I Think I Forgot How to Clean House?

Ok, I'm on Twitter first of all, my name is TCblogger. So far I've found my cousin and my niece and am following some lady from Canada who is a life coach? We will see how that goes?

I have a job, a 40 hour a week job, I might not HAVE to work now that my husbands business is doing better but every little bit helps and he has the impression that I like my job. OK, I have stories to tell him when I come home but I find myself counting the hours and minutes till I can leave, the days till my next day off and so forth. Since I've had this job housework has been kept to a minimum. Since there are only two of us and two dogs here in the house it doesn't get very dirty. BUT I know what a CLEAN house looks like. I just don't remember how to get there.

I ran my husbands business for like 3 years, had a lady come in and clean house one day a week and then I did yard work, laundry, extra cleaning, and cooking, kept me busy. Then we lived in a 35 ft camper and then a 38 ft camper for a couple years while in MS and FL cleaning up after hurricanes which I could just about clean with q tips in a day. Then I did ebay and stayed @ home and cleaned when it needed it. Then ebay dried up and I got a real job, I've worked outside the home many times before and @ jobs that required longer hours but now I just come home and plop down and read, blog, take a bath, put a few clothes in the washer, make sure the animals are fed and go to bed if husband isn't home. So I guess I will have to slow down on the reading and the blogging if I want a clean house?

What caused this sudden interest in cleaning house? My daughter has a "friend" she is bringing home, daughter is 33 (I really was a child bride) and they are coming for mothers day. He has a mother but lives much closer to her than my daughter lives to hers. I just can't see the 2 TVs sitting in the family room, my husbands desk full of paperwork, the small refrigerator that is supposed to go somewhere that has had it's home on the bench by the door, or any of the outside junk by the back door (shovel, battered imitation wrought iron table with dead plants on it, garbage can, storage box for gardening stuff, cat shelf, ancient bar b que grill) impressing my daughters "friend"? Much less the dog needs brushed, his nails clipped and I have to lay out clothes for tomorrow and get to bed! We won't even talk about the second guest room which is full of stuff from the camper we moved out of or the extra room off the kitchen which is supposed to be a sewing room, right now it's called the library, that doesn't mean the books are on shelves, it does mean the jeans that need thrown away or patched are in there and all my extra baskets, movies without a home, and the dog and cat food sits right inside the door. Glorified messy closet. Anyway here's pictures of my living room,

I'm proud of it, there are muddy cat paws prints on the windows though in the dining room, egads!!! Does anyone have any suggestions? Just get up and do it? I think it's the energy thing that has me stalled out?

BTW my panic may be caused by unrealistic expectations, I just don't seem to be able to find the dividing line between clean and dirty, a happy medium. I used to clean my Venetian Blinds weekly when I was very newly married, like WASH them. I used to bleach my white painted kitchen cabinets and kitchen linoleum weekly not too long ago, I realize I went too far then, I just want to get some of that ability back? Now sometimes I don't run the dishwasher all the way through weekly? Just rinse till I get a full load. The guest room closet has things in it from about 4 people who don't live here but store their stuff here and part of it is on the floor, pardon me my grandkids extra clothes are in there too..... Help!!

My Guilty Life

The above picture is of my parents the winter before they got married I believe, they were in their mid twenties. I actually do look like both of them but more like my father. Of course I never knew them like this or even remotely, when I came into the world they were 18 years older and MUCH heavier. They had one child, my brother and thought they were through because my mother couldn't eat while pregnant and almost died. I was a mistake, an afterthought, a whoops if you will.

I couldn't go to sleep easily last night, no particular reason but this thought came to me then. My mother watched my kids when I was working and going to college for about 2 years off and on, not every day because sometimes my husband did and I only had night classes the last 3 months of college. She would watch them sometimes after that but I stayed @ home mostly until they went to school and then I started working outside the home again. I always felt guilty about that and nothing really against my mother (I've come to terms with all of it I think) but she encouraged the guilt. Reminded me of all she had done etc. etc. Not only watching my daughters but other things she thought I should feel badly about.

I had a rather unique 20s and 30s, I thought I sort of paid my parents back even though I had a house partly rent free and the loan of a vehicle when I needed one, as long as the trip was OK with them. LOL. I cleaned their house every Friday, washed and set my mothers hair every Friday afternoon, they were getting older and I took them to doctors appointments (I didn't work for awhile because of too many doctors appointments), went over paperwork, helped them grow the gardens they were so intent on growing, cleaned the basement when it flooded which was sometimes weekly (it still gets damp and we live on top of a hill?)and chauffeured my mother around a great deal of the time, and mowed the lawn and cooked quite a few BIG family dinners @ their house, I'm not complaining, we had a good life. We also cut 21 cords of wood per winter for two houses and a shop. My dad, my ex husband, the kids when they were older and I did the wood, mom went to the woods once and lost the pin to the tractor hitch and never went back, probably because we reminded her of it and she didn't like the outdoors. My dad became crippled because of a botched knee operation, he figured out the cartilage in his knee was gone when he JUMPED down off of a big tractor @ the age of 72. All that is neither here nor there. I think I paid my ex husband back for all the work too when I let him stay on my parents farm after the divorce and I left!! So he moves his girlfriend in and she throws away 1000's of $ worth of antiques (old spice, medicine and oil containers are worth something?) but.........

So I'm thinking about the guilt I felt in specific for my mother watching the kids, they weren't bad kids but they would get into mischief. Shall we say adventuresome? That's a good word. Then I realized my husband is only a few years younger now than my mother was when she watched the kids. He could watch a handful of them with one hand tied behind his back and watch football and take a nap to boot, he'd probably have them cooking and getting his tea too but that's not the point. He wouldn't make anyone feel guilty about it. We practically raised my second oldest step grandson for the first two years of his life, he started calling about 5 people mama. But he had a single mama (divorced) and needed us and Tate was soooo cut and he was ours no questions asked. BTW one of the last memories of my mother I have is her holding Tate, she was in a wheelchair in the nursing home and he was so quiet and good on her lap. I watched my grandkids when they came along, I never really thought about it till last night but since there are 4 of them and the oldest is 14 I'm sure I've put in much much more time than my mother did. I didn't work or I worked out of a home office or took them with me when I worked for my husband, no problems, and I wasn't going to be the continual babysitter grandma. I don't want my daughter to feel any guilt and she shouldn't, I did what I could and should have done more probably but she had a sister to help too. Now I feel guilt if I can't do things for them because I'm working. I must say when the grandkids are here you can hardly call it watching, other than feeding them and diapers when they needed them and a lap to cuddle in they didn't require much entertainment, they were GOOD kids, and that isn't just grandma talking.

So why all my guilt? I'm 51 years old and have to look @ everything from a new perspective now, a little guilt is good, I put clothes in the washer this morning and stripped the sheets from the bed because I felt I must do something even though I have a glorious 2 days off. I have to go now, need to make time because I just realized my grandchildren don't have most of their mothers children's books or mine, I have to go hunt them down in the old house if I can so I can take them over when I go to Easter dinner over there. I'm not contributing to the dinner, guilt again. So the problem wasn't my mother wanting me to feel sorry for her, it's my conditioned guilt. I know this isn't a great psychological light bulb but most cognitive theories don't seem to apply to your life until it just hits you one day, there is no need for these bad feelings, they are not good for you or the people around you.

I hope everyone has a HAPPY EASTER and maybe a little time for self examination. What are you carrying around that is a needless burden? Comments anyone?