Cleaning

So, I'm a terrible housekeeper. I can admit it... my house tends to be messy all the time. I can blame it on the fact that I have a large family in a small house, but the truth is it could be a lot better if I were better at cleaning.

Why am I a terrible housekeeper? I've been thinking through it...

Laziness? Sometimes. Sometimes the house is messier than it should be because when I finally sit down and I hear my two year old doing something that is messing up the house, I just flat out don't want to get up and do anything about it. But, generally, I am "busy"... just not busy cleaning... so I wouldn't say it's laziness most of the time.

Ignorance? Partly. I spent my preschool and elementary years living with my mom who was beyond terrible as a housekeeper. I won't elaborate right now, as that is not what this post is about. Then my stepmother taught me some things like washing dishes and mopping, but I didn't really learn much about home organization/planning/dealing with clutter.

Attitude? Yes. Not a bad attitude, but an "all or nothing" mentality. I do not want to clean a little bit at a time. If I cannot accomplish cleaning the entire house in one day, I do not want to clean anything. Having a day like this is rarely possible with our schedule and the kids.

Circumstances? Partly. We live in a 1400 sq. foot, 3 bedroom house and the floorplan is less than ideal for keeping things organized. And there are a lot of us... and several of us that create mess, but aren't yet old enough to completely clean up after ourselves. But, like I say, there are things that could be done to fix a lot of the issues we have.

So, what am I gonna do about it? A neat house is important... it's important to my husband (and that's enough reason right there... I love him so!!)... it's important to my sanity (it drives me crazy to not be able to find something)... it's important to my children's lives (I want them to learn better than I did)... so, it's important. Because it's important I need to fix it.

I de-clutter all the time... it seems anyway. I am not a hoarder, but it still seems there is always too much stuff. That is partly because my house is small for my family size, but it is also because I don't have things set up the way they need to be in order to make it easier for everyone to find where things go.

So, I plan to spend the next week getting things set up differently. Prayerfully this will help my entire family make keeping things neat more of a priority.

And I will also be praying my attitude about this changes :-) I will have to tell myself that it's okay to clean only one room in the house... it's really not an "all or nothing" thing... even if my brain says it is :-)

I will keep you updated and will try to post pictures :-)