Mess Making and Unmaking

Who ever would have guessed that I would be a housewife? Meet Rowena, the homemaker.

I suck at it. I'm the creative type, the girl who reads a lot of books, who writes poetry and stories. The one who encourages others to be creative and go for their dreams. I'm the teacher, the bartender, the free spirit who likes outdoor music festivals and walking around Manhattan just trying to discover whatever there is to see. I'm the one who shops in thrift stores and has a garden on her fire escape and cooks last minute meals for one and watches lots of tv while painting pictures in her journal, and lives in a constant mess of creative clutter.

But now I have to plan and organize and get a hold of the mess. Now that I stay at home all the time, and cook meals 3 times a day and run around after a toddler who thinks throwing toys, food, books, papers on the floor is the height of entertainment, it is really not okay to live in the mess of the benign clutter that I am used to. I don't even know how to really clean, I realize. I have to research how to do it. Isn't that wacky? Researching housekeeping.

Flylady and Martha Stewart help. Except I am not as dedicated as either of them would have me be. I get the point of shining your sink and washing your dishes right after you're done, but I just don't seem to be able to keep up. The dishes are my nemesis. They never stop, and they just pile up and get worse and worse and then the whole cleaning thing gets overwhelming.

Those of you who have dishwashers don't know how lucky you are. I've been sick and let the dishes go for two days, and it's terrible again. I guess I can't take a day off of housecleaning, even if I'm sick. One of the good things about having a day job is that you can get away from it sometimes.

Ugh. Instead of letting the stupid dishes take over my life and defeat my cleaning aims, I am going to focus on purging. Flylady has an idea where you toss 27 things a day. I like that idea and have been trying to, but don't think I've managed that many things in a day.... unless I count the bag of old tights and socks with holes that I threw out yesterday. I guess I could.

It might be easier to keep things in order if I had less stuff. I really dream of the day when I have a place for everything and everything in its place. I do actually like organizing, but the cleaning always seems to get in the way. At least Spring is a good time to take this on as a project.