A cleaner house

I've never been a particularly neat person when it comes to my house.  I don't know why - laziness, I guess. I just tend to "overlook" the mess.  So, it's always a struggle for me to keep a neat and clean house, but I do try.  It's gotten a lot easier as the kids have gotten older and there aren't a million toys everywhere that I just could not keep up with.  I've always done well keeping the living room looking nice and for the most part the dining room (the 2 rooms a visitor can see when first walking in my front door!).  The rest of the rooms are more difficult for me.  I tend to have "clutter zones" - my side of the bathroom counter, the cedar chest in my bedroom, the floor in my bedroom or bath (dropping clothes), the whole kitchen, and worst of all my desk.  And when your house is cluttered and messy - well......that sure makes it tough to actually CLEAN!

I've tried and tried over the years to be neat and organized.  Sometimes I do well for a few weeks but it eventually gets back to "normal".  I've noticed though, that in the past year or so I'm gradually making my way toward less clutter and messiness.  A big part of that was getting rid of a ton of stuff to Goodwill and a garage sale at my mom's.  And in the past couple of weeks I seem to have come leaps and bounds! I don't know what has gotten into me.  But I realize I just feel much more peaceful when everything is neat and clean.  I'm getting the "neat" part down and now am feeling more desire for the "clean" part to follow.

The kitchen has been totally clean every day this week! I just clean up whatever little mess has been left every time I go in there and Dd has been better about cleaning up the dishes soon after dinner.  I cleaned my bedroom last weekend (ie hung up all the clothes piled on top of my cedar chest) and have just easily gotten into a routine to hang up or put away in a drawer (if it's not dirty) or toss in the hamper.  For the past year I take just a few minutes each morning before I leave for work and straighten up whatever got messed up in the living room after I went to bed the night before (I am the first to go to bed and the first up).

Now I just need to tackle my desk area! It's my very worst area of all and I just haven't bitten the bullet to clean and organize it all again, because everytime I do it's just back to a mess within a week.  But at least my house is now tidy and I can spend some time actually doing the deep cleaning work!  I feel so much better about myself, too :-)