes, I kept a tidy ship, living mostly on minimum maintenance, tidying rooms, floors, and dusting. I did this with the children. Deep cleaning and purging had to wait for when I had time. That time does not happen unless you make a choice to do deep cleaning rather than something else. This was like mowing the lawn instead of weeding; living in minimum maintenance is only about appearance. That is an insane way to live. Friends always remarked that my home was so clean. Minimum maintenance fooled them, but I knew better. Looks nice, but like hidden sin, I knew, and God knew.  I was really living a lie.

What changed me? One thing that changed me was contemplating creativity and creating my world.  What was I creating by living the way I had? Another thing that changed me was that I have the power within me to change my world, we all do; we are all free to choose. Yes, through the choices I make, I create my world. I choose how to interact with people and things. I choose my attitudes. Heavenly Father can help me see what is important each day. This is no Korihor endeavor.

The minimum maintenance of daily and weekly things still needs to be done.  I started out years ago  deep cleaning by having cleaning cards-- daily, every other day, weekly, monthly, annually. I did that when we lived in Colorado, and recreated them here. However, if something unexpected happened I was thrown off and either had to postpone to the next rotation or double up to catch up.  That did not work for me any more.  It is a great exercise to know all that needs to be done in a space, but as a system, yikes.

In 2010, I moved into a zone type system of rhythms for deep cleaning my home.  This was all part of my rethinking process since many changes and the need to simplify. 

As I was able to do more, my new system of seven zones has emerged. To the Hebrews seven was complete, it was sacred, in seven creative days God created the world. So, I created seven zones, dividing my home by areas and priority.