Paring Down and Tidying Up: Mismatched Pairs

That's okay, honey. You go ahead and move through the house like a whirling dervish, making every room appear (at a glance) tidy. I'm going to sit here and painstakingly excavate every single item from this junk drawer, and then put each thing where it belongs. I'll see you in two hours.

My husband and I have Very. Different. Cleaning. Styles. One would think that we would complement each other beautifully, me with my toothbrush and bleach, tackling the grout, and he with his damp rag, doing a quick pass over every surface in the house. One would be mistaken. I appreciate his efforts, but *snif!* he seems not to appreciate mine.

I think what drives Husband so crazy is not that I tackle things like the junk drawer, or the kids' Lost Toy Pieces bin, but rather that I can even consider doing these things when there's a cup and a half of edamame beans on the floor surrounding our toddler's high chair, drips of soup on the floor next to the stove, and a sink full of dishes needing to be done. Why is NOW a time for me to expend my cleaning and tidying energy on something so non-urgent and detail-oriented and so easy to put off til another day?

For me, I know I'll get to those things eventually, even if it's eleven o'clock at night: the sweeping of the floor, the mopping, the dishes. Or, he will. Or, we'll knock them out together. But, if I don't pounce on that junk drawer Right Now when I get the fire in the belly to do so, it might be another year or two that I'm stirring it up ever time I want to find some small item in there. And frankly, it's been driving me a little bit crazy for two months now, and it's the weekend, and the kids have two of us to tend to them, and so damn it, I'm going to knock that junk drawer reorganization out right this minute. That's why I step over the edamame beans.

Case in point: One day, I decided to reorganize the linen closet, when there were four loads of laundry that needed to be folded and put away, dishes to be done, and dinner to be cooked. Husband knows how to fold, put away, and cook, and those tasks called to him, so he did them. Over an hour and a half later, I was just finishing up the linen closet, and he was fuming. "Look at all the stuff I've done in the past two hours," he vented, "And you're still in the linen closet. I resent having to do all the broad stroke cleaning and tidying around here!"

I was still in the linen closet, it's true. And when I emerged, I saw that he had picked up everything on the living room floor, the coffee table, the kitchen table, the counters. He had done the dishes, he had folded the laundry, and dinner was cooking. The place looked great. It smelled great. I was delighted. Husband, on the other hand? Not so delighted.

I showed him what I had done: removed everything from the linen closet, refolded every towel, every washcloth, every blanket. I figured out how to fold everything (Shall I start with a half fold? or a one-third fold?) to make it fit in its "spot" and I then took my electronic label maker and actually labeled the shelves, "twin fitted and flat," "queen fitted," "queen flat," "matching towels," "non-matching towels." I also removed and sorted all five lidded bins of stuff from the bottom and top shelves, tossed what wasn't needed, and organized what we'd keep. Those bins got labeled, too. I got inspired, so halfway through this project, I took on the vanity cabinet in the adjacent bathroom, too. When I was done, it looked incredible. I could find everything. HE could find everything. Everything had a place. And for these five minutes, at least, everything was IN its place.

Yes, I'm slow and methodical in my organizing efforts. Yes, I have a weird sense of timing, taking on an organizing project when the house is messy and dirty. But you know what? That linen closet project was one year ago, and it has stayed completely, perfectly, beautifully tidy and organized ever since. Mind you, we used to have the kind of linen closet that required an upturned forearm over your head, bracing you from the avalanche, when you opened its door. But no more, baby. Now we have Linen Closet Bliss. After all the energy that it took to create this system, we both just immediately began respecting the labels, and the uniformly folded stacks of towels, like goes with like. Husband sighs approvingly on a regular basis when he goes to retrieve something from the linen closet. It really is nice to have perfect order, even if only in a few places in the house. (And more places are being added to the "in perfect order" list each month, whenever the mood strikes me to take on a big re-org job...) Maintaining this order in the linen closet hasn't taken more than an extra few seconds each time we do laundry. But creating the system of organization? Yeah, that took a chunk of time.

Was it worth it? I think at this point we would both agree that it has been. Two hours of him being pissed off and me "shirking" my "real" cleaning duties while he toiled away... Or, two hours of me doing my kind of weekend cleaning, while he did a turbo fast version of the kind of tidying I do all workweek long. Depending on how you look at it. : ) But, even though we are both glad to have a place for everything, and everything (usually) in its linen closet place, Husband still bristles on the weekends when he's doing his cleaning whirlwind thing, and when I'm rearranging my sock drawer. Tomorrow I'll post more about why.

Later in the week I'm going to post some ideas for how to overcome major cleaning and tidying style differences, how to better understand each other's foreign approaches, and how to begin to help those differences become complementary instead of conflicting. I look forward to your questions and ideas, too!

What Your Life Says About You

I facilitate a Family Covenant Group at my church, for families/parents with kids ages 5 and younger. The kids enjoy supervised free play with a child care provider while the adults have a focused, facilitated discussion about a preselected topic. We meet twice a month. Next time we meet, one of the adults in the group is going to lead the group in an exercise in which we each examine what our lives *really* say about us. It's one thing to tell yourself (and everyone else) that your priorities are your family, being peaceful, being eco-conscious, or whatever. It's quite another to actually *live* your professed values. So, I'm simultaneously looking forward to --- and feeling a bit intimidated by --- this process of taking a hard look at what the way I actually live my life reflects what my priorities are.

I say I care about the environment, but I don't live downtown where I can walk to places. I need to drive every day. I say that my family - including both my nuclear family and my family of origin - matters most to me, but I'm sitting here next to a box of random things, hand me down type stuff, that I'm planning to give to my sister --- and it's been waiting to be shipped for weeks. Ok, I lied. Months.

I will post about this topic again after I've engaged in this self-inventory. But for now, I will just predict here that (a) some of what I find, I'll like; and (b) a lot of what I find, I'll realize, is going to create a call to action for me to change my ways. I already know this, just doing a casual look at how I spend my days and evenings, and how I spend my money, just to name two ways of measuring true priorities.

I'm curious to engage in this kind of examination in an organized way. Curious and scared.

The Abundance of Paring Down

I threw out That Sweater today, finally. Maybe you have one in your closet, too. It’s the one that needs mending, serious mending. I don’t know how to mend a sweater. Some people might have just thrown it out four years ago when the armpit seam ripped, leaving a big gaping armpit hole. But I loved that sweater. And my body type isn’t the easiest to shop for. And we’ve been struggling with money ever since we’ve been out on our own. I never found an exact replacement at a thrift store, and I don’t have the money to buy new clothes, so my opportunities for finding That Sweater we’re extremely limited, and the chances infinitesimally unlikely. I couldn’t justify spending the money to repair it, either, with such cheap duds available at the Salvation Army and Goodwill. So I’ve bought and worn other sweaters, and in the meantime, I have accumulated a box in my closet that contains about ten items of “Clothing I’d Like To Wear Again, Once I Can Figure Out How to Mend Them or Have Them Repaired. Or Hemmed. Or Taken In. Or Otherwise Altered.”

There are only ten things in that box. But they weigh a ton. They take up room. They make me feel poor. It’s one thing to be broke, but it’s another to feel poor. Looking at those clothes, I am reminded each time I open my closet door that I --- We --- Don’t Have Enough. In capital letters. Not enough money. Not enough nice clothes. Not enough space to keep things. Not enough time. My life, our home life, is cluttered. And until recently, I was missing a big reason why that was so.

I have been holding on to things that are a little bit broken, or that I don’t use or wear often, but I might someday in the future, because unconsciously I had a fear that if and when I did want something like this, I wouldn’t have enough money to replace it, and I wouldn’t have anything better, different, to stand in for it. I’d better keep everything, because I Don’t Have Enough right now and I Might Never Have Enough.

Ironically, the clutter in my house sometimes reaches stranglehold proportions. I would be so much better off if I’d just box this stuff up and give it to Goodwill, the SPCA, Freecycle, or if need be, the dump. I’d have more room to breathe. I’d stop feeling guilty for not knowing how to sew (and yes, I even have a broken sewing machine in my basement, because Someday I’ll Have It Fixed And I’ll Learn How To Sew.”

My house, though it looks presentable to the average visitor most of the time, is for me a minefield of broken promises, projects deferred, nagging reminders of skills not yet acquired or body types not currently in residence. Guilt, everywhere you look. And doubt. Doubt that we’ll ever be able to afford a new sweater that I love as much as I loved this one. Doubt that I’ll ever be able to afford to buy a new sewing machine (have you priced sewing machines lately? Of course I can. I could afford one now, if I really wanted to prioritize that.) Perhaps these doubts are coupled with feelings that I don’t really deserve a new sewing machine, because “how bad would I feel if I bought one, and if IT just sat in the corner like this (old, broken) one has for five years since I saved it from the junkyard.”

What negativity. What toxic, toxic negativity. When I face it all head-on, there’s a shocking amount of self-loathing represented here by the clutter in my house.

I will be able to find, and afford, a sweater that I like and that fits me. That Sweater with the rip? Toss. I will be able to afford, and will make time to use, a sewing machine --- if and when I want to take up that hobby. The broken machine? Freecycle. I will be able to find pants, and tops, and who knows what else, that will suit me as well as whatever is in this box of “Clothing I’d Like To Wear Again, If…” I’m not even going to examine the contents; I just want those things to be gone. If tackling that box feels difficult, like too much of a stretch for my newfound awareness and ability, maybe I’ll ask a friend to look through it for me, without baggage or prejudice, to toss what’s damaged, and donate what’s useable.

It’s time to begin going through the rooms of my house. It might take months, but I’m going to fling anything and everything that makes me feel bad. Anything that nags me, gnaws away at me. I do have enough. I have enough right now, even if our income never increases one bit. I don’t need to bog myself down with clutter, telling myself it’s frugal and environmentally conscious of me to hold on. It’s time to let go.

Here it begins!

Mommy Dates

I took my older daughter on a "Mommy Date" tonight. Dinner out and dessert at a scoop shop, just the two of us. As we began our meal, we were sitting and laughing together, present and joyful in that moment.

That's good that we had that one delightful moment, because the overall date didn't wrap up as sweetly. It took her forever to eat, got late, we were tired, she was cranky, I was feeling (but trying not to act) grumpy, and I felt like a grinch by the end of it, hurrying her out of the scoop shop, looking at my watch, aware that she's going to be sleep deprived tomorrow... It wasn't the carefree experience that I'd been hoping it would be.

At least I've learned something:

Rules for successful Mommy (or Daddy) Dates:

1. Initiate them when there is ample time to enjoy a leisurely outing without bumping into extreme tiredness or late bedtimes/naptimes (for either of you!). The rest of your life holds plenty of opportunity to rush your kid from one place to another.

2. Even when the date isn't awesome, it's still great that you did it, and you'll just need to do it again soon. (Kind of like grown up dates! They're not all going to be stellar, but you just need to keep making one on one time for each other and you'll be back in the groove in no time!)

3. It's really good for each of you to sometimes be the one to initiate a Date. Your kid needs to know that you really are eager to do it, and so you're the one to suggest it and ask for it sometimes. They also need to know that they can ask for it, and you'll make it happen in a timely fashion, and not put it off til mañana.

4. Sometimes Dates should be relatively expensive/fancy, and sometimes they should be free or cheap. It's good for a kid to know that he or she is worth linen tablecloths or a pricey event ticket, or whatever floats your collective boat. It's also good for kids to know that it's the *time* together that counts, not the cost of the activity, so freebies and cheapies are great. (For a list of ideas of free or cheap eco-friendly ways to spend time with your kids in and around Charlottesville, Virginia, see Better World Betty's Backyard Betty - Outdoor Fun list. Have fun coming up with your own lists, too, and sharing them with your friends and communities!

5. If you do find yourself in a time crunch, or some other potentially stressful situation, try --- on this date, more than ever --- to let it go. Let go of the clock, let go of your money woes, or the frustration you feel about the chocolate sauce that got spilled on your favorite jacket that just came back from the dry cleaners. By all means, let go of the day at the office or the tiff with your partner that you had earlier. It's only human to be stressed sometimes, and to show that stress sometimes. But on a Parent-Kid date, a time that you've intentionally carved out to be special and fun, best to just let go of the stresses of life, and let go of any expectations. These moments are gold, and you don't want to remember yourself all pinch-faced and coercive. (Not that you ever aspire to be pinch-faced and coercive, but especially not on a Date!)

Tonight's date went okay, but not swimmingly. Happily, I didn't lose my cool or act like a big meanie or anything; I just wasn't AS relaxed, AS in the flow as I'd have liked to have been. That's okay, not every Date needs to be "perfect." They just need to happen. There's always a next time, and a next time. In the future, I'll be sure to remember rule #1 and, most most importantly, rule #5. In the meantime, I'm glad I made time for my kid and I'm so grateful that, for the next few years anyway, she is totally hungry for one on one special time with me.

Have fun, and please do report back with stories of and ideas for your own special outings with the young people in your life!