Next up is the 2015 mid-year review home. Recap: I started Project Worthwhile Life around eight months ago with the primary goal of flourishing, supported by my household. This was revised to become the virtue of beauty: the pursuit of excellence in aesthetics.
My first Beauty review was body, then presence, a detour past wealth and now back to beauty with home.
My goal for my home was to create a comfortable, happy, cheerful, welcoming and calm home that reflects who DB and I are right now. I highlighted my multiple home decorating personalities
- the pre-dialysis one who didn’t now she was sick (footloose, travelling and having fun)
- the sick one with limited options on dialysis (surviving, wanting a soft comfortable bolt hole)
- the post-transplant really well one (wanting to live deeply in a home that is vibrant and alive)
And I used these paintings to demonstrate the difference in those personalities, and show how your authentic self leaks out when you are trying to conceal it (and I still love emu man – he’s got some moves!)
I argued that our messy cluttered homes do not support us, just reflect our internal chaos back to us. As evidenced by photographs of happy spontaneous moments taking place against a backdrop of life’s flotsam. And I still don’t want the future to see me that way…
So, to deal with this, I:
- compiled a list of “unfinished business” and started work on finishing it
- started finding homes for things and actually putting them away
- started reviewing (to keep or discard) my photo, book, CD and DVD collections
- continued discarding objects that don’t make sense any more (decluttering)
- resolved to really clean my house (not just the surface) regularly
- decided to remodel my bathroom as a luxurious spa!
As to progress…
- it seems that for every task that comes off the list, two go on. I have crossed off 39 things, and the remaining currently stands at 58 – I’m not sure what the starting number was, but I have 60% to go.
- I am generally much better at putting things away, though it just takes one thing left out and all of a sudden there’s a landslide and all the house needs is an upended shopping trolley to make it look like a dosshouse. I don’t need to think too much about this one any more, so I’m calling it complete and moving it to business as usual.
- poor DB was so distraught by my reviews and discards that I have had to step back on this one. We reached a compromise – things I don’t want get put in his cupboard until he is ready to let go of them. But I think enough has been done on this one that we can call it done and move it into business as usual.
- the house gets a quick clean most weeks and a periodic deeper one. I’ve got a kind of daily tidy and clean for an hour in a kind of weekly schedule. It doesn’t always get done (after all, there is always next week), but it kind of balances out. Into business as usual as well.
- the bathroom is not going to happen this year, we have other priorities right now.
For someone who is forgoing a bathroom renovation I am quite cheerful about my progress in this area. Though I really want one of those wet wipe swivelly mops so I can wash the floor without having to fill and carry a bucket of water. My 15 year old self is dying of shame and wants to move out.
Rating: 
So moving forward, there’s the ever expanding unfinished business, and maintaining a business as usual approach. On that basis it’s tempting to say I don’t need to develop any further excellence in this area, but I think I need to hold myself accountable a little longer. And as I mentioned in Wibbly Wobbly Family Timey Wimey, you need to schedule periodic renovations, keep up to date with technology and keep your house neat enough to entertain unexpected visiting royalty.
How have you fared in the household department?
Next time, we’ll look at beauty in the garden.
Recap
Reviewing the virtues of:
- beauty – (body, presence, home, and garden)
- friendship – (creatures, friends/family/contribution)
- pleasure – agreeing to seek out new experiences as well as make time to do unproductive things.
- wisdom – understanding ourselves and making choices based on the things we value
- wealth – having sufficient income to meet our needs and spending it wisely
Planning for the virtues of:
- beauty – living authentically and taking care of our physical well-being and surroundings (body, presence, home, and garden)
- friendship – treating the planet and other beings as well as we want to be treated (creatures, friends, family, contribution)
- pleasure – agreeing to seek out new experiences as well as make time to do unproductive things.
- wisdom – understanding ourselves and making choices based on the things we value
- wealth – having sufficient income to meet our needs and spending it wisely