Several years back, I took a class called Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. It was a great class. I signed up for it thinking it would help me organize my house, but really, it was more about clearing mental clutter. It was life changing. There was an example that the speaker used of a vase. A person has a beautiful expensive vase in their house that they received as a gift. Said vase was a birthday present from a "friend" who the person no longer speaks to for one reason or another. Though the person thinks the vase is beautiful, every time she looks at it, she is reminded of the giver and has ill feelings. Solution? Get rid of the vase. No matter how beautiful, nice, etc. something is, if it makes you feel bad or are reminded of something negative whenever you look at it, get rid of it. I did that. I came home from that class and purged. Some of the stuff was hard to part with because I really did like it, but it was amazing how I felt when I did part with it. No more negativity every time I looked into a particular spot in my house. There are still some things that I have that my husband would prefer I don't part with, but for the most part, all the negativity is out of my house.
That all being said, I may not be the neatest, but I'm clean. I vacuum my house every day, at least the downstairs. Upstairs is usually every other day. It might seem a bit over the top to some people, but I can't stand dog hair and crumbs on my floors. Luckily, I have a very small house and kids who are used to this routine. They actually look forward to me vacuuming because they play "pirate ship" and they play nicely with each other. Since they play so nicely with each other while I'm doing the floors, I get time to steam mop also. I used to dust every other day, but that's gotten down to every week. I also used to be a dishes in the morning person. Up until about a month or two ago, I always waited to do the dishes in the morning. It drove me nuts to wake up to a pile of dirty dishes, but I was always so unmotivated at night that I didn't want to do them. A post from a friend of mine inspired me to change this habit and I couldn't be happier with the results. I haven't completely gotten Husband on board with the "no dirty dishes in the sink at bedtime" routine yet, but we're working on it! I found that if all my dishes are done at night, my kitchen actually stays cleaner during the day. My kids have picked up on this and actually help me keep the kitchen clean, other than bringing toys in and leaving them all over the floor, of course.
It truly is amazing how changing one small detail of your routine can make such large changes in your life. Because I now do dishes in the evening, I also take the recycling out before bed. Because the recycling is out, I tend to go to the recycling center more often. Because I go to the recycling center more often, my garage is cleaner. Because my garage is cleaner, I want my basement to be cleaner. Because I wanted my basement cleaner, I found a sitter for the kids. Yes, I actually hired a babysitter so I could clean my basement. And I have to say, my basement is awesome now. It's organized and clean. The kids can play down there an I don't have to worry about boxes falling on their heads. Because my basement is organized, I've worked harder at organizing all my clutter. Now, this doesn't mean I don't have piles of paperwork or miscellaneous stuff around. This doesn't mean I'm picking up my kids stuff every night and organizing it. This doesn't mean all my laundry is upstairs, folded and put away. However, it means I'm working at it.
So, if you come over you will find a positive household where you can eat off the floors, but you may not find room to set something down on the counter....at least not yet.