Everyone has their own little day dreams. Things that they really want, but haven't been able to achieve yet. Open a restaurant, write a book, stuff like that. My day dream? The thing I think about and yearn for but don't know how to achieve? To be the kind of person with a clean, beautiful house. To be able to look at my surroundings as enjoy what I see. To be the person who washes the dishes right away, who puts things away right away, who does a quick clean-up before bed each night.
I keep seeing commercials for swiffer sweepers, wet jets, dusters. They are supposed to make cleaning easier, make it so you spend less time cleaning and more time enjoying your life. For me, using any of those items would be adding to the work I do - since I don't do any sweeping, mopping, or dusting in the first place.
I tell myself that if I get the house clean, I'll be able to keep it that way. But it never turns out that way. We have cleaned before, gotten the house looking nice. We've had people come over and help us clean. But I never keep it up. Inevitably, the mess creeps back in and the house looks disastrous again.
I want so much to go through the entire house and throw away everything we don't need, don't use, don't want. I want to start from scratch, clear out the house and put it back together one piece at a time. Paint the walls, renovate the kitchen, make over the bedrooms, the living room, the family room, the bathrooms. I want to decorate, and make everything look pretty. I want the clutter gone. I want everything to have a place, and I want everything to be in its place.
But I want it all at once. I feel that if I do anything, I have to do everything. If I clean the kitchen, I have to clean the dining room. If I clean the dining room, the living room needs to be done too. Then I have to clean the bathroom, and the upstairs bedrooms. If I do the upstairs, I have to do the entryway and the downstairs. The family room, the kids' rooms, the bathroom downstairs. Clean the walls, paint over all the "art" on the walls, replace the carpets, take down the wallpaper, install new fixtures in the bathrooms, scrub the grout, build a bed frame for our bed, find beautiful artwork, reupholster the wing chairs in the living room, get rid of the hide-a-bed and move the couch, rearrange all the furniture.
And the list in my mind keeps growing and growing, and I get so overwhelmed I give up before I start, and nothing ever gets done.
Anyway. That's just my rambling. Whatever.
3 comments:
You're NOT alone! You have just perfectly articulated much of how I feel about my own home. And I feel crazy for it, so I'm really glad to see someone else really does feel about the same as I do. Thanks for posting, and good luck resolving those feelings!
I know all too well how this feels. Especially since all the kids are so little! BUT I have found that taking the time to teach the kids to clear off and wipe down the table, and to sweep the kitchen and dining area has proved invaluable. Even if they just unload the dishwasher it helps me get over the "I hate dishes" hump. I have days when I wonder how much of them doing chores is just to prepare them for the future, and how much is me not wanting to do any housework. I figure if they do it it might not be perfect, but it will be better than nothing. Don't listen to the perfectionist voices in your head, just do what you can as much as you can and things will slowly get better (which is much better than them never getting better)!
I know how you feel! I feel that way all the time, too. I have been trying to use FlyLady, which talks about just doing a little at a time. Even if I just read an email a day from her, it helps me remember that it didn't get cluttered in a day, so it won't get clean in a day. It helps me as long as I don't get sick or too busy with other stuff. I am writing this looking at a house that is disastrous at this moment. I was sick last week, and not 100% this week. Dishes piling up and stuff all over the place. You are not alone.
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