Day 4: A Place to Put Your Feet Up {31 days to clean}

"Cleaning isn’t just about scrubbing floors, making beds, and clearing out clutter (although those are good things), it’s also about creating an environment that encourages people to feel welcomed, loved." 

I need to think of how I can bless my guests in my home by having a "put your feet up" atmosphere.  This means that it is okay for it to look "lived-in", because "lived-in" is far more comfortable than pristine.  A few other things suggested in today's reading that I liked: 

• Always have coffee or tea made (or ready to be made).  
• Be a listener.  

Mary Challenge:  Invite a friend over.  I hope someone will accept my invitation to come over, otherwise I'll invite the neighbor kids over and treat them to popsicles or something!
Martha Challenge:   Clean the oven and microwave....suppressing my urge to grumble and complain about this right now!  

The microwave obviously needed cleaning; lots of smudges and fingerprints:

 Much better:

 Inside is even worse:

 Ta-da!:

 Okay, this is just disgusting:

 Clean!:

Now for the oven, which unfortunately is not self-cleaning!:

That looks better:

Ugh, yuck! I don't want to admit how long it took me to scrub this:

There's still some work to be done, but it looks much better!

There was a lot of grease and grime on the door:

And now there isn't!

Phew, I'm so glad to be done with that!  I probably shouldn't have stayed up until 1a.m. doing it, though!