My Heart Goes All A-Clutter

I'm a lazy housekeeper. I have been all my life.

I'm not one of those naturally organized people; you know, the ones whose houses are picture-perfect at all times? I'm not even tidy-inclined, like those folks who can have the house company-ready in under 10 minutes. I'm lazy. I wish there was a magic wand that I could wave to instantly take my home from the near-disaster it often exists in to spotless in a flash of light.

And so I have had to teach myself tricks to get my home clean, and try to keep it that way. And tricks to remember DAILY to implement those tricks to get and try to keep my home clean. And tricks to remind myself to implement the tricks that help me remember to implement the tricks to get and try to keep my home clean. Are you noticing a pattern here?


Over the years, I've been half-heartedly using the methods recommended by The FlyLady. She (Marla) is a wonderful lady who has a LOT of great ideas for how to get your house clutter-free and clean, and easy routines to keep it that way. And these ideas and routines work beautifully for vast numbers of people. Tidy-inclined people. And for years, I have "fluttered" as a FlyBaby, trying to establish the routines she espoused, trying to get my house into enough of a semblance of order to move beyond the most basic de-cluttering and really begin to FLY (Finally Loving Yourself). Sometimes, I can sustain the regular de-cluttering for upwards of a month, and then I begin to backslide. Because at my core, I'm a lazy housekeeper... and so is everyone else in my family. And yet, I still recommend her site to people as a great system, because it is. But I've discovered that it is not the ideal system for *me*, mostly because I just can't get our house to move beyond the de-cluttering. And there's a few reasons for this. They are:

1) I am the grandchild of Depression-era folks. When you had something that was useful and well-made, you hung onto it. Even if you didn't have a use for it - for years - because goodness knows when you might need it again, and buying another one when you needed it was anathema. What, you think money grows on trees or something? This attitude was passed down to my parents (one a Canadian prairies girl, the other a WWII-era London boy who was still on food rationing through his early childhood), and has been passed down to my brother and I. For my family, things=wealth.

2) Hubby is the child of two pastors who have moved across this great country of ours more than once. The semi-transient life he led was never of his choosing, and he often has a hint of resentment in his voice when speaking about it. He tells me of moves where he was presented with the task of culling several boxes of his belongings to make the move smaller and easier. As a result, he is resistant to letting go of anything, because while places and people change, your stuff can get boxed up and carried with you. To him, things=home.

3) We are a family of readers. Newspapers, magazines, novels, non-fiction - we read it all. Primus and Secunda have two paper routes between them, so we not only accumulate our own thrice-weekly papers, but have any leftovers choking our garage, too. Hubby and I both have stacks of books beside our bed, Primus and Secunda don't have enough shelves for their books in their rooms, and so have additional shelving in the hallway outside their rooms, and Terius and Quarta's bookshelf runneth over  Mightily. There are still board books on their shelf that I have tried to pass along, only to be met with resistance not only from the kids, but Hubby as well ("But he really loves this book." is quickly picked up by Tertius, and I have to hear "But I really, really LOVE this book. Can't I keep it, please?", as he holds the ratty board book with the chewed spine and peeling cover). Adding to that is the fact that Hubby is a teacher without his own permanent classroom, and he's kept most of his textbooks and articles from the three degrees he earned, so things=knowledge, compounded by things=potential teaching resources.

4) We have a lot of hobbies. I mean a LOT. And each hobby has STUFF that comes with it. We are Makers of Things, and such Things require supplies. I have lovely suede boxes filled to the brim with crochet cotton for making card-woven trim, boxes filled with fabric for making mediæval garb, boxes and bins of patterns and commercially-made trim; plastic boxes full of cotton embroidery floss for innumerable hand embroidery and cross stitch projects, boxes full of paper, stamps, pens, and punches for scrapbooking, paints, palettes and brushes for wood and ceramic crafting, paints, palettes and brushes for mediæval illumination, pens and nibs for calligraphy, and boxes of yarn for knitting. Hubby has boxes upon boxes of plastic and pewter figurines for historical and fantasy/sci-fi war gaming; paints, palettes, toolboxes of tiny tools and brushes for these figurines, stacks of construction insulation for building terrain for these figurines, and plastic grocery bags full of random household recycling stuffed into his closet and our garage as potential modelling accouterments for these figurines; leather for armour-making and crafting, rigid plastic for armouring, and rivets galore. Primus has his Lego creations and Nerf guns, Secunda has her knitting and other variety of craft supplies taking over the underside of her bed. Thankfully, Tertius and Quarta are still content with colouring books, printer paper and raiding my scrapbooking supplies. For our family, things=creativity.

5) We are gamers, and geeks, besides. We have a bookshelf and a steamer trunk FULL of board and card games. We have three shelves in the living room dedicated to storing the rule books, setting books and other resources for the 8-10 gaming systems we play or have played. And this was after culling! There's a small bookshelf in the living room devoted to Wii and PS3 games; Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings decor spill over everywhere. Did I mention that we have a plague rat hand puppet on display above the TV in the living room? He keeps Gollum company - they're like a geeky Odd Couple. Then there are the boxes of magazines for wargaming and D&D that we just don't have room for. We're also music geeks, so between the six of us, we have 15 modern and mediæval instruments in the house.

6) We are mediævalists. In addition to our regular wardrobe (and out of season bin stuffed into the corner of our bedroom) we each have several full sets of mediæval clothing. The ever-growing children means that I am often having to make new garb for them, and that regularly takes precedence over new garb for Hubby and I. And now Secunda has decided that she doesn't want to be a Norse girl, after all; she'd rather be a 15th century Italian Ren girl. And that means an ENTIRELY new wardrobe for milady.

So as you can see, we have a lot of things conspiring to fill our house to overflowing, and we are literally bursting at the seams. We all know something's got to give, but we don't really know how to even start.

So I can't tell you how delighted I was when I stumbled upon Dana White's website, A Slob Comes Clean. This lady is speaking my language! She's funny, and she's a lazy housekeeper like me. This takes all the principles I learned with FlyLady and places them squarely in *my* frame of reference. So far today, even with a migraine, I filled a plastic grocery bag with garbage in the living room, cleared off the coffee table, and got all my handwashing rinsed off and ready for the big kids. I am really feeling like I can dig my way out from under the clutter, pare down our voluminous belongings without ending up in divorce court, and still manage to keep my family and I happy. I am devoting the next 28 days to restoring hope for a peaceful home, and I'm asking all of you to come along for the ride.

Are you ready for what's coming?