That is what I would say if someone asked me how I live my life. My house is generally messy with bits of construction paper on the table and floor, markers, crayons and stamps strewn from one room to the other (including the back porch and patio). There are quite possibly crumbs from breakfast and lunch under the table and dog fur balls in the corners of the room. On my kitchen counter I have sale papers, cards, letters, bills and so forth. Nothing very bad and no where near filthy or anything like that, but messy none the less. I have a fantastic girlfriend who got me a book called the Messies Manual, The Procrastinators Guide to Good Housekeeping, by Sandra Felton. Would you know it has been 2 years I think since she gave me that book and I still haven't read it. Ohhhhh....and now I am wishing I had because though chaos has been a way of life for us for a while as our current residence has no real storage. We have learned to accept it. However, we are getting ready to put our house on the market. We are moving across the country and, I can only hope to a bigger place with more storage! Anyway, we rented a storage shed and moved lots of our stuff in there and the house really does look a lot better (less clutter), but now I have to get into keeping it perfectly clean and show ready. Ugghh, I can't even imagine how miserable this is gonna be. I feel stressed out and it hasn't even started yet. I am not in a habit of the house being spotless and I have allowed the children to just "be and create" wherever the mood struck them, even if it be away from a table or any organized craft area.
Just an ordinary day at my house!
Mom this looks like blood doesn't it?
I am right now wishing that I had more of my mother's cleaning habits. The house I grew up in was always clean and dust free...the whole nine. I dust like, well I'll be honest, maybe once a year if that. I know that sounds pretty bad, but if I am vacuuming some area and I see that a spot gets dusty then I will dust that area. Occassionally I will get in a "mood" and I will dust that one spot and then get everything else in the house dusted as well, but it is never a planned dusting, it just seems to happen. I guess it may be more than once a year, but but not much more than that. I am not and have never been an organized cleaner, so this is gonna be a huge learning experience for me as well as my kids. It's only for a few months, but I am thinking that I can hardly imagine it for one day. We rarely have guests so I don't even have that "oh my goodness someone's coming over lets hurry and clean" kind of experience to draw from. I mean, sometimes if a repair person is coming or something we will do a quick run through and put some things away so it doesn't look so messy. But we never do a deep cleaning for stuff like that. And my poor children, what will they feel like when I have to ask them to clean up their messes as they are making them or if I am following after the 5 of them cleaning up as I go constantly? I hope it doesn't take away the desire to create and play as they do now. In other words, I hope that they don't decide that it isn't worth the hassel to take things out to play with because they will have to clean it up right away rather than leave it and come back to it later as they most often do now. Maybe I am just making more out of this than it will really be like. I don't have anyone to ask. The only people we have really known in the past 14 years have lived in Base Housing, where you hire a cleaner for around $200-$400 to clean your house on base so that it would pass inspection when you are being transferred. Maybe I am panicking for nothing. Maybe I can make a game out of it with the kids. Maybe if we keep it pretty neat, and if the realtor calls me to let me know that someone is coming to look at it, then I can do a quick tidy up. Oh, I am really getting worked up over this. I am not even sure that I realized how deeply this was bothering me until I started writing about it this morning. I need to step back and organize my thoughts and look at the house. Maybe Justin and I could come up with some sort of schedule that would help the situation to not be so overwhelming to me. Yikes, I just realized how long this post is! How can anyone write one post n the paranoia of having to clean the house...I can that's how! This is sad, I reread this and I sound like a very whiny, unorganized, messy person! Yikes, I'm off to clean something and redeem myself. Maybe I'll start with the kitchen table since they are creating outside on the porch for the moment. Just maybe it won't be as bad as I am imagining it to be! I am off now on a cleaning mission, wish me luck, I'm gonna need it! Good day!
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