I vacuumed!

It's the last week of school - a busy and stressful time.  Tonight after dinner out I came home and every bone in my body wanted to sit down and vegetate.  Instead, I vacuumed.  This is a big accomplishment for a partially-reformed messy house-keeper.  (of course it's needed done for several days, so don't be too impressed)

In the last year I have put a lot of effort into cleaning and decluttering my house.  It's far from perfect, but much better on any given day than it was a year ago.  I even wrote a mini-book about it.  It's called The Journey of 100 Bags because I have eliminated one hundred kitchen-sized trash bags of stuff, not including trash and recyclables, from my house in the last year.   It's been an amazing journey.

I wasn't always messy.  I grew up in a cluttered house, but I was usually the one cleaning it.  I'm pretty sure my college roommates would attest that I kept my areas fairly neat and clean.  Even during the early years of my married life I had a cleaning schedule.  I think things began to spiral out of control when my first daughter was born.  It wasn't her toys or clothes or supplies that caused the problem.  It was my desire to spend every waking second with her.  In my mind bonding with my child was ever so much more important than cleaning house.  This seemed like a noble sentiment at the time, but in retrospect I could have used more balance.

I'm going to share one chapter at a time from the book I am writing.  I hope some of you find it helpful or at least entertaining.  I look forward to discussing it with others.

PS - Some of you are wondering why I am mixing everything up instead of writing separate blogs for OA, food, environmental concerns, and now cleaning.  The truth is that all these developments have entered my life in the last year and somehow they all fit together.  I think.