Oh well.

The Joyful Housewife is about my journey not theirs – and my personal struggle is with clutter, disorganization, and procrastination – especially when it comes to cleaning.

Following are my cleaning and clutter- busting goals for the next month (Febuary)  These are easy things I can start doing regularly that will make me feel better. They are also things that I’ve long had huge aversions to doing.

Blech

1. Wipe my kitchen counters every night. 
I can’t explain why, but I hate wiping counters. When I mention this to people they say things like,

• “I love wiping my kitchen counter!”
• “I ALWAYS have to wipe my counters. I’m like obsessive about it.”
• “It gets so gross if you don’t wipe it.”

Well they’ve already discovered what I’m learning. You really feel better when it’s done – and it’s not that bad to do it. The mental benefit definitely outweighs the physical cost – if only it weren’t so hard to remember that.

2. Clear off and wipe down dining table every night. It really improves my morning when I walk into the room and the table is all cleaned off and wiped down. I think we let things pile up on the table because we don’t have storage space, or know where to put things.

3. Wipe bathroom counters weekly. It is so much easier do to when it hasn’t gotten overly dusty

4. Empty bathroom garbage cans every couple of days. It just looks gross when the wastebasket is full – and then I stress-out when I want to invite someone over or someone stops by.

5. Abide by the “one-minute rule”* to avoid procrastination. I stumbled upon this idea at Gretchen Rubin’s website about her best-selling book The Happiness Project. She explains it in a few different posts and videos. Basically, if it will take less than a minute, like rinsing a dish, putting it in the dishwasher, filing a piece of paper, etc, then just do it right now. A lot of little things can really add up if you don’t just do them immediately, before they can even have an effect on your psyche.

How does this schedule sound to all you naturally clean people. Does it sound about right?

(A surprising amount of people Google do-nothingism, I’ve discovered. One of my most popular posts is Battle Do-Nothingism With a Stew and Feel Better, in which I was feeling pretty depressed, forced myself to cook, and felt better in the end.)

The idea is that when you are not in a mood to enjoy or do anything, if you do something, anything, you will feel somewhat better.

But what do you do when your stike against do-nothingism fails?

Last week, I had finally motivated myself to cook something again, something more exciting than whole wheat mac and cheese, and I made a very fancy quinoa salad. Though I wasn’t feeling particularly good that day, I took the little one shopping, almost gave up when the first store didn’t even have zucchini, forged ahead, even when Sebastian tried to thwart my efforts, and produced a finished quinoa salad, with currants, dill, zucchini, and lemon …

… that sucked.

I felt bad, I pushed myself to do something, and I still felt bad.

Almost worse. There was an angry moment of failure where I wanted to cry. Just for a moment. So I lashed out at my husband (sorry, Tim). Then I went to bed.

During my many night-time awakenings, I kept envisioning drying the soggy quinoa in the oven somehow. And maybe it would have been enough to spread it on a cookie sheet and dry it that way, I don’t know. But I still needed to “do” something.

So, as I’ve already chronicled, I got up the next day and turned my soggy quinoa into muffins (which honestly, were, meh – still a little soggy in the middle, and not my favorite flavors).

And, that day, I was flying high with my “doing!” I thought,

“This is it! This really is the solution to all my mood problems! I need to “do!” And the more I do the better I’ll feel. I’ll cook all the time. I’ll spend all day in the kitchen! And because I’m in here all the time, I’ll keep it clean. I’ll have more energy, I’ll exercise more,  I’ll throw in a load of laundry here and there, clean the bathrooms, and every day I’ll just get better and better at this thing called life!”

I was all excited about posting about my new epiphany and my raised energy levels.

And then yesterday – I felt like CRAP again.

I’m not giving up on this “do something, anything” idea, though. I do think it’s essential in fighting depression. So, yesterday, I strapped Sebastian into the mei tai baby carrier and I cleaned as much as I could of this messy house, even though I was feeling terribly overwhelmed. I put some clutter away, I washed a few pots and pans, I did a load of laundry, I broke down several boxes, and put most of the tower of recyling in the garage. And I felt alright come bedtime.

And I feel somewhat better today.

I guess I’m proud of myself for not letting my cooking failure get the best of me. I kicked do-nothingism in the butt, and it did make me feel better for awhile.

It’s just that there isn’t a an accomplishment in the world that will make me feel good all the time.

My days are a series of exaggerated highs and lows in a sea of lethargy.

I mean, I know that’s pretty normal. Most “mommy bloggers” admit to being quite a moody bunch. But, then, there are also a lot of people who have a ton of energy, and aren’t overwhelmed by every little thing that must be done to keep a house clean and food on the table.

I dunno. Maybe I just need to cut out caffeine, or sugar, or gluten.

If you know the answer, please let me know!

I can’t even keep track of the number of dishes I’ve broken since living in this old, dishwasher-less house.

And this is NOTHING.

Recently I managed to take-out four or five wine glasses at the same time!!!!!

My friend was helping me hand-wash and dry a ton of dishes. I was just marveling at how sparkly and pretty the wine glasses looked after she had towel dried them and lined them up on the counter – I always leave them to air-dry – and a glass slipped out of my soapy hand, obliterating all of them.

I don’t even know exactly how many broke. It was just a sea of shards everywhere.

I stood there with my mouth wide open and I just had to laugh it off. I couldn’t believe her reaction either! She was the best possible friend to have had there at that moment  – because she Didn’t. Even. Flinch. She just asked where the dust-pan was.

And that was what I needed right then.  Because it couldn’t be changed – and I didn’t need any concerned looks to set off my guilt spiral.

Because it’s difficult to keep my thoughts from spinning out of control when I break a dish. About what a careless, clumsy, failure I am.

But I’ve learned to let it go as quickly as it happens. (Perhaps because it’s happened so often?)

It’s just a dish.

I’ve learned that even if it’s a sentimental dish – it’s *just* a dish.

Unlike Messies, Cleanies have mental schedules they themselves are not aware of. Their minds are like computers going down their list of things to do.

The power that activates the computer is in the eyes. Again and again they say, “When I see…” or “If it looks dirty, I…”

Their goals are visual and they become uncomfortable if something is out of place. Cleanies are not afraid to use shortcuts because they are confident in their own cleaning ability and don’t feel it necessary to prove anything by doing things the hard way.

They tend to get up with a bang and get going with purpose. They frequently have a time goal in mind and work fast to meet it. You might think they are uptight people. They don’t seem to be. In fact, they often are gracious, warm, and creative. They can afford to be because they have enough time to do whatever they want to do!

So, Cleanies have innate characteristics that differ from me, and possibly you:

• They are sensitive to subtle visual cues that tell them when something needs cleaning.

• They just do it. When something needs cleaning, they do it almost without thinking. They certainly don’t waste time thinking about how to do it.

• They don’t care about perfection. I like the observation that they have nothing to prove. If you are a born Messie, like me, you may often feel like you need to clean something perfectly because you have so much guilt and shame about being messy that you think there is a right or perfect way to clean something.

• They have more time in their lives to do whatever they want to do – they are not weighed down by shoulds because they have already done them!

Sandra Felton on Cleanies:

One thing my Cleanie friends have in commmon is that they don’t understand. They don’t understand at all. I can always tell true Cleanies by the way they react when they hear that I teach a class on housekeeping.

They look blank, very blank.

“Oh, it is a class on cooking.”

“No, housekeeping.”

“Oh, I see, a class on interior decorating.”

“No, actually it’s housekeeping.”

“Oh.”

Silence. How can you continue discussing the inconceivable? Why would anybody need a class on housekeeping?

One blank-faced woman told me soberly that if I did have a class on housekeeping nobody would come. Since I had been having well-attended classes, I asked her why she thought nobody would come.

“Obviously, if people have messy houses it is because they want them that way. And, if they want them that way, why would they attend the class? So nobody will come.”

If Cleanies only knew how we struggle! But housekeeping comes so naturally to them that they don’t understand at all.

Let me know I’m not alone here! Are you a Messy, too?

(***Note: When this was originally posted, I had two kind commenters. Unfortunately, all comments have been lost.)

But when I get myself to make coffee, put on some music, and this adorable apron that my talented little sister made me for a wedding, gift doing dishes without a dishwasher becomes a lot more tolerable. Almost fun! (Okay, that’s a lie!)

I love my pink dish gloves and various aprons. Aprons are especially important for me because we’ve lost the little round thingy that goes on the end of the faucet to direct the flow of water, so I always end up completely soaked in the front after doing dishes by hand. (I’ve also managed to break about 15 glasses this year. Housework is not my strong suit!!!!!! Hence, my extreme need for motivational attire.)

(***Note: When this was originally posted, it received 6 comments. Sadly, all comments have been lost.)