www.flylady.com
This is how we get to that place where the house is clean and we are calm and happy.
I actually used to do this.
The site is free. She starts you out in fifteen minute segments. The key is, a 15 minute job, every day, over time, and a schedule. Which she provides, along with lots of support and humor. The thing we forget is that creating a home is a daunting, demanding thing. Ambiance is key. How it looks, how it smells, how it sounds, whether you celebrate your lives there or just kind of drop off your laundry. It is a huge, important thing, making a home.
But we are all sort of looking away from that these days, and pretending that somehow, someone will magically whisk everything clean and cook dinner and grocery shop while mom works, too.
So, it's a big job, Lil. Don't get down on yourself.
When we first started going through the battles with difficult child daughter, I lost all interest in the house. I felt like such a failure. I went back to school and recreated a self to be.
I had always really wanted to be a mom.
We sold that house, and I am glad we did. The house we bought next was on water. The kids were both there alot, but the same darkness was not in that house, and there was much joy there. This one, the kids have never visited.
This one is ours.
That has helped us go on from those two crushed-parent identities.
***
Anyway, I cleaned out two closets. I am still contemplating the others. That is why I am back again. Any minute now, I will be going in. (Jaws theme song.)
Actually, what I am up here doing now is checking the value of some of the Christmas things I am considering selling on E Bay.
Cedar