Ok, so it’s no episode of hoarders over here, but it is pretty messy.
The dining room table is covered with clutter.
The coffee table is covered with clutter.
The love seat has clutter, the floor has clutter, the bathroom counter and bedroom floor have clutter.
It’s enough to make me real grumpy and a lot overwhelmed.
I really dislike having all this stuff sitting around making the house look messy. It makes my mind feel messy.
But when I get home from work and have other work to do, the stuff around here kind of piles up.
True, we work on it when we can, and when we feel like it, and we almost always have the kitchen nicely clean, but I can’t help but feel like I can’t really focus on the tasks I have to do when I’m thinking about how messy the house is. I hate having to clean up before I have space to start a project.
Maybe this is something I’ll get used to as we get more settled into marriage. I’m sure we’ll get grooves and rhythms and patterns of how we use our home and how we manage the everyday messes that occur. I certainly managed to function all through high school and college at my parents’ house when the floor in my room would get completely covered with clothes, books, and who knows what all else.
It’s not that I’m naturally one of those people that cleans all the time or has to put things away as soon as I use them.
I’m not like that at all. My mom will certainly vouch for that!
I’m in a hurry. I’m busy. I have things to do and people to see. I have jobs 1, 2, and 3 to balance.
But I also really hate to be surrounded by clutter. That’s why I keep my bookshelves as free from knick-knacks as possible and hesitate to set things on my counters. I like things neat.
I feel more at peace when I’m surrounded by a space that’s organized…
…even though I seldom take the time to organize as I go…
so I end up with a big pile of organizing to do all at once.
And then I get huffy and salty.
And Hubs gets annoyed that I’m huffy for no real reason.
After all, the house was messy yesterday, why am I suddenly freaking out over it?
It’s an endless cycle.
I have a feeling this is something that won’t go away unless we work on it. Life won’t slow down enough for us to always have a perfect house, and that’s fine. It’s perfectly fine. I don’t need a clean house all the time. I want our home to look loved and used and lived in. I just don’t want to have to move a giant pile of mail and half-folded-laundry every time I want to use the table for something.
Ideas?
Solutions?
I had an idea last night that Hubs and I should try to focus on cleaning at least one little area of the house each night before we go to bed. The table, the coffee table, the bathroom counter, the sides of the bed where we both end up with a pile of worn laundry….you get the idea.
That way, we’ll go to bed feeling like we accomplished something specific and tangible, and things won’t get so overwhelming for me to freak out over and get huffy and stomp around cleaning while Hubs sits on the couch looking at me with a confused look on my face.
See what I mean?
What about you? What keeps your house from getting clutter-crazy? How do you handle it when it feels overwhelmingly messy? Is this something that affects your marriage at all? Does it cause fights? I’d love some tips and tricks!
