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Sunday, August 7, 2011

My name is Kelli, and I hate clutter.

I can't help but wonder when I turned into a neat freak.

I mean, I'm certainly not as much of a clean freak as a lot of people I know. Yet slowly but surely I've begun to turn into my mother. I have to empty the dishwasher and vacuum the family room first thing in the morning. I can't stand clutter on the counter tops. I have to get up and do the dishes immediately after dinner. And I can't relax at night until the dishwasher is running, the counters are disinfected, Brennan's toys are cleaned up, and all of the clutter is put away. There's just something so refreshing about waking up to a clean house. Oh my God ... that's my mom's line.

None of these things are especially neurotic in my opinion, but if you knew me at all in my previous life (a.k.a. any time before moving to Florida/getting pregnant) you'd be AMAZED at how irritable I get when I'm not able to accomplish these tasks. I mean, I was a class A, award winning SLOB. Just ask my parents, sisters, college roommates, husband ... any of them will tell you that my room rivaled the look of the houses on Hoarders.

And then I got a little better when I had Brennan. The thought of letting my kid live in filth grossed me out. But the clutter didn't necessarily bother me. And then ... we moved to Florida. And I got pregnant. And a switch flipped. And I became the crazy anti-clutter, things must be cleaned my way lady.

I don't see this as a bad thing in the least. Part of me thinks that since I'm now a SAHM, I take the responsibility of keeping a clean house, and a routine, a lot more seriously because I have the time and energy to do so. Working nights, and an irregular schedule, leaves you with zero energy and makes it very difficult to get into a routine. Now that that lifestyle is behind me, I'm finding it easier, not to mention more enjoyable, to stick to a routine and provide my family with a clean environment ... even if they just mess it up.

The thing that's throwing me for a loop lately is the fact that I'm having difficulty keeping up with it. And people that come to help don't necessarily have the same cleaning motivation and priorities that I do. So things aren't getting done in the order in which I'd like them to. And many aren't getting done at all. And I'm having to take a deep breath and convince myself that the world will not end. I just need to let my inner-control-freak calm itself. People are here to help and don't necessarily need to do things my way, as long as Brennan is taken care of.

But that doesn't mean I can't count down the days til my Mom comes to help me clean this place ... and do things the RIGHT way ;)

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