Goal 2 - The Quest to organize my surroundings...

At the age of six or seven my grandma was babysitting me.  The instructions for the day "have Amber pick up and put away her room, do NOT ask her to clean her room."  My grandma made the mistake of telling me to "clean" my room.  The result- everything from my room, closet, drawers, and shelves was placed on my bed, so that I could start from scratch.

I haven't grown out of this.  I am still an all or nothing kind of girl.  Cleaning the kitchen not only means cleaning counters, doing dishes, and sweeping the floors, it means reorganizing the pantry, moving stuff around in the cabinets, removing and cleaning the refrigerator shelves, and typing up a list of what is in the deep freezer.  Focusing on one room, I neglect the rest of the house until it becomes a disaster zone.  Consequently, I find the prospect of cleaning the house a bit daunting, not to mention time consuming.

The little tasks that are innate to most people, doing a load of laundry a day, doing the dishes right after dinner, cleaning up toys nightly, essentially picking up as you go, elude me.  I struggle with the motivation to do the day to day things that keep me from becoming overwhelmed.

I know that my need to "clean" will not ever go away, I need to learn how to work with it and be productive despite it.  My goal is to get my house organized and neat, so that I can maintain a normal level of cleanliness with a small amount of daily work.  I want to get to place where I can have someone drop by without having to do a whirlwind clean up.  I want to have a presentable, neat house that isn't embarrassing.  Secondly, my hope is that my husband and children will become more helpful and support my goal.