My Goal

One of the most satisfying things that I have completed from my 101 in 1001 list was number 81: keep the house “company ready” everyday for one month.  I got such great satisfaction out of getting to check that one off of my list last December.  It may seem like a perfectly normal thing to most people that you keep your home relatively clean on most days – and it is – but to be honest, I’ve got a little Jekyll and Hyde streak in me when it comes to keeping the house in order.

While I do pride myself on being a super clean and super organized person (most of the time), I can also tip the scales a bit in the opposite direction.  And truthfully, it has been this way my whole life.  As a kid, I would either keep my bedroom perfectly clean (to the point of wanting to have vacuum lines in my carpeting), or completely the opposite, and my Mom would jokingly say, “it looks like a tornado tore through your bedroom.”

I’d like to think that it is the creative in me that brings out the messy.  I love to make a mess in the kitchen (to Ryan’s dismay), because it always feels like a happy mess to me.  When we come home from traveling, yep, I’m that girl who will leave her half unpacked suitcase open for days on end.  And I will happily start one organizational project, and then halfway through, flip to a different one.

It has been a little bit difficult for me to find the balance between wanting to have things look and feel put together vs. the slightly less glamorous “tornado” look.  So I think that that is what was so satisfying about reaching this goal last December; it helped me achieve more balance.  It wasn’t about keeping everything picture perfect, just making a point to put things away on a daily basis.

So starting today, I’ve decided to try it again.  And to be honest, the timing is a little bit sneaky of me since we will be traveling a few times in the next month (a.k.a. less days that I need to work to keep things clean).  But I needed a starting point, and today seems to be as good a day as any.

So post cleaning the house today, feel free to stop on by, because I know that our apartment will be shipshape.  (I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that 31 days from now I can say the same thing.)