31 Days

I've seen a few blogs the last few days that are doing some variation of a 31-day challenge. Like 31 days of lame excuses, or 31 days of writing for 31 minutes each day, something like that.

I like the idea. Here are some things I've thought about for a 31 day challenge:

• exercising 31 days in a row
• blogging 31 days in a row
• really studying the scriptures 31 days in a row
• and other things that are equally good for me

but after much reflection I've decided that I'm not in a good place to do something that will take a lot of additional effort or time every single day for 31 days.

I decided that my 31-day challenge will be to make my bed. Every day for 31 days, starting today on October 1, I will make my bed. They say it takes 3 weeks to make doing a thing a habit, and while I do make my bed semi-regularly there are lots of days when it never happens and I (and my good Mr. Dub) get into a rumply, messy bed at night.

Reasons why I don't always make my bed:

1. Both of us like to lay down on the bed after getting out of the shower. We live in a usually hot, always humid climate and laying down on the bed under the ceiling fan helps with cooling down/drying off like a towel cannot. Unfortunately a shower doesn't always happen first thing in the morning. Since I don't like it when I (or other people) lay down on the bed after it's made, I like to wait till we're done with showers before I make the bed.
2. People laying down on/messing up my bed after it's made is a pet peeve of mine.
3. Related to reason #1 is I sometimes wait to take a shower until I have to go somewhere, and then I might be in a rush to get out of the house.
4. Once the day is in full swing I just don't think again about making my bed.
5. Sometimes it seems like so much effort for such a small thing when it really only takes about 2 minutes and makes a big difference in my attitude/feelings about my house.

Because bed-making time varies for me from day to day I don't have a lot of hope that it will become an ingrained habit after a month of doing it.

I'm doing it anyway. I feel like the queen when my bed is made and fancy and beautiful, and like some sort of grubby scrub when it's not. Also, I wanted to pull the coverlet up over me last night because I got a little chilly and it was all balled up at the end of the bed. That is not fancy.