Housekeeping Fail.

Sometimes I feel like I'm digging a hole just to fill it up again. Or like I'm throwing toys in a bucket with no bottom. Something like that. To begin with, I'm pretty anal. I've become more anal over the years, and am super anal now that I am a homeowner and it's likely that we'll be here for a very, very long time. I hate clutter, I hate dirty kitchen floors, I hate sofa pillows on the floor, and I hate an unmade bed in the middle of the day. But I have kids, and I have a messy husband, and I'm fighting an uphill battle. I have to decide if I'm going to a) keep cleaning three times a day and waste my energy b) hire a housekeeper, which makes me feel weird, or c) just give it up already.

I really want to not care about how my house looks. I do. I want to not look around and feel compelled to organize and sort all of the library books, the socks, the lifecrap. But at the end of the day, a house is meant to be lived in. Books are meant to come off the shelf, laundry is meant to be worn and thrown back into the hamper, and mail is bound to pile up. I know that I can have a clean, tidy house one minute, only to have it a mess again by lunch time. *deep breath*

I suppose my New Year's Resolution this year is to give up a bit of that control. Psychologically, I realize that I'm just trying to control the uncontrollable, and I have to remind myself when my blood pressure spikes at the sight of a mess, that controlling my household doesn't mean I'm in control. To get all Freudian on myself, my messy house is not my mom's cancer. I can't control life's outcomes by straightening every askew picture frame and wiping every crumb. That is what this is all about and I'm ready to give it up, let life unfold, and let my laundry do the same.