I have recently discovered that I am not a good housekeeper. That fact saddens me, because I am passionate about having a clean house. And I am still a bit in denial about my discovery. See, until this week or so, I mistakenly attributed my lack of good housekeeping to having young children making a mess in every room every day. The past five years or so have seen me juggling kids at home with lots of hobbies and a pretty busy work-at-home job. In fact, at one point, I actually worked three part-time jobs in the midst of the chaos of raising little ones. So I always thought that the reason the house stayed a mess was because I was too busy to take care of it.
When my younger child went to kindergarten this year, I celebrated, because I knew it would mean the beginning of having an eternally clean house. I would have time every single day to pick up messes, which would be fewer in number to begin with, and to do enough light cleaning each day to never have to do any heavy-duty cleaning. That worked really well for a week or two. I got the house really clean and fresh, and I was real proud of my efforts. It felt really good to walk through a perfectly tidy house and smell a nice candle burning. But I soon realized that I had to do it like, every single day to enjoy the cleanliness. The picking up, freshening bathroom counters, emptying the dishwasher, etc., absolutely required daily maintenance. And that maintenance really cut into my work time and hobby time.
Slowly. Quickly I found myself shortening my cleaning routines in order to get to the computer more quickly. The work was just bombarding me. I couldn’t give up an extra hour or 30 minutes or whatever. Then I found myself skipping my cleaning routines every now and then to get the work morning going even more quickly. Then I got sick for a week or two and did very little good on any front. And now I’m well, and my work is nearly caught up, and I’m heading into craft mode (YAY! I’ve been waiting for this for two months!!), and I’m looking around at a messy house. And I’m thinking, how did this happen?
Well, for starters, we did steam clean ALL the carpet in the house this month. And we painted the studio and master bedroom, and made new curtains and rearranged furniture and bought new bedding. But now I’m left with boxes of stuff we removed from these rooms, never to go back in, and I have to sort through them and DEAL with them. And I haven’t decided yet exactly what to hang on the walls and where. And I now have a massive watercolor painting to tackle to take center stage in the bedroom. And a few more sewing projects to round out the makeovers.
And I want to sew and craft with a vengeance, but now I’m heading into another website setup this week, a Halloween costume to complete, and a messy house once again. And I’m realizing, that yes, my house is messy because I am a little busy, but really, it’s mostly messy because I’d rather sit at the computer or sewing machine than fold clothes or mop the kitchen. And that’s my choice. I don’t like having a {marginally} messy house. But it’s so much more FUN than just keeping house all day. (or an hour a day.)
And to top things off, I’m seriously considering doing one of two things: 1) Opening a studio in town to make websites as a real job kind of thing, with lots of clients and daily office hours; OR 2) Sewing and crafting my heart out and blogging all about it, complete with tutorials, downloads, and all the bells and whistles of a crafty blog. One of those will be a little more lucrative than the other. You can take a guess at which one. And I would LOVE either. But one has a bit more of the fun element to offer. And I could still carry on my work-at-home ways. And I could still have the time to become a better housekeeper. You know, when things get slow.
