Sloth

I hesitate to tell you what my "one thing to make the house better" was some days.  I don't know if I want to admit what a complete sloth I am.  I am a 300 pound woman (not complaining, I know how I got here) with two kids, an injured husband, and a stressful, but satisfying career.  I am tired after handling many of the "must-do" items in the day.  I don't want to excuse anything because I've come to terms with what it is.  The experiment is a way to combat inertia, to move a little forward.  Even an inch forward is better than status quo.  Yet, do I explain the extent of what I perceive to be laziness?  I acknowledge that I cannot be a "superwoman" and I cannot be perfect.  Yet, many other people with similar lifestyles are able to accomplish so much more on a daily basis.  I wonder how because I never learned the skills to do so.

I respected my great-aunt, my grandmother's twin sister.  She kept a neat, clean house.  It was always presentable.  I tried to watch and learn, but nothing rubbed off.  I'm too similar to my grandmother, who hoarded gallon milk jugs in the basement "in case we need to fill them with water."  Or my mom, acting like a Queen and commanding us to fetch and carry for her so she didn't have to move.  I envy the side of the family that learned to put things in their places and to clean their bathrooms.  My great-aunt's kids and grandkids go over and clean her house for her on a regular basis since she is no longer capable - and they still keep their own homes clean.  It makes me feel somewhat less.

It is hard to admit that I lack in an area.  I yearn to excel at what I set my mind to.  "Keeping house" is something I fail at.  I don't handle failure well. 

So here I am, trying to decide how to explain the baby steps I'm taking to make the house better.  Steps that most people would consider part of their daily routines.  Nothing exceptional.  While I call them baby steps, they're more like giant leaps into an unknown world - where I'm still wondering if the effort is worth it.

The last couple days have been hard.  I have a huge project at work.  We haven't been sleeping because the kids (and now the rest of the household) have been sick.  I'm feverish.  Not contributors to extra activity.  But I did it.  Here's what I did:  I put away laundry. 

Yep.  That's it.  I put my basket of clean clothes either on hangars in the closet or in my dresser drawers.  I also began tackling the big pile of clothes in my closet.  I have a pile of socks in the middle of my bedroom floor.  I have another pile of towels and washcloths now.  That's progress.  It's better than the big, giant pile of everything that made it too difficult to enter the walk-in closet.  How sad is that.  But it's progress.  And someday, maybe, I'll be the one whose house is envied (and it won't be because I took a day off work to get it ready for whatever party).