Tuesday, August 08, 2006

One New Thing


Years ago I read that a woman made one new improvement to her home each day--and I was inspired! 

I mean, wow. If you changed just one thing about your home or about your life each day, by the year's end, you'd have made 365 changes(!)

And the kinds of changes I'm speaking of are simple:

Place some flowers from your yard in a vase.
Rearrange the furniture in one room.
Wash one shelf of knick-knacks.
Clean-out one closet, one drawer, or one cupboard.
Paint one chair or one wall.
Place pretty contact paper in one drawer.
Run one errand.
Dig one flower bed.
Create one quiet reading corner just for you.
Rearrange the items on one table.
Deep clean one room.
Gather one bag of cast-offs for a thrift shop.
Wash one decorative pillow.
Hang one picture.

Certainly you can think of more 'one things'. Non-oh-so-daily one things (the stuff I 'should' do each day doesn't count).

Often we get stuck on the couch in an overwhelmed frame of mind, dreading the one-hundred things which need to be done. And sometimes just by standing-up and doing that one simple thing, we're inspired to do yet another thing and then another. Just pushing past the awful weight of lethargy and hopelessness can be the start of creativity-released.

One thing--one new thing a day. I love that.

It also works for relationships. One new thing to resuscitate that friendship I've let slide. One thing to show my husband he's still my favorite friend. One thing to show my daughter she's always in my thoughts even though she's no longer living in our house.

And so much more until one thing becomes thousands over the years and feeling overwhelmed is only a vague memory.



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