Pre-Clean

I was doing so well with the not-overcleaning thing. Then, yesterday, shortly after I wrote about how well I was doing, I turned into a frantic, teary, discouraged cleaning machine. I was doing something I've gotten from my mother via both nature and nurture: I was cleaning every single spice jar individually while the rest of the house was covered in clutter and pet hair.

So of course I was frustrated. There wasn't time to clean the whole house on a per-spice-jar level. But instead of getting sensible and switching to "Let's make the biggest impact with the smallest effort" mode (pick up the toys on the floor; vacuum the big living room carpet; wipe down the sink), I continued to try to scrub dust out of the seams of the oven. I turned the cloth this way and that, trying to wedge it in there to reach the dust.

Mike was trying to help, but I was in the kind of state where I didn't even WANT help, because feeling discouraged and sorry for myself is essential to preserving this kind of mood. I need to keep up with my internal monologue about how it's HIS mother so why am _I_ the one doing all this work. Since he was working too, I had to change it to how I'D been working on this for WEEKS, and THE NIGHT BEFORE was no time for him to suddenly get HELPFUL.