How to Receive $20 OFF Your House Cleaning!

I am looking for cleaning jobs and have figured out how to help both the client and myself with money!

IF YOU RECOMMEND ME TO A FRIEND I WILL GIVE YOU $20 OFF YOUR HOUSE CLEANING!**

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!

1. Hire me for at least ONE house cleaning

2. Recommend me to a friend

3. Your Friend MUST hire me for at least ONE cleaning (make sure to tell friend to mention your name!)

4. Schedule your next house cleaning with $20 OFF!

Below I have listed some prices. I charge according to square foot. If you need a specific price email me! Also I have listed what that price includes. I am also flexible with times so please let me know what works best for your schedule and we can figure out a time! Thanks so much.

Price by Square Foot:
1,500 sq.ft. = $45
2,000 sq.ft. = $60
2,500 sq.ft. = $75
3,500 sq.ft, = $105
5,000 sq.ft. = $150

Pricing Includes:

• Straightening all rooms
• Dusting all furniture
• Cleaning the kitchen: counters, sinks, stovetop, microwave, dishes
• Cleaning the bathrooms: sinks, counters, toilets, tubs, mirrors
• Sweeping floors
• Vacuuming floors
• Mopping floors

Optional

• Change all sheets
• Change out all towels
• *Clean all windows
• *Clean all baseboards
• *Clean all blinds
• *Dust all fans/light fixtures

*Not included in price above. This is considered “deep cleaning” which is an extra $10 per item.

Make sure to forward link to your friends!

**Offer EXCLUSIVELY for house cleaning in Williamson County, TN and surrounding counties.

Email me at: marissa.hyatt@gmail.com for specific pricing and details!

Client Organizational Survey

I promised an organizational survey. This is a survey that I have built myself to help me get to know my clients – to understand how they work and how I can better help them personally. Enjoy!

Client Survey:

1. Home many people live in your home currently (please include ages)?
2. Describe normal activities that occur in your home on an everyday basis.
3. What rooms are needing organizing?
4. What is your overall goal for each room?
5. How often are the prospective rooms used?
6. Please describe what activities normally occur in the prospective rooms and what activities you would like to add.
7. Describe what you envision the rooms to be like when they are finished.
8. Are you emotionally attached to anything in this room that you would not be willing to sell or throw out? If yes, please indicate which items.
9. Are there items in the rooms that you want to get rid of? If yes, please indicate.
10. On a scale of one to ten (ten being the highest) how hard is it for you to get rid of items in your home?

Organize Your Home

Most people get extremely anxious when talking about the organizational status of their homes/offices. Whenever I go to meet with a client at their home to see their prospective rooms, they immediately get very overwhelmed. They look at the tons of piles of junk and start getting hot, breathing hard, and shaking their head, saying, “I have no idea where to start. How are we going to get this room in order? There is NO way it can happen.” That is when I come in!

I don’t look at the room as a whole but as spaces. My method put simply is: start with one space and work your way around the room. I have a spacial brain, as opposed to a universal brain (which most people have). A universal brain looks at the room as a whole; the big picture – the starting and the ending points. A spacial brain looks at the process; how are we going to get from point A (starting point) to point B (ending point).

I am in the process of starting my own home organizational business. I get such a thrill out of starting with a room that otherwise looks helpless, working through the challenges, and ending with a beautiful, organized room as a result. There is nothing more  fulfilling than seeing a home owner walk into a room in their house that was once drowning in clutter and being completely speechless because they have never seen it so simplified and put together. Below I have put together a few organization tips.

Tips for Organizing Your Home:

1. Start with ONE area of a room (In an office start with the desk; in a kitchen start with ONE cabinet at a time; etc.).
2. Begin by sorting all items into three piles: KEEP, TOSS, SELL.
3. After throwing away all “TOSS” items, begin deciding where to sell your “SELL” items (Examples: eBay, CraigsList, Amazon, consignment stores, etc.).
4. After selling the “SELL” items, begin sorting your “KEEP” items into categories (Examples: Clothes, books, files, holiday decorations, dish ware, home accents, linens, etc.)
5. Buy appropriately sized containers to accommodate the categories of items. Choose plastic tubs in garages or storage rooms to be able to see clearly what is in each box. In offices, kitchens, closets, etc. choose fabric boxes to match the decor or your home and to look neat.
6. Label each box by the items in the box. For instance: you may have four boxes that hold holiday decorations so rather than labeling each with “Holiday Decorations,” label boxes more specifically: “Ornaments” “Christmas Table Decorations” “Easter Decorations” “Halloween Decorations”.
7. Install a shelving unit that is appropriate way for the room you are working on (metal racks are inexpensive and sturdy for attics and garages. A book shelf is a great place to store fabric boxes in a living room or home office).
8. Arrange boxes in a way that is most logical to YOU and that will give you easy access to the the items you use the most.

And boom! An organized room in no time! Typically I have found that for an average size room it takes about 1-2 days of organizing until the room is completely finished. The key to having an organized home is keeping it organized. This is why labeling is SO key. Just like we all learned in kindergarten: once you take something out, make sure to put it back in its place. So, remember to label so that everything in your house has a “home”.

I will be posting a new post very soon that is a Home Organization Survery. So stay tuned!

“25 Things I Hate About Facebook”

It is pretty clear to almost everyone who has subscribed to my blog that I have not written in a VERY long time. Needless to say, my life has been moving so fast I can hardly keep up. I have, frankly, not had the time or energy to write a post, but have decided to start again. With something small and light-hearted. 

In today’s world most everyone we know has a Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, or just a plain ol’ blog (And lets be honest, most of us have at least two out of the four listed). Even though we all have most or all of these, there are just those times when you want to throw your computer out of the window and say “Forget it!” There are always those little tiny things that just get on our nerves and make us want to delete our profiles all together. Although we feel this way, most of us will never sit down and take the time to think about every single thing that we hate about each of these websites, but thankfully Julian Smith has taken that time. He is a young professional producer that has compiled the 25 things he hates most about Facebook and made a video out of it. So enjoy it:

If you have laughed at any point during this video or nodded your head in agreement, post this video on your Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, or Blog site. And if you’re interested in seeing more of Julian’s work, subscribe to his blog (He releases a new video every Friday).

Question: What did you think of the video? What do you hate most about Facebook, Myspace,or Twitter?

Ramblings about November

Every year November is a time for me to reexamine my life, myself, and my hopes and dreams for the future. It is a time when I look at the past year and say, “What did I accomplish?” “How have I grown?” “How would I have liked to grow more?” “What things do I wish I could have done differently?”.  To me November is the perfect month to do this and ask myself these questions. For one, November is when the leave start falling, things become bare–the limbs of the trees become visible. Also November is a time of joy and relationships. We get to embrace our families and our friends in this colorful scenery. November is also a time for thanksgiving. We get to look back at the past year and say, “I am thankful for…” This is the most beautiful month… not to mention my birthday is this month!

Unfortunately somehow November always creeps up on me and it always comes with things that I can’t explain. Whether that be circumstances that I don’t understand or decisions that don’t have answers. Regardless, this month is my favorite.

I have realized that in the past few months I have become extremely disconnected with myself. I have lost sight of many of the things I always dreamed and aspired for my life. Its hard for me to verbalize what has been going on inside of me. But I know that the leaves are falling away and that the branches are now starting to show. Things that I had forgotten about or had tried to cover up are finally making their way back into eye’s sight.

I’m ready to find me. To find what I want for my life. To rediscover my dreams and hopes. To see who I am and who I want to become. I’m excited to become ME.

Needing Feedback…

Hello readers! I apologize for the fact that I haven’t written in a VERY long time. Life has just been crazy.

I am needing your help with something though. As you may know I am starting to apply to colleges for Fall of ‘09. Many of the colleges (most are liberal arts schools) I am applying to are asking for a portfolio of written work. Here’s where you come in! I need help figuring out which essays to submit. Over the next few weeks I will be posting many different essays that I have written (some old, some new). I am asking for your feedback, whether that be negative or positive. I need for you to be VERY critical because most of these colleges will be. If you don’t mind doing the following to help me out:

1. Subscribing to my blog via RSS Feed or another subscription service like Google Reader. (The purpose of this is that you will be notified every time I post a new essay)
2. Read each essay carefully.
3. Commenting back with your feedback of the essay as a WHOLE (look for things like: coherence-organization of thoughts; flow; unity-all ideas relate back to the topic; and completeness-making sure the intro, body, and conclusion meets the expectations of the topic). 
4. Also look for any MINOR details that may need changes like grammatical or punctuation errors.*
    * I am not very concerned with the editing part as much as the entirety of the essay itself. Feel free to skip this step.
5. If your comment leans more towards the negative side, give me suggestions on how to make it better.
6. Please rate the ENTIRE essay as a whole on a scale of 1-5 (1-being poor and 5-being excellent–meets all expectations)

I am needing as much feedback from as many people as possible! So PLEASE help me with this! Thank you so much! Get ready for the first essay to arrive tomorrow! Stay tuned…

New Month, New Beginnings, New Mercies

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
- Lamentations 3:21-23

The Lord is good! The past month has been one of the hardest months. I have struggled with a lot and have felt, at many times, as though I was going through hell. I felt guilt, hopelessness, disappointment, doubt, fear, and anger. I felt that God was untrustworthy; that I could not trust Him with my circumstances. But He has definitely proved me wrong! 

I have now realized that it was necessary for God to allow me to go through ‘hell’ so that I would come to Him. It was necessary that I be stripped down to nakedness, so that God might meet me there. I have realized that I had to hit the bottom in order to bounce back up. It was all a part of HIS plan. 

On Saturday morning, I took my first Qigong (Chi-kong) class with my acupuncturist, Keith Coley. I am learning the art of balancing energy, gaining more energy, and centering myself. The goal in learning Qigong is to protect ourselves from stress and disease. There have been many cases where people who learn the art of Qigong are cured of cancer and many other terminal illnesses. In the class, Keith, who is also a Christian, talked about how Qi (Chi) is the Chinese word for energy. Qi is the life-source for all energy. The practice of Qigong is learning how to draw from the eternal vacuum of energy so that we might be filled with this energy or light. It didn’t click with me until last night that God has me in this class, not just to balance my energy or center myself but to draw from Him, The Eternal Light. That while practicing this, I may receive the Light and gain so much of it that is pouring out of me. That I may have Christ (The Light) live in me and I in Him (Galations 2:20). 

God is working throughout my life. 

Not only am I learning how to partake in this life-giving Light, but for the first time in my life I am being transformed by the Light. I had gotten to such a dark place in my life that when I allowed it, God’s light shined so bright. Even when the light was small and had no yet grown, it was still shining on every corner of my dark place. “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear” (Isaiah 58:8A). It was shining so bright, that I was able to begin to see the dark places, the hidden places of my heart and I was able to begin to start healing. “He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5). 

I am amazed. No longer do I have to worry about what tomorrow will bring or what will happen with my current circumstances. I no longer have to worry what consequences I will have to pay for my past decisions. I no longer have to be afraid. Christ is living in me. His light is now shining in and through me. He is helping heal me so that His light may shine through me and onto others. “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14). 

I literally sit here in awe at God’s work. Just in the past couple days I have felt more joy than I have ever felt before. Not happiness, but joy. 

God has been pursuing me to the very end. He has followed me to the beautiful places and to the ugliest of ugly places. He is pursuing ME! Just as Psalm 139 says:
“Where can I go from your Spirit? 
       Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; 
       if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” (Verses 7-8)

“If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me 
       and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you; 
       the night will shine like the day, 
       for darkness is as light to you.” (Verses 11-12)

As soon as I finally realized that God was pursuing me, doing exactly what I was longing for, it was like I woke up. I finally collapsed into His arms. He held me so tightly. He has brought me out of my dark place, His light is shining on my life and I am now able to walk with and in Him. I am so thirsty for more and He is thirsty to give me more. It is this beautiful exchange. I am eager to know Him fully, just as He already knows me fully. “O Lord, You have searched me and you know me” (Ps. 139:1). 

I am not really sure how to end this post. The only thing I know to say is that God is SO good! I was so discouraged, so untrusting, and so doubtful, yet when I finally opened my eyes and saw the light, He welcomed me with open arms. I cannot wait to see what else He is going to show me! This is a new month. It a chance for a new beginning and a new life. I am eager to live it through Christ.

Unpacking Baggage

I’ve been wondering what will happen to a human if they go long enough without talking about something; what will come out when they are letting nothing out. Through my own personal research I have discovered that what will come out is: anger, resentment, bitterness, sadness, loneliness, and frustration…just to name a few.

Over the past several months I have developed the habit of ‘bottling it all up’. Before this I have been known to let too much out-opening up too much of myself. But here lately, I keep it all in. Even though on the surface I do talk to my close friends about what has been going on in my life, I don’t open up about what is truly going on. I tell them the events, the feelings at the time, and sometimes talk about how I feel about it now. But I never go deep. I never talk about WHY I am feeling that or where that feeling comes from. 

Most of us feel a certain way currently because it directly connects us to a feeling/event that happened in the past. We deal with today, based on the past events of our life. This is why many psychologists ask us to look into our pasts and deal with that before we deal with the present. It all directly links together.

I’ve realized how much over the past several months that I haven’t talked about. I take all the issues that I am ‘dealing’ with and push them to the back. When I feel as though I’m about to break down or when I feel like things are going to come up and start boiling over, I push it aside. I tell myself that I’ll deal with it later. But after many months of doing this and not truly ever dealing with it I feel as if I’m about to explode. Almost anything right now will either (A) set me off or (B) make me cry. 

Looking back just to the month of March, I was sitting in my guidance counselor/mentor’s office talking with her about what I was currently dealing with and she was telling me that I let my emotions drive too much of my decision making and my life. So in return, I took that to the other extreme…not letting myself feel. I thought the solution to not feeling everything, was not feeling anything. So rather than to let myself process things in a healthy way, I took everything that came my way and threw it into a box and put in storage. The result? An overflowing storage unit…and the man I rent the storage unit from is telling me that my rent is late and that I have to evacuate. I have to take all those boxes that have been in storage for so many months, and unpack them; sort through what is really important and what is not so important. I have to decide what things I am willing to put inside my house and what things I have to deal with and through in the dumpster. 

But when you are looking at a storage unit that is packed as tightly as mine, its kind of hard to figure out a place to start. It looks like once I open ALL of those boxes I am going to be left with a HUGE pile of crap that is messy and ugly. And then I have to dive into that and throw most of it out. 

Why is it so hard to sort through our baggage? Why is it so terrifying to know that we are about to unload a bunch of crap? Why do we feel so clueless on where to start? Why does it seem exhausting? My only answer to this is because its scary. Right now I have to throw all the stuff out of those boxes into a big pile (and here’s the worst part), flip on a light and see what I’m left with. Right now its in the dark, its in nice little brown boxes..but once that stuff is out of those boxes and the light comes on, I actually have to look at what is there. And not only that. I have to then, sort through it all, piece by piece. I have to look at each and every event and feeling and deal with it, face to face. 

But I have to trust that that light will shine through it all; that it will shine from the beginning of the process to the end. That when I am dunking my head into one of those boxes and its getting dark…the light will shine there. That when I come out of that box and then look at the 100 more I have to go through, the light will shine inside all of those boxes. I have to trust that no matter what kind of box I go through and no matter how deep and dark that box may be, the light will surely shine there too. This is the truth. That wherever there is dark, once a light is shown upon it, the dark suddenly becomes light. I know this to be true. 

 

“The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” 
-John 1:5

 

“Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will 
quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory 
of the LORD will be your rear guard.”
-Isaiah 58:8 

 

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the 
world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the 
light of life.”"
-John 8:12 

“For it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: 
“Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
- Ephesians 5:14 

“For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his 
light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the 
glory of God in the face of Christ.”
-2 Corinthians 4:6 

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you:
God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
-1 John 1:5 

 

The LORD is my light and my salvation– whom shall I fear? The 
LORD is the stronghold of my life–of whom shall I be afraid?
-Psalm 27:1 

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

This past week I went and visited my old high school’s camp that they do every year. The purpose of the camp is that for the first week of school most kids have a hard time getting to know people and feeling connected. So they designed a week long camp the first week of school to simply build community. Its an incredible experience. The senior class is in charge of planning and running the whole camp. 

My mom was there as a helper, seeing that she is one of the board members. She has gone every since they started having a camp. It was incredibly odd to be at camp. For those of you who don’t know I have graduated a year early. I chose to do this because I only needed two credits to graduate and didn’t see the purpose is staying a whole year just to finish two credits. This summer I went to Columbia State Community College and finished my two credits. 

Up until this past week I have been extremely thankful for graduating early. I haven’t looked back once. And then this week hit. Many of my friends have either gone off to college or have already started high school. But the one’s who I went to school with all went off to camp for the week. I was left alone realizing for the first time that I wasn’t in high school anymore. I drove up to camp for an afternoon and it hit me as my whole school was worshiping in chapel that night. I sat in the back looking at everyone so excited that they had gotten to come to Franklin Christian Academy; that they had gotten the opportunity to spend this week in building community; they didn’t have a care in the world. It all hit me: “Marissa, you’re past this, high school no longer defines your life.”

It was somewhat hard to experience this. I had many mixed emotions. Feeling some regret and and remorse and at the same time excited for what lies ahead for me and thankful that I don’t have to deal with any of the ‘high school drama’ that many of my friends were experiencing. I wanted to cry and leap for joy all at the same time. 

I’ve also been somewhat nervous about starting my new job with Revolve. I have never met any of these people in my life and I’m going to many cities I’ve never been to. I’m going to be the youngest person on the staff and a little worried that I will feel out of place. But as I’ve written in previous blogs: God is working on my control issues. 

For the first time in my life I have NO idea what to expect. I don’t know who I will meet. I don’t know where I will be at the end of this year. Its all ‘unknown’. And for the first time I have to TRULY trust in God that He really knows what He’s doing. That He will take care of me. That the place that He’s been leading me for the past year and is continuing to lead me is all a part of His plan and that these hard things are all part of that as well. They are necessary steps that I’m taking in order to get where He is leading.

I know this verse can be somewhat overused… but I truly believe this relates specifically to me.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
-Jeremiah 29:11

Learning to Let Go and TRUST

“When we worship the Lord, let’s remember that He is in control. Nothing alarms Him, or takes Him by surprise. Nothing is too big for Him to handle, or so small it escapes His attention. When the winds of my world begin to blow, He remains seated. When raging waves surround me, He governs their temper…I need not be moved … Because the Lord is seated and sovereign…He alone is sovereign.”

- Ronald James -

At this point in my life I feel as though I’m completely riding the line. I’m in the land of In-between. I’ve graduated high school, but not in college yet. I’m almost an adult, but not quite there. I’ve got an incredible job with Revolve, but haven’t started yet. I’m living at home, but when my job starts I’ll only be here three days a week. Its just this awkward place in life where everything is almost here but not quite. 

Lately I’ve been asking myself the question, “What kind of spiritual lesson am I’m supposed to be learning through all of this?” And I hadn’t realized what it was until I was talking with a good friend Amy. She said it plain and simple, “He’s asking you to give up control and trust Him.” When she said it to me in just 10 simple words, it hit me: He is asking me to do the very thing that I have been telling Him I was so scared of doing and haven’t done 100%. I realized how much of my life I have said the same thing over and over to Him, “Alright God, its all yours. Take all of my life into your hands. Do what you will. I trust you. I give it ALL to you.” Three days later, I realize that nothing major has happened and tell Him, “Ok God, I know that you are still working on all of this, and probably still taking some time to plan my life out, so while your doing that, let me just take this BIG LITTLE thing over here and I’ll handle it myself.” To which He responds, “But I thought you were giving it ALL to me, Marissa? I’ll let you take what you want and then once it doesn’t turn out the way you had planned, I’ll still be here, ready and willing to take it upon myself to work out.” 

All of my life I have done this. Whether it be taking financial issues or relationship issues into hand, I tend to do this with God. I fake Him into thinking He’s getting all of me, when in reality I know that I’m not willing to give it all to Him. But who knew! He’s smarter than that, but still just as loving and accepting. 

I went to a small group for a church I am starting to go to, Grace Chapel, and the leader talked a lot about how we make ‘idols’ out of things in our life, putting them before God and trying our hardest to deal with them ourselves. At the end he posed a question, “What are your idols that you are taking ‘control’ of and placing before Him?” I realized how much I was putting before him and trying to ‘take control’ over. 

This week especially I have realized that God is showing me the ares of my life that I need to start working through in order to fully let Him live in me. I heard this many MANY times. When we open the door for Christ to live in and through us (not just with us) He starts shining lights on the areas of our lives that need to be changed and/or let go of (i.e. what we need to give up). So obviously the things that He is shining lights on are my control and trust issues. What am I not willing to give up? What am I trying to control? What am I doing my way?

Bottom line: What am I not trusting HIM with?

So my question to you is, what are you not willing to give up? What are you holding captive because you think you can do it better than He can? What are not trusting Him with?

 

On a side note, check this video out. My dad showed it to me and I thought it was pretty incredible/creative! Or watch it here for a clearer picture. The song is “Again and Again” by Bird and the Bee.