Do you ever look around your house and think, "Man, I've been slacking.?"
Because I do that a lot.
Even though Madeline's amoxicillin reaction was not even 1/15th of a quarter of what some parents deal with on a daily basis, cuddling, comforting and loving on her filled my days recently and not left much room for dealing with our house other than straightening.
For the record, I'm an excellent straightener. If you tell me you are coming in 10 minutes, my house can look very presentable. Just promise to not peek in my closets, my side of the bed (which you can't see from the bedroom door), our guest bedroom or our basement stairs.
Other than those areas, my house will look fantastic.
But cleaning? That is the first thing to go when I have anything else on my plate. Anything. In the past, this has included eating a second lunch at 3:30 p.m. But let's not be technical.
So our floors were dirty and dusty. Actually, everything was dirty and dusty.
There was a clean load of whites sitting in a laundry basket in the corner of my bedroom. It had been there for about two weeks because I strongly dislike matching white socks. I preferred to fix this problem by simply pretending to not see it about six times a day.
Then there's the other basket of clean clothes in Madeline's room. An overflowing basket of clothes she had recently outgrown and I kept telling myself I would sort and store away tomorrow. I did this repeatedly. For, like, a month.
And the paper. Oh, how quickly the paper piles up. Um, especially when you're a writer.
You get the point. I had been slacking. And our house was paying the price.
But then one day, I got a surge of organizational energy that I hadn't felt since my nesting days with Madeline. I wanted to conquer everything. The floors, the clothes, the dust, the paper piles.
So where did I start? The medicine cabinet and my kitchen junk drawer, of course.
Let me be perfectly clear: these were not the worst areas of our house. At all. Even as I was emptying, wiping down and reorganizing the medicine cabinet, I wondered why I started there.
(A little part of me knew deep down is was to avoid the white socks but I calmly ignored that.)
After finishing those two very demanding and totally exhausting areas, I promptly lost all motivation to do anything else.
Later that day, when I told Joe that I cleaned and organized the medicine cabinet and junk drawer, he replied, "Oh. OK. Good."
Then he came back a few minutes later and very, very kindly asked that if I get another spurt of organizational energy, maybe I could start with the laundry baskets next time.
I have to admit, I totally agree. Just let me finish my second lunch, OK?
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6 comments:
This made me laugh hysterically because I am EXACTLY the same way. I have learned to be a good straightener, because my Mom hates dirty houses, but there is always one or two rooms in our apartment she is never allowed to enter. Laundry will sit on our floor for days before I get the energy to fold it, and putting it away is usually a whole day later! So you are not alone. When I get the energy to clean, it's usually to reorganize my office or bookshelves or something. As I type, I should be sorting laundry and cleaning the kitchen.
I have no idea anymore how I came to your blog, but I love it. This post cracked me up because I am exactly the same way! I now fold all clothes directly upon removing them from the dryer (less wrinkles) but they still sit in the laundry basket until the next laundry day when I have to put them away so I can gather all the dirty clothes up off floor and put them into the basket!
And when I organize, I always seem to start with the all important kids' Tupperware cabinet! Possibly the most unneeded organizational effort ever!
I think we might secretly be twins. :) Hilarious and I've totally done the same things once or twice...er...let's not be technical with the number. :)
so glad I am not the only one...going to get my hubby right now to read this...hmmm, I guess as a way to justify my behavior. "see, I am not the only one struggling with this"...
My first question is this--ARE YOU NESTING? :)
Second, I totally get the sock-matching thing. Hate it. I will fold everything else in the pile, everything, and leave the socks. The kids seem to like that task, so I encourage it with my whole heart. :)
And I am the same as far as quickly picking the house up. I can look very, very neat. But when you see things at a certain angle, you see the smears and the dust and the fingerprints. I think I'm just getting to the point that I don't care. I can't care. If I do, I'll go insane.
And like you, cleaning is the FIRST thing to let go of when I'm too busy.
Hilarious! I'm not like that at all...uh, okay I'm lying. I pretend like I'm not like that. Case in point: our backyard was so out of control, I had to mow it twice just to get the grass to the point that you could walk in it and not tromp through it like the jungle. I even found a native indian tribe living it...along with gifts from Cooper and Poncho.
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