Spring cleaning for my brain

When I was in high school I made extra money by helping my Mom with her cleaning business. (Shocking isn't it? The woman who hates to clean for herself will do it for money!)

She always took the hardest part of the job, which was cleaning the kitchen and left me to do bedrooms and bathrooms. Believe me, people leave some pretty disgusting messes in their kitchens when they vacate a rental.  Rotten food, mold, sink clogged with grease oh my!

There was a method to it. Everything had to be done in a certain order to end up with the cleanest possible room.  On Mom's orders I had to dust first, wash the windows and walls and then vaccum. I started up high going over the mouldings, window frames and blinds, and then down low around the outside of the room. Then and only then could I vaccum the rest of the floor.

I did some major spring cleaning over the weekend and my Mom's voice was in my head the whole time, pushing me forward to the next task. Now, you've gotta vaccum like I showed you or else your carpet will still be dusty. And don't forget to clean under the rim of the toilet that's where all the stinky stuff is. Get the crumbs out of the toaster or you'll start a fire.

It was intensely satisfying to wake up to a clean house on Monday morning. It was a zen inducing moment when I walked into the kitchen and simply flipped the switch on my coffee pot. I didn't start my day trying to decide how long I would have to microwave four day old coffee to kill all of the bacteria. (In general my good sense wins and I throw away the old coffee and clean pot but then again there are days when I feel like gambling on the 2 minute nuke.)

I also did some major thinking over the weekend, a little spring cleaning for my brain.

My standing excuse for not keeping a cleaner house is that I'm sooo tired when I get home from work. I'm not physically tired , but I'm mentally sapped. I spend my whole day juggling three or four tasks at once and by the time I get home I've got hot mush upstairs. I'll do what has to be done, but I have a hard time going that extra few feet to keep everything organized.

But I realized that having the best life possible is as much about the big things as it is about the periphery, like vaccuming the right way. When you set out to improve yourself you have to start small and change the things that you usually overlook. Once you've set all of the small things right, it's time to move on to the BIG stuff that's crowding you, laying in the middle of your spiritual room.

I think that if I truly want to be successful at blogging and journaling, then there is a lot of small stuff that I have to deal with. The number one little thing was cleaning up my messes. Now that my laundry isn't screaming at me  from the bedroom floor..."Wash me! Wash me! Wash me nowwwwww!... it's time to move on to something else.

(I'll have to let you know when I figure out what number two is, though my sneaking suspicon is it will have to be getting to bed earlier.)