Just Like a Bird

I am nesting. Oh, my goodness, am I nesting.

I remember nesting when I was pregnant w/ Fuss. I was in major "clean out" mode (my husband tells the story of how he had to prevent me from discarding my high school yearbooks when I got totally into eliminating the unnecessary objects I had collected) but that only lasted a week or two and then it was all about getting the nursery decorated and ready, etc. (I suddenly loved doing laundry as long as it was tiny little clothes and soft baby blankets!)

This has been going on for weeks. I am at the point where I want my house in order and the disorder is driving me bonkers.

I confess, I am not a good housekeeper. I'm learning, and I'm getting better, but I am not good at this. At all. I can blame the constant chaos/mess in my childhood home, but honestly, I just never put any effort into it on a regular basis. But suddenly, I am over having this mess around. (Don't get me wrong, there isn't a ton of rotting garbage all over my house or anything - I'm just talking about the "mess" of living. We don't always put everything away in it's proper place (and to be honest, there are probably things in my house that don't have a proper place, which I know violates the "a place for everything, and everything in it's place" mantra of the organized) and we leave dishes in the sink for a day or so sometimes, etc. (I'm getting better about that, but it is SO easy to get behind on that) and we have little places in the house where things get piled, especially when we arrive home and need to set down the things in our hands (mail, diaper bags, shopping bags, etc.) and then a few days later, we have this completely unmanageable pile.

So anyway, yesterday I cleaned the kitchen. I have complaining for a week or so that we have too many gadgets in our tiny kitchen - I have some decent counter space - more than enough to make dinner or a big batch of cookies or whatever - but we had so many things all over the counters that a big portion of my space was unusable for cooking/baking projects. (And my husband has requested a batch of his favorite homemade cookies this week, now that his diet is officially over.) So I tore through the kitchen putting things away, giving them a nice scrub if needed, clearing the counters and scrubbing those down, too. My kitchen is so pretty right now!

And now for the bathroom! I wiped down the sink and counter tops yesterday and right now I'm bleaching tiles in the shower. We have this horrible tiled shower - the person who installed the tiles was really bad at it and the whole wall is uneven in a myriad of places, so it's very hard to get the grout to stay clean.

I need to mop still - in both rooms. But that is increasingly difficult with an incredibly curious toddler up and moving through the house. And I have a great room floor plan, so there is nothing short of locking her in her room that will keep her out of the kitchen and living room spaces.

But you know what? I'm happy. Sure, I'm incredibly tired at the end of the day/each cleaning session, but it's showing results, big time. And things are coming together so I have space to be proud of.

My dad is working hard on the demolition so we can begin building our new room, too. It makes me proud that he is able to see my accomplishments (even though he rarely comes in the house while he's working in the back room). My mom was a terrible housekeeper, too, but my pseudo-step mom has a spotless house (open floor plan full of white tile - oh my goodness, is her house clean).