It began with the pencil drawer. Through attrition it had turned into a “why can I never find a pencil in this” drawer. So I dumped the thing out and sorted it. Then the drawer was lovely and neat, but the kitchen counter had piles of all the things I had taken out of it. As I took the piles to various locations in the house, I discovered that the reason all the junk had ended up in the drawer was because the places they belonged were also messy. Before I was done I helped organize both kids rooms, sorted the linen closet, vacuumed four rooms, helped my boys trade bunks, tightened all the bolts on the bunks so they wouldn’t wobble, did dishes, wiped counters, de-junked cubbies, and put away games. And just like the mouse in that book* I also took a nap in the middle, because I got really tired. At the end of the day the house looked much nicer than at the start, and I was still full of restless energy. Hopefully tomorrow I can rest.
*The book is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and if you haven’t read it, the title of this post will not make sense.
My anxious housecleaning usually goes in reverse: I need to make dinner, but I need this pot cleaned first. I can’t clean the pot until I rotate the dishes so that there’s room in the sink. I can’t rotate the dishes until I clear all the detritus off the counters so that I have room to sort and stage things. I can’t clear the counters when I keep tripping over the boys’ toys that they left in the kitchen… and so on. It happens almost every time. Yet I still sometimes have to explain to the lovely and lifts-where-she-stands Oyster Wife why I have (for example) to finish organizing the living room bookshelves before I can rearrange the office.
I’ve done the reverse thing too. Forward or backward, some days I end up with stuff done, other days I end up with a dozen things half done and me feeling frazzled.
I sympathize. Sometimes I give a moose a muffin and then he wants some jam. Then before I know it, my house is clean and I made supper and usually some muffins. 😉 But, it feels good to have order and cleanliness for awhile. And, I usually sleep well that night.
Nice! I love the rare, rare occasions when I’m overtaken by the house cleaning compulsion. Usually it’s a straining effort eased only by an audiobook.
I hope you can rest today, too.