Does a messy
home (or office) make you anxious and cranky, or is cleaning something you just
do before company comes over?
I would say
that now a days, I’m somewhere in between. When I was younger, and I mean in my
twenties, particularly after I had my first child, I would get anxious about
the house not being clean because I didn’t have the time or energy to clean it
like I was used to being able to do. You
see, I come from a home with a mother who would say, “Don’t look at my house;
it’s a wreck.” But her definition of a “wreck” meant, as our friend Jewel used
to say, that one of her nick knacks was a quarter of an inch off. That said, in
her 70’s, my mom still keeps an extremely clean and orderly home. So, it was bred into me to do the same, but
over the years, as I’ve gotten older, had another child, went through some
major life changes, started working full time, and moved back to the states
where time is more scarce than on the island, I am finding that my tolerance
for a messy home has increased.
I still get
to the point where it makes me anxious, but it takes a lot more mess to get to
that. I clean thoroughly more like
monthly now instead of weekly. And I
don’t mean dishes and laundry are piling up for a month…I mean dusting and
mopping the floors, vacumming the entire house, cleaning all the bathrooms
surfaces and toilets, etc…may get done only once a month. Hey, don’t judge me!! J
I do
continue to start and end each of my days with dishes. Can’t leave a dish in
the sink overnight…just can’t….bothers me too much. I pick up after myself and
my family as I go about my day. I wipe down toilet seats, counters, etc…very
regularly. I even pick up pieces of bark mulch or carpet fibers off the
hardwoods floors as I see them daily, but the deep cleaning doesn’t happen like
it used to.
The biggest
thing I do is clean up after people in my family before they are ready for me
too. This is a habit from my mom. I remember leaving a glass next to the couch
on the end table and going off to the bathroom when I was a teenager. When I
returned, the glass was gone. Mom had picked it up. I asked her where it was
and told her I wasn’t finished, but that was just her habit, and I do the same,
naturally. My husband is often asking me
where things are because I have picked up and moved them, and I don’t even
touch the kitchen anymore until we are done eating because I have put so many
things back away before my husband has finished with them (since he does all
the cooking, and I do all the dishwashing).
In fact, I think that may be one reason I am not so good at
cooking…because I am too worried about cleaning up as I go, so nothing is ready
all at the same time nor it is necessarily cooked right because I was too busy
working on cleaning up rather than focusing on getting the pasta done
correctly, etc…
Oh well,
that’s okay I suppose. I do the same
thing with my office that I do at home…when it gets too piled up or dirty, my
“spidey” cleaning sensors start to go off, and I begin to feel that if I don’t
clean up soon, I will flip-out, but it always works out. I rarely flip
out…about cleaning, that is. What about
you?
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