Clean House

Let's be honest.

I suffer from depression from time to time.  In my lowest lows, I can often feel Satan kicking me while I am down.  It is a dark, sad place.  Sometimes I just need a kind person to reach down and pull me out.

Yesterday, I slowly spiraled downward throughout the day.  I finally hit the bottom before bedtime when I prayed (begged) for Heavenly Father to help me out of my deep, dark pit.  He answered my prayer, and I was able to climb out (relatively quickly and painlessly, I might add).

Today I can sort of feel a little bit of a "hangover," and I will have to fight to overcome.  Sometimes it can be a real battle.

What does this have anything to do with cleaning my house?  Two things:

1) The reason for the slow spiral downward yesterday is that I was keeping myself extra busy with housework.  I was rearranging furniture and organizing things feverishly to try to keep the depression at bay.

2) When I am depressed, I feel like I have lost control.  I don't mean that as in "I lost my temper."  I mean, I feel like I am not in control of anything in my life.  I can't control people.  I can't control the weather.  I can't control circumstances.  But guess what I can control?  I can control how organized my house is.

I remember two instances specifically from my childhood of two very dirty homes.  One was so cluttered that there was no visible carpet.  The other one I only heard about, but never saw.  But the description included the clutter and also serious grime.  (Although, I'm not sure you can have that much clutter without also finding the grime.)  With those examples in mind, here are my reasons why I try to keep a (decently...imperfectly) clean house:

1) Laundry: a) How will you know what is clean and what isn't?  I guess you could sniff it, but I really despise sniffing laundry.  You have to keep it separate somehow.  It really doesn't matter what system you come up with, but the clean needs to stay separated from the dirty.  b) You will (I have) run out of clothes if you let the pile get too big.  Then you are scrounging through dirty clothes to find something to make do with.  Yuck.

2) Dishes.  Same story.  You will run out of things to eat from.  a) Fact:  if you have fewer dishes in your house, you will be more inclined to clean them.   In other words, the pile can never grow as big if you don't have as many.  b) Also, if you are keeping a regular dish-washing routine, you will find it is more efficient to do the dishes quickly before food gets dried and stuck on.

3) Everything has a place.  And everything in it's place.  This is important to me because it allows me to avoid the frustration of losing things.

4) Now is a good time.  Procrastination, for me, always creates a bigger headache later.  If I clean a little mess NOW, there won't be a big mess later.

5) I can walk a straight path from point A to point B.  Without tripping over stuff.  Often, I try to pick up the things between point A and B so it is clear the next time I take that path.

6) Safe for babies.  In a clean house, I can see what is out of place and what might be a danger to my children.  A cluttered house is an abyss of unknown dangers.  I suppose it is safer for everyone, not just babies and children.

7) Avoid disease.  Actually, an organized house gives me the freedom to deep-clean and sanitize those exposed surfaces.

8) Get rid of junk.  Things that you are not using are just taking up your valuable space.  Are you paying rent/mortgage to house your stuff? or are you paying to get the greatest utility/comfort of your home?

9) Save time.  Not only will you spend less time cleaning, but you won't be wasting time moving things from place to place to do other things.  And what will you be able to do with your extra time?  The sky is the limit.

I don't like cleaning.  I hate toilets especially.  But....  I like how I feel when it is done.  I feel like I accomplished something.  And I feel relaxed because now I have the freedom to do anything I want.

Until the baby wakes up from his nap.