loving your home

A house absorbs caretaking like a sponge, storing it up in the softness of comfortable couches and the soothing tones of a muted wallpaper, then returning that love to the original giver. All the hours spent arranging the furniture, choosing the colors, even washing the floors, turn out not to have been in vain. Everything we have given we have given to ourselves. The home upon which we have lavished so much attention is the embodiment of our own self-love.

~ Linda Weltner

I found this quote in my inbox this morning - one of my regular daily e-quotes from Debra Lynn Dadd, eco-consultant.

In the eight years that I worked as an eco-friendly home cleaner, the idea embodied in this quote was always on my mind. I treated cleaning like a meditation, and the service I was giving was not home cleaning, but home loving. A small shift in intent, perhaps - but one that made all the difference to me.

And, I'd like to think, to my clients...

shaker quote:

Clean your room well, for good spirits will not live where there is dirt.

I found that great Shaker saying in today's inspirational "Words of Wisdom" from Debra Lynn Dadd. It reminds me of an earlier post of mine, on the history of cleaning. Read it here.