Clutter | Goddess in Progress

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Behold, my shiny sink

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (21)· June 16th, 2011

[And now, on a completely different note...]

I’ve really gone off the deep end this time. My husband is humoring me, but thinks I’m a little nuts. In the last five days, I have become obsessed with shining my sink.

I’ve mentioned it before, and those who have ever been to my house can attest, I am not a particularly neat person. Not filth-and-squalor, just clutter. Piles. Haven’t-taken-out-the-recycling-yet kind of mess. In addition to the general feeling of “I wish my house was cleaner,” I also felt like this situation needs to be addressed because, at some point in the next year or so, I believe we will try to sell this house. And that means staging, showing, cleaning, and packing. And it gives me heart palpitations just to think about it.

But if I have learned anything about myself, it’s that I like a plan with structure. I like rules, I like small steps. I like it laid out for me. I can’t lose weight by simply saying, “I’m going to eat more vegetables and less dessert.” I need to count my points on Weight Watchers. I can’t up and run a few miles just because I feel like it. I need to follow Couch-to-5K.

Enter, FlyLady.

For those who may not know about the FlyLady system, I described it to a friend of mine as “Couch-to-5K for cleaning.” You start with little steps. No need to think about running three whole miles, or decluttering your entire house. Day 1? Just shine your sink.

Shine the sink? Seriously? This is going to help me clean my house?

It would seem so.

In our house, it had long been the “deal” that, while I am in charge of all of the groceries and cooking, M is in charge of dishes and cleanup. Works for me, I hate doing the dishes. The trouble is, that often leads to a sink nearly overflowing with dishes by the time M gets home from work (since I’ve been too lazy and distracted to keep up, and have justified it with “it’s M’s job”), and a full dishwasher that hasn’t been run, and yesterday’s skillet never actually got washed in time for tonight’s dinner. Frustration abounds.

As of this week, though, I am nuts for an empty sink. For as much as I have always hated doing the dishes, it turns out it’s not that bad when you just get it over with immediately. And as silly as it seems, it really does make me a little calmer to go to bed with an empty (and shining) sink.

It’s already having a bit of a ripple effect. Spending all that time emptying the sink, I found myself annoyed with the state of the window above it, so both kitchen windows got cleaned, inside and out. There’s less crap left on the kitchen table, and I got rid of a bunch of old papers taking up space on the counter.

There’s still a long way to go, both in the program and towards the mess that is still the vast majority of my house. But using this tool as a way to chip away, bit by bit, I might just see some real progress.

Any other FlyLady devotees out there? Anyone want to hop in and do this program with me? With a buddy or two, I might be convinced to do before and after pictures of my messy house…

Comments (21)

Categories : Home, Just me

Tags : cleaning, clutter, FlyLady, mess, shiny sink

This is how we’re teaching our kids to live

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (16)· April 19th, 2010

My husband walked into the playroom/office. Stopped. Shook his head. Sighed.

“This is how we’re teaching our kids to live?”

It’s a mess. It’s always a mess. Our house is cluttered. Some days, some rooms are better than others. And it’s not like we’re dirty. We’re not candidates to be on the next episode of Hoarders. It’s just that there’s too much stuff, and it’s all over the place. It’s a mess. It’s always a mess. And this is what we’re teaching our kids.

M and I share the blame for the clutter. Oh, sure. It bothers me more often than it does him. He’s a guy, after all, and somehow has that selective vision that many of his gender share. And he’s arguably the one more likely to be a pack-rat who holds onto more items for mysterious sentimental or “just in case” value than I would. But I haven’t kept up with it, either. I can come up with reasons, of course. Not enough hours in the day, some lame idea that it’s not up to me, blah blah blah. It doesn’t matter. This is my house. This is my life. And this is what I’m modeling to my children.

It was when he put it that way that I really got smacked in the head with the seriousness of the situation. It’s not just that it’s kind of embarrassing when my mom comes to town, or that I’d rather have playdates in my yard than in my playroom. Though that, in itself, is bad enough. But the fact that I am very obviously modeling a behavior that I do not wish to see in my own children… well, there it is.

Obviously, you can think this way about nearly anything and it will either give you a pat on the back or a smack upside the head with regard to what you’re demonstrating to your kids. I’m going to try not to make myself crazy by examining every last facet of my life, all at once, with this question. But for now, I have to look around at my house, and think long and hard.

And so, let operation OMG PURGE THE CRAP begin. No room is safe. Toy purge. Clothes purge. Garage purge. I need the space. I need the air. I need the order. And I need to not teach my children that this level of mess is acceptable.

Comments (16)

Categories : Home

Tags : clutter, mess

Vacation Catch-up

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (7)· August 16th, 2009

I’m here, I’m home.

Been home for days, actually. And yet, have written nothing.

I’m in that slightly crazed, disorganized post-vacation mode. Getting back into the swing of things, shopping for groceries, doing laundry. You know, boring stuff that needs to be done before you can feel settled again.

Except, I’m feeling very un-settled. For one thing, my house is making me crazy. Maybe it was two weeks with my parents, who not only have larger houses than I do, but also keep them a hell of a lot cleaner. Happy as I was to be home, I walked in my door and felt claustrophobic. Smaller space, yes, but oh my god the clutter! So much crap! You know how you live with something long enough that you just stop seeing it? Well, I was away for long enough that I see it again. With a big, glaring spotlight on it.

The trouble is this: when do I deal with it? Most of my waking hours are with the kids, who are not exactly helpful when it comes to purging a house of all of its excess crap. Indeed, they seem to be magnets for the stuff. That leaves me with the 2-ish hours that they nap, and the 3-ish hours between when they go to bed and when I do.

That should be plenty of time, of course, but I end up doing other things. Eating lunch, taking a shower, lots of sewing, blog reading, and hiding in my bedroom with it’s blessed air conditioning window unit (holy crap, summer has finally arrived). Alas. Sometimes I wish I could either send the kids away for a day or two in order to get things done, or pay one of those people who make it their profession to throw out other people’s shit.

This all feels even more pressing to me than before, I think because in my own head I would like to imagine that we’ll be trying to sell our house sometime in the next year or so. I have no practical reason to believe that’s true, but it’s in my head, so there you have it. And it most certainly could not go on the market in its current state.

More tomorrow on other stuff that’s bugging me (I know, aren’t you excited!), but in the meantime, a few of my favorite pictures from our trip.