Cleaning the house was never something that I was concerned with. Clutter was everywhere, clothes were everywhere, and dishes were always piled high in the sink and on the counter. I hated cleaning, I loathed cleaning and for my overly distracted mind, keeping focus on the task at hand has always been difficult. Washing the dishes would lead to emptying and re-organizing the dish cupboard, laundry would lead to ripping apart the linen closet, and making the bed – well that often led to moving all the furniture around in the bedroom.
When my husband and I were first married, we lived in an apartment on the 12th floor of a rather nice building. The bonus of being on the 12th floor was that if someone “popped in to visit”, we had the time from when they buzzed to be let in, until they rode the elevator to the door, to clean up. This involved a mad dash to shove the dirty dishes into the oven (it was my method of choice to clean up). The clothes piles were tossed into the bedroom with the perpetually unmade bed and the door firmly closed. The junk lying around was tossed into a garbage bag to be dumped back out once they left. It is very embarrassing and yet funny at the same time to think back on it now. We must have looked something like they Keystone cops gone wild!
My husband and I both lost our parents fairly early in life, our grandparents are are also gone. This has resulted in a whole mountain of stuff. Not only do we have “our stuff”, we have “their stuff” too! Stuff is the root of most chaos and clutter in the home and ours had an abundance!
I do not live a quiet relaxing life, my life is chaotic! I am a mom to three amazing teenage daughters. Each daughter has their own unique personality and ways of contribution to the chaos. On top of being a Mom to three girls, I am a wife of 28 years, and a home daycare provider for almost 25 years. My first daycare babies are in the process of graduating from University now. There has always been a lot of action on the home front.
My life is spent running my daycare, shopping, mowing lawns, making many trips to the hospital, mowing the lawn, paying bills, organizing the girls and their activities, volunteering, going to church, and finding time to be supportive to my girlfriends and make time for them in my week. I live a life just like most others in the western world. Chaotic and pulled in a thousand directions!
Finally, now in my late 40’s I think I have finally developed a process to keep me organized and to keep my house "company ready" at all times. My dear husband has cancer so in the back of my mind, I keep the house at not just "company ready" but "sell ready" as well. This was not an easy transition, it did not happen overnight in some kind of epiphany; it happened one pile of clutter at a time, one drawer at a time, one room at a time.
My point here is, that if I can get my act together, you can too; one step at a time, one pile at a time, one drawer at a time. Time is your friend, not your enemy and you can overcome the chaos.
