To Do Today (Ugh!)

• Clean the downstairs
• Clean the downstairs
• Clean the downstairs
• Laundry?
• Clean bathrooms?
• Clean the stinkin’ downstairs

Toys, toys, toys, everywhere I look. Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head. Like a day care threw up in every room of my house. Every room. Yes, even the bathrooms.

I leave it all until the weekends because I’m too tired during the week, but then it’s overwhelming and I don’t want to do it. I’d rather sit here and post all day. And I never get it all done. I always do what I hate the least first, and the worst of it just gets, well, even worse because I’ve run out of steam and left it for “another time.”

But another time=never.

My neighbor cleans houses professionally. I’d have her over, but I’m embarrassed, afraid she’d call the mess police on me. I wouldn’t blame her. It’s her duty.

There’s got to be houses in the same condition as mine or worse…right? It’s not like on Hoarders, remember that show? I used to marathon-watch it to make me feel better about myself. The problem is they just end up making you feel worse, depressed for the people on the show.

Nah, I watched it because I was fascinated by the disease. The behavior. But it made me sad, because people with this problem often avoid treatment, and you know without treatment, their beautiful homes that were recently restored by the show’s team in 6 months will go back to the way they were before.

So, no, it’s not like on Hoarders. But it’s pretty fricken far from clean, I’m not gonna lie. I mean, you’ve seen the Before and After pictures. Most of the time, it looks like Before.

A clean house requires someone to steer the ship. I consider myself a well-organized person with a tendency toward cleanliness—left to my own devices. But living with other people who aren’t as rigid as I am, I get frustrated when my systems aren’t followed and give up rather quickly. Now no one’s steering the ship and it’s a free-for-all.

I have leadership experience but I guess this is where my skills fall short. My leadership style is purely democratic, where possibly authoritarian would work better in this situation. I give too much leeway, and expect too much independence. My kids are still little—well, at least Aislyn is—they probably need more direction than I provide.

This could be one of the reasons I’m not a teacher anymore. My democratic nature made me (generally) very likable to my support staff, but not always the most helpful. I expected them to pick things up without an excessive amount of training or hand-holding. But I might possibly have erred on the side of not enough direction. Some people require lots of structure and direction. I just hate the thought of overdelegating. I was overdelegated to early in my career, as a teacher assistant, and it absolutely ate me up.

Aislyn does a really nice job keeping her own room clean, though. So I know she can do it. Desmond, I’m not so sure.

I have to go. It seems someone has moved Mario Party to the top of my To Do list.