Low Maintenance

I’ve always been a low maintenance kind of girl.  Never super girly; jeans and a t-shirt, bare bones makeup, hair done, sneakers.  After I had Matt, I was still the same.  After Preston, well, things have gone downhill.

I like to drive with all my windows open on nice days – I don’t mind the windblown look.  But here’s the thing, it used to be I would never get out of my car without at least checking my face and hair in the rearview mirror.  The other day I was out and about and once I got back into my car it dawned on me that I had never once looked in the mirror.  Luckily, I didn’t have a bird nest for hair, but still! The possibility of looking a complete wreck and having no clue was very real.

Today, we were at the local waterpark and not once did I worry about what my hair looked like while we were playing, nor did I worry about what people would think of my sadly out of shape body as I walked around in my swimsuit.

There are apparently some benefits to being even lower maintenance than I was even before I had kids! Now, this is not to say that I go out of my way to look like a slob before going out, but rather that I just don’t seem to give a damn anymore.  As little as two years ago, I would never have dreamed of leaving my house in yoga pants and a somewhat ratty tee; these days, as long as I’m clean, who cares?! (And I am ALWAYS clean – seriously, I rarely leave the house without taking a shower).

I do have 2 things that I insist on, which are not so much low maintenance:  having my hair highlighted and getting the occasional pedicure.  If money were no object, you could totally add massages to that little list.

Then there is my house.  I’ve never been the best housekeeper, but I used to make sure my house was clean – picked up, dusted, vacuumed, wiped down.  As I sit right now (not cleaning, obviously) there is dust on the tv stand, a ridiculous mess of torn up dog toy on the floor, and on the ottoman is a kid doctor kit, a pile of drawings and art projects, two pair of clean underwear and a pencil sharpener.  From my perch on the couch, I can see a gihugeous pile of laundry waiting to be done, and there are clothes in the dryer. The front room is filled to the brim with stuff from the playroom that needs to be put back; there are baskets of clean clothes in each of the boys rooms (on the floor, next to the piles of discarded books).  My craft room/office? Well, let’s say it looks like a pack of raccoons came to visit, redecorated and then ran away.  And the dog hair? Holy hell, the dog hair!

And I hate it.  I hate how disgusting everything looks.  My carpets need to be cleaned, the windows are atrocious, and luckily I haven’t seen the spiders that go with the webs that are hanging around.

Here’s the problem…I want to have a clean house. I really, really, really do.  But I don’t want to clean. I don’t want to do laundry. I JUST.Don’t. Want. To. Obviously, that’s not a choice.

I can’t figure out where to find the time or motivation.  What I need is a day of no kids, no husband, no dog so that I can just clean. Just Clean.

I have so many things to do…so many lists, so many things just bouncing around in this brain of mine that inevitably some things are going to get pushed to the bottom of the list. Playing with kids, attending to their needs, living? That all comes way higher than cleaning my house.  So it actually is a good thing, this realignment of my priorities, but I think I may have swung just a little too far the other way.  It used to be I couldn’t relax at all in a messy house. Really. I could not sit down and watch tv or read or book in a messy house.  I finally let that ideal go, but instead of landing someplace in the middle, I’ve switched to being able to sit down in a pile of mess.

There has to be a happy middle ground.  I just wonder if I’ll ever be able to find it. Although, I guess if not, I won’t be alone, right??

Right?!

*I realize that the rules of writing and grammar say that one should never start a sentence with But or And or So, but I write like I talk (with a lot more punctuation), so it is what it is! Also, I don’t get paid to write this here blog, but if I ever did, I would totally correct my horrible gramatical ways.

Tagged as: blog stuff, life, random thoughts