I feel a lot better about our place than I did a year ago--mostly because of 4 reasons:
1. I dropped my standards. My house is clean--just not perfectly spotless at every given moment. The world will not end because I haven't scrubbed my oven inside out to "new" condition in more than 3 months, and the finials need washing.
2. I have become a lot tougher on anything that could look like clutter. I am far faster at getting rid of stuff, and making more confident decisions regarding our old friend Mr.Justin Case. I go in flurries as my time and mood allows, but I am much stricter than ever about pointless stuff taking up space.
3)I improved my tools. I got microfiber nubby fluffy cloth things for my floor mop (the forerunner to the swiffer)and tossed the old fitted cleaning cloth that came with it and always looked grubby. I bought a dustbuster and use it nearly daily. It keeps a lot of cat hair and tracked litter picked up with minimal effort and noise. Then I never feel that I can't clean the floor without hauling out the big vacuum and making a huge production of it.
and...the most important...
4. I began with reducing hours at one job where I was getting little return for amount of time and effort. Then I quit it, and this is my last week. (Hallelujah!)
Now my work day is about 8-9 hours plus commute, and that has freed up enormous amounts of time. When I am not completely drained and stressed when I get home, it is not a big deal to straighten cushions, wipe a little here, sweep there, put this or that away.
Having said that, we'll see how I manage in January & February, when I begin another evening course, 6 hours of lessons per week.
