Today, I hope to accomplish a few things on my never-ending to-do list. I’m going to group them into categories: Around the house and Beyond. Lol.

Around the house:

-Vacuum

-Clean bathrooms (Our hot water tank is going to be replaced today, so I won’t be cleaning the bathroom until the serviceman leaves.

-10 minutes of straightening our bedroom

Beyond:

-Spend at least one hour on writing work

-Order Christmas presents online (at least, the ones I have planned to order there)

On the menu tonight:

-Split pea soup and dinner rolls. Can’t wait! And at less than $3 for the soup, what a bargain.

To check out others participating in Day 6 of the challenge, visit Crystal’s site.

I’m making some progress, thanks to Crystal’s “Making your home a haven” challenge. This is day 3.

1. Refresh your spirit and write three things you’re thankful for

I pulled out a snowman mug (it’s snowing this morning) and a packet of hot chocolate mix.

This morning, I read from Psalm chapter 34. A few verses stood out to me today:

I sought the Lord, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears. - Psalm 34:4 NKJV

The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. - Psalm 34:10

And, I’m thankful for my wonderful husband, friends that are only a phone call away, and health insurance (neither of us are sick, thank goodness, but thanks to my husband’s vision plan, we’ll be getting new glasses and contact lenses this week).

2. Take time to plan

I went through yesterday’s to-do list pretty well, and ya know what? If I didn’t post my short list on my blog, I don’t know that I would have completed it. It’s amazing how writing things down and publishing them can hold us accountable, ya know?

Today, I’d like to:

- Spend 10 minutes cleaning/organizing our bedroom

- Spend 15 minutes cleaning/organizing our guest room/office

- Spend 10 minutes straightening the living room (how in the world does it get so cluttered? It was fine yesterday!)

- Make a trip to the Dollar Tree to buy some Christmas decorations

- Spend an hour on writing work

- Finish decorating our Christmas tree

Looks like a lot of cleaning today. If I break it into chunks, it really won’t be so bad. I plan to play the radio while I’m cleaning, or even chat with someone on the phone. Plus, once things get really organized around here, I won’t have to spend time organizing–I’ll just need to do quick maintenance. A little extra effort now will save me time in the long run.

3. Do something! The laundry

Today, Crystal has us tackling our laundry piles and laundry rooms. Whew–this won’t be so bad for me. I don’t have a laundry room of my own–I share it with the other 11 apartment units in my building. It’s always fairly tidy, but when I’m down there today, I’ll straighten whatever I can.

Since our laundry pile was huge earlier this week, on Monday I decided to do two loads (normally, I just need to do laundry on Wednesdays). I washed jeans and whites. I put the jeans through one dry cycle, and hung the whites on my drying rack to air-dry.

Today, I’ll wash two loads of colors. I’ll hang these clothes on my drying rack and on hangers.

Even after one day of participating in Crystal’s “Make your home a haven” challenge, I’m feeling more motivated and inspired.

Here’s Day 2 (why not click over there and join in?):

Today, I brewed a pot of coffee using my free sample of Dunkin Donuts coffee. Woo hoo!

The second step is to hash out a short to-do list for the day.

1. Mail car insurance form
2. Find an eye doctor for DH and make an appointment
3. Put away laundry from yesterday (I hope it’s dry!)
4. Spend 30 minutes de-cluttering and organizing guest room/office
5. Spend 30 minutes on writing work

The third step of today’s challenge is to de-clutter our living rooms. So, I’ll be joining other participants and I’ll get that room in great shape.

One of my favorite bloggers, Crystal, is hosting a new challenge: Making your home a haven. Her timing is perfect! I’ve been trying to get our apartment organized and under control so that I have more time to do things I really want to do…but it hasn’t been easy.

I’m glad to be making my home a haven along with other bloggers. Strength in numbers, ya know?

Click over here to see what’s mentioned in her challenge for today. Here’s my responses:

1. The Psalm I flipped to today was 113. Here’s a verse from it:

He raises the poor out of the dust,  And lifts the needy out of the ash heap. - Psalm 113:7

Even millionaires can be poor, and everyone is needy at different points in their lives.

2. A morning routine. Hmm. This would be good for me to establish.

First, I’d like to get up at about the same time every day. I think that would really help my terrible sleeping situation. My goal is to be up and moving by 8 a.m. every day. So far, that’s not happening.

After using the bathroom, I’ll make the bed, fix breakfast, and eat it. That’s simple enough–and I think I can do it.

3. The third step of the day is to spend 5-15 minutes decluttering the front part of the home. I’m going to need to spend more time doing that today–it’s a mess. But, you’ve got to start somewhere, so why not start with the first 15 minutes of a task? I’m going to get started right now.