My Biggest Stressor - My House

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2004
My Biggest Stressor - My House
8
Wed, 08-23-2006 - 12:27pm

I took a "mental health day" off work today. My intention was to do some housework. I've sort of started but its so overwhelming that it seems like anything I do is a drop of water in the ocean. I spent all day Saturday cleaning my kitchen and only got about 1/3 - 1/2 way done. It still looks dirty although I now have a little room to put groceries. I found an email buddy on one of the other "get organized" newsgroups and right now her biggest problem seems to be finding a location for newspapers other than the dining room table. I wish I had that problem! I'm not sure I still have a dining room table. Actually its only about half covered. I bought some new cookware and I don't have anywhere to put it. I have to clean some of the old stuff out of the kitchen. When I started to clean I became sidetracked by the pantry and cleaned that instead. Half the cookware is now on top my stove and the other half is on my dining room table. Anyhow, you get the idea - my house is a disaster. I found out this morning that dh's new employee has been riding to work with him. That's fine except for the fact that his wife drops him off at our house every Monday, Wed, and Fri. That means they come in our house. Its rather embarrassing. Anyhow, I'm totally stressed about the house. Not only are people seeing it regularly but I can't find things and it generally bums me out. I think I'd feel *so* much better if I could just get a handle on it. I'm trying flylady's system again and it has improved the situation a bit. I just can't seem to do any housework when I get home at night. I'm so tired and I have to cook dinner, do homework, etc. I know I'm whining. *sighs* Any suggestions would be welcome. I think my CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) may be incurable. On the plus side I think I'm about to conquer Mount Washmore. If only my laundry room were clean....

Morgaine

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-22-2006
Wed, 08-23-2006 - 1:02pm
I know what you mean - clutter just grows and grows too. Both dh and I work FT so we would spend nearly every weekend cleaning and doing laundry. His idea of cleaning is to wipe things down with a damp, dirty rag. I am much too much of a perfectionist to deal with that so I would have to go behind him and clean again. Twice the work for me and triple the resentment. Then it took me forever because I had to do it "just right". And then nothing ever got completely done because I would get distracted and start a new area before finishing prior area. Needless to say, we weren't having any weekend fun and we fought all the time.
So I finally sat him down one day and said we needed a housecleaner - twice a month, every other week. He said no way, we don't have the money. I said we can go on like this and end up divorced, or we can get a cleaner and treat it like a regular bill - water, electric, whatever! and spend time with the children on the weekends - or heck, ourselves - imagine that! So he finally agreed.
That was 8 years ago and we still have the same woman. She doesn't do as good a job as she's gotten older but now she's like family. We trust her, she loves us, our kids, our dogs.
Perhaps that would work for you guys? The downside, I have to clean and/or clean up before she comes but I only worry about that every other week..... :)
Good luck! Kelli





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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2004
Wed, 08-23-2006 - 1:21pm

Kelli,

Thanks for the suggestion. We have hired a cleaner a couple times but we had trouble keeping a good one. Honestly, I know of one who would probably be a good one but my house is so cluttered its hard to clean. You just end up moving the piles around. I really need to get things "dejunked" and then it will be much easier. It will be difficult to find the $ right now but if I make it a priority it can probably be done. Have I made enough excuses yet? haha. I will take your idea to heart. DH has already mentioned it - we just haven't ever done it.

Morgaine

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-01-2004
Wed, 08-23-2006 - 1:58pm

Morgaine,


I can certainly sympathize with you on this one.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2004
Wed, 08-23-2006 - 2:25pm

Marci,

Thanks for the cleaning vibes. I need all I can get. I'll happily reflect them all back to you :-). Its nice to know I'm not alone. Its too bad about your dishwasher. Here I am whining about doing dishes and such when I should be thinking how lucky I am that my back rarely bothers me and I don't have any problem standing to do them. 30+ storage bins sounds like an overwhelming task. I don't have a basement anymore. That's probably part of the problem. The good news is that I'll never have to clean it out.

Morgaine

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-02-2006
Wed, 08-23-2006 - 10:04pm

((((((((Morgaine)))))))) I could have written this post. My 16 yo dd uses our dining room table as her homework *desk* and it's a battle to find a space to put the dinner plates at supper time. The rest of the house isn't much better. My 9 yo ds is constantly inviting friends over and I'm continually embarassed by the mess.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-30-2006
Wed, 08-23-2006 - 11:53pm
Morgaine - I too could have written this post. I have been struggling with this for years and before my BP dx I was convinced that I had ADD. I can't keep things organized if my life depended on it (and sometimes it does, unpaid or late bills, etc.). It's awful. I have joined some get organized groups only to find that people that can actually focus their energy on one thing and not get side tracked like we do seems to prosper while the rest of us get left behind in our clutter. I would be more than happy to buddy up with you and we can just take it one space at a time and try to keep each other in check. Lord knows I could use someone to be accountable to. I am a bit of a neat freak and like things a certain way, but you would NEVER know it by looking at my house. When I come home I get depressed because I am so overwhelmed by all of the things I want to change, clean up, fix, and organize. DH doesn't help much because he's so complaicent. "Everything's just fine the way it is", or "It's not that messy, we have kids what do you expect?" Ugh, it just urks me because I feel if I got a little more help and support from him maybe we could do it together. Once again though, if he does do something, it's not quite up to my standards, like Marci said, and I wind up going behind him and doing it again. We can not afford a cleaner right now either so I'm totally in the boat with you sister. Let me know if you want to try to tackel this together. I think sometimes being BP makes it more difficult for us than the rest of the world because we can't focus long enough to get one task done before moving on to the next. Next thing you know you've got 10 projects started and 10 projects unfinished. Then the stress sets in, and bam you're going crazy. I get so irritable when this happens and take it out on my family. I would LOVE for that to change. Hugs to you, anyway and I hope that you start to feel like you can gain some control over your house.
J
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2004
Thu, 08-24-2006 - 6:20pm

I'd love another email buddy. Drop me a line when you have a chance. nospam_a_webgal@earthlink.net. Just remove the "nospam_"

Morgaine

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-23-2004
Thu, 08-24-2006 - 6:23pm

Thanks Traci. Its nice to know I'm not alone. We have a rule at our house that's been sort of working for the last few weeks. My mom gave me one of those plastic dish washer wands you fill with soap. The rule is that everyone has to wash their dishes when they are done using them. My middle child seems to have problems with this but everyone else is doing pretty well. In fact, ds is doing the dinner dishes as we speak because he left something in the sink. Sometimes it gets away from me but its much better than it used to be. I hope we can stick to it. Its the only thing halfway under control.

Morgaine