procrastination and cleaning thoughts

Yes, this is me postponing cleaning by blogging about cleaning.

Since I became a SAHM, things have been interesting. For my whole life, I've been a productivity freak: everything in my life has to be done better, faster, more efficiently. This is from the time I was just a baby; by the time I was nine months old, I was walking, talking, and eating with silverware. People thought I was a midget.

Now I'm a mother and I mother my baby at home. I can't imagine leaving him every day, or any day--he is my priority right now and I love being his mom. We sing and dance and play finger games, and we nurse and be silly and I love every second of it. But for a productivity freak like myself, things get complex. What am I supposed to be doing with my spare moments now??

In the past, I would spend those times studying. French, Latin, Spanish, German, even (in a moment of unparalleled geekdom) Quenya. I studied history and science and language and music--tons of music--and I would write essays and poems and stories and music for hours every day.

Now, though, in addition to those things, I have the primary obligation of cleaning in my household. In the past, Carl and I (or I and my siblings and parents) had a semi-equal division of labor, because we all worked. When Carl and I were both working, there was no reason for me to do all the housework, too. We divided it up. But now that I stay home all day, it's my job to maintain the house while Carl makes the cash.

So I've been trying to be a better housekeeper. I've started reading a bunch of housekeeping blogs for ideas, and some have been great: like one that pointed out that you can solve a lot of messes by addressing the problem areas. I didn't state that very articulately. What I mean by that is, as an example, we had a problem in our bedroom with someone other than myself ::cough:: placing dirty clothes on the floor next to the door. Every day I would go pick up those clothes and, annoyed, take them to the proper hamper. Until it dawned on me that actually, I could just move the hampers next to the door.

Bazam. Problem solved.

Similarly, we have a problem where all of our shoes always end up in a pile next to the front door, even though the coat closet is like 5 steps further down. There is a solution: a decorative shoe holder thing near the door, where we take off our shoes anyway. I just need to put one there.

Anyway. My room is a giant mess right now and I'm just procrastinating. To fix the bedroom's problems, the biggest thing I could do would be to install some hooks on which to place things like the bathrobes that seem to end up everywhere (how is it all even possible?? We only have two of them!!). Secondarily, bringing in more shelving for Nathaniel's clothes would also help.

Argh. Guess I'll get cleaning. How much can I get done before the baby wakes up??