Well, to combat my inability to just take off and go for a looong hike in the mountains (they got whomped with snow in the last storm, and the kids are sleeping), I instead decided to go sit, in the sunshine, in shorts and a tank top on my deck for a good hour...but the wind was so cold today that I ended up coming back in about 15 minutes later.
Foiled by the stupid wind (whatever happened to the warm winds of spring...can you say "hello Chinook???"), I turned my attention instead to the inside of my house...can you tell I'm a bit OCD about things? I suppose doing housework when I'm bored is better than sitting on my rear watching soap operas and eating mindlessly...not that there's anything wrong with soap operas...I am, in fact, a Days of Our Lives junkie, and am anxiously waiting to see how Steve and Hope escape from the clutches of crazy Ava Vitali...and how long it will take Chelsea to get herself into hot water with Nick over Dr Dan...but we were talking about my OCD.
I just spent the better part of the last 90 minutes vacuuming my basement carpet. Let me explain why precisely this is OCD, and not just good housekeeping: Our basement is as yet unfinished, and the carpet is what was taken out of our friends' old house when they replaced it. It is only about 3 years old, but was not cut for our shape of room, nor is it anything I would EVER pick out for carpet in a million years. It is putty colored pile carpet...I prefer my carpet to be either white, or a color...not this dirty color. It is just not my style...but it was free, and we knew we wouldn't be leaving it down there forever...so...as I've been working through the rest of my boxes of things and clothes and "stuff", I haven't vacuumed for quite a while. I got so grossed out by the clumps of black cat hair, and the piles of sheeetrock dust (yes, piles) that I stopped working through things down there until last week when I packed away my china. I decided that the next yucky day I'd go down stairs and vacuum the heck out of that room. Well, I got wrapped up in other things, and didn't get to it today. HOWEVER...that carpet has NOT one speck of cat hair until the cats go back down and wrestle, and NO sheetrock dust. It is nice. I would actually let Captain Chaos play down there today! Which was part of the purpose for putting the carpet down there to begin with...along with his big toys that I don't want outside.
SO, the next project is to take some of the toy cars and some other big items down there so that he can play wile Tiny Princess snoozes and I work on going through a box/bag at a time.
Why, you may ask, do I have this obsession???? We just learned from MIL (also the family accountant) that our return is smaller than we thought it was going to be. Not a large issue, any money we get back is more than we have right now, as many of you well know. BB has decided that we are going to price out framing the entire perimeter of the basement, and run electrical. If we have enough, we'll sheetrock my office area, and build me some snazzy cabinets. That being said, I absolutely MUST get my office sorted out and in order, so that I can begin hitting my Mary Kay business with true gusto, and not spend hours cleaning up so that I can make phone calls to schedule appointments. You can see where this is going can't you?
I am one of those people that cannot simply put away my winter clothes, and get out my spring/summer things. I must first wash everything, whether it is coming or going and then sort through every shelf and drawer in and on which I place my clothing and shoes. I then have to polish all of my shoes, refold those items that didn't get washed (such as socks and unmentionables, as they are worn on a more regular basis than other things), wipe out my drawers, and dust every crevice, as well as vacuum the closet floor. After I finish the clothing, I have to then scrub and sort through all the drawers and cabinet space in the master bathroom...but then I get distracted by cleaning out the window tracks...and the cycle spins out of control before I know it.
Knowing this about myself, I will react one of two ways...I either work myself into oblivion and crash exhausted at the end of the day...OR I totally avoid all such projects knowing that I do not wish to be exhausted for days on end...I'm a mom, I'm already perpetually exhausted... hee hee.
SO...the basement sorting is a project I have been avoiding since last summer. There, I said it out loud...my basement has been a nightmare of boxes and piles and bags since we moved Captain Chaos into his big boy room, began the redecorating of the nursery, and moved my office to the basement. Our upstairs is in fairly finished shape. Sure, there are things in the closets in the kids and guest room, as well as the master that need sorted and put away...the main floor is done with all that, and just needs picked up at the end of each week. But the basement is my dirty little secret...since its unfinished and we have no gaming system, or entertainment center down there, no one but the animals are down there on a regular basis...so it was VERY easy to let my boxes pile and stack and get out of control. Now, as a result, I have been working on the darn basement since Tiny Princess was only 2 weeks old...and in addition to cleaning up my stuff (which about 80% of what I have to go through is), I'm also cleaning up from the construction, only to think to myself that if we're going to frame in the basement, why am I bothering to clean everything?!?!?!?!?
I decided while I was down there this morning, that I am no longer using my lack of desire to do housework in the basement as an excuse to not work. By that, I mean that I'm going to get things cleaned up and organized with what I currently have, and keep it clean. As we finish the basement and build my cabinets and closet, I'll use those, and KEEP IT CLEAN...I'm tired of telling myself I can't do something because of the mess. I either tell myself I can't because I'm going to clean it up, or because it didn't get cleaned up. NO MORE!
I want my house to look like my mother's...a magazine spread from your favorite decorating magazine...or something Candice Olson would do on Divine Design...shiny, clean, live plants flourishing, decorated perfectly...ready for anyone and anything at anytime...so clean you could eat off the floor if you wanted to. And you'd be able to do that, because instead of my spending my time picking up and putting away large amounts of stuff, it would all be under control, and I'd spend my time doing the things I want, with only a teensy part of my day spent sweeping and vacuuming after the kids eat...
Doesn't that sound loverly? I feel like Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady", here I am, my own version of Eliza, singing "All I want is a room somewhere..."
No comments:
Post a Comment