Saturday, May 15, 2010

Time to Help Myself

So, I thought I would blog about this since I don't have many blog followers and could get it off my chest. Well, Anthony and I have been having some problems lately, bigger theAdd Videon normal. We both have things we want to work on. I for one, need to start working on not being lazy.


I know that quite a few of our arguments stem from silly things like laundry not being done, the house being a mess... etc. I HATE cleaning. Not to mention that even when I set my mind to start doing it on a regular basis and getting into a routine, I look at everything and get overwhelmed. This of course, leaves me not wanting to do a darn thing.


I come from a family of people who clean like crazy and seem to actually enjoy it. What on earth happened to me? I have, for as long as I can remember, been a messy person. I always try to clean my house before anyone comes over. Afterall, I grew up in a clean house and nobody ever came over to a messy place. In fact, even though our house seemed to always be clean, we put in extra effort to make it sprakle before guests would come over.


Why can I not be like that? I absolutely despise cleaning but also do not like a messy house. Like a I said, the problem I run into is getting to square one (a spotless, fully clean house) to keep it up from there. Although, my house has been 100% clean a few times and it has never stayed for long. I try to blame our house itself for my problems. For instance, our laundry room isn't so much a room as a space just big enough for a stacked washer and dryer tucked away in the back corner of my bathroom (like it's own little dungeon). Who on earth wants to spend their days back in that tiny corner doing laundry? NOT ME! I also like to blame my SEVERE lack of storage space in my house for my cluttered counters, corners, tables, etc. I have also never been a fan of dishes and I am even less of a fan of doing dishes when we LACK a dishwasher!!!


Alright. The point of this post was for me to own up to my biggest shortcoming. I have now done that. I also felt the need to show you exactly what my house looks like right this second. I now feel that I have admitted to the problem. It is now just a matter of taking the steps to fix it. My dilemma, where to start? Where to get the motivation to start and keep it up? Why can't I just program my brain to clean?


4 comments:

Kim said...

Don't beat yourself up over it. We all have those weeks or months or years! :P I don't think I ever have a fully clean house. Ever. Sometimes the upstairs is clean and the downstairs is trashed. Or the opposite. And those are on good days. Bad days or *cough* weeks *cough* mean that I attempt to just clean up the front rooms in case people come over! It's hard. I hate doing the same things over and over again. Or doing a deep clean and then watching Preston do a deep destroy!

Take baby steps! Try to keep one room clean at a time. I notice too that if I have regular playdates or people coming over I am much better at maintaining our house. For example I've started working out with Jaidean on MWF and because it's regular and she comes here I'm much better about picking up my messes every day. Maybe you just need to create a reason to clean up?? I've talked to people too that say that they schedule playdates when it's getting close to that time where things need to be gone through, becuase it gives them just enough motivation and sets a deadline.

Just think too that if you guys are moving, you will get to resettle yourself and start all over when you move into your house! Your house that hopefully will come with more storage! Although I don't know if that's a good thing or not, we have storage adn it just means I store more stuff! lol

All of that to say, you can do this! There will be good days and bad days. And you really aren't alone! We are all going through our cleaning funks lately! :)

Anonymous said...

I'm with Kim! I'm super motivated when people come over to play :) I also know how it is with having only one little one. All three of the older kids have chores as it is which is unbelievably helpful!

I took a good look at what was the messiest part of my house and went to work on THAT. For instance I always used to have clean diapers out, like the costco packs. I decided to have a little basket that goes on our book shelf that completely closes so you can't see in that has diaper, wipes and diaper cream.

I also know that certain toys really made a big mess and was really hard to keep up with. So I got rid of them. I got rid of a TON of toys. Yes, we were planning on having more but honestly my kids don't need a billion toys to have a good time. They need a few opened ended toys. Toys that i wanted to keep but didn't want down all the time (ie. Mr. Potato head, the match box cars, lincoln logs, dr. kit etc.) are separated in small plastic boxes on the top of the kids' closet.

Sometimes it's most helpful just to go through EVERYTHING you own (sippy cups, cleaning supplies, movies, books) and only keep what you really need (I only kept ONE sippy cup per kid) and make sure everything has a place. Even if you do less cleaning you have less stuff to be cluttered.

Really I know exactly how you feel, my house is never 100% clean. Ever. But i clean one room everyday and that way it's at least sanitary ;)
Good luck!

Anonymous said...

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Carissalayla said...

okay, so I know you don't know me (I saw your blog through Amber Domrese) but I have a few ideas for you! I am a clean freak and I have to tell you it's just as frustrating, my husband gets annoyed that I never sit down and get mad if anything is out of place so it seems I need to get a little messy! I have a friend who HATES to clean and everytime I go over to her house it looked like a bomb went off and I got excited because I want to clean it. If you have a friend who likes to clean as her to help. I swap free babysitting with cleaning my friends bathrooms and doing her dishes and cleaning her kitchen, it works out great! If I need a break from my kids she comes through and when she needs help with her house I come through for her. I hope this helps!