Break on Through to the Other {Clean and Organized} Side

I've spent the month of January thus far cleaning and organizing our house. We traded bedrooms with our girls, so they now have the large room, and we have the small one. I love having a smaller room - I suppose I am backwards in this way. But now we are next to the bathroom, which is nice for early Morning showers (Avram) or middle of the night toilet runs (pregnant Thora). Before Elisheva would often wake up if we even went into the bathroom to brush our teeth - which made for difficult hygiene. Now my teeth are thankful for the ease with which I can brush them. Also, the girls' amount of toys and stuff far outweigh our own needs, and so they finally have proper room to play in. Someday I dream of having a separate toy room for all of my children, and then just stacking them up in bunks for sleeping, but that day will have to wait. Until then it's nice to know they at least have room for playing - before the toys were so scrunched up that they never really played with them, and if Lydia did pull something out, the room immediately felt messy from the extra junk moving around. I'll take pictures after I've completed the transformation (all that is really left are hanging the pictures).

The New Year and New Decade, not to mention the below freezing weather and snow, have inspired me to completely overhaul my house. Oh, yeah, and our "little" mice problem has been a motivating factor as well. I've never had such an ease of keeping our kitchen cleaned up after every meal - the thought of little mice yuckiness touching any dirt, or being happy by any crumbs makes me feel like the kitchen is practically cleaning itself, and I'm just along for the ride. We have mice - sad but true. I'd blog about it, but I think it would depress me, and gross you out. So I won't. We've killed four so far, in the last month, and finally yesterday our Management said that they would call mice exterminators. Let us hope that they are true and prompt to their word, and that we will soon enjoy our house with our family alone, and none others sharing it.

Moving back on topic, in the terminology of Flylady, my house is now 100% free of hotspots in any room. Hotspots are areas that attract clutter or mess. Stuff like a convenient shelf (or desktop, in my case) at the front of your house that gathers the random mail, important papers, junk, things that need to be sorted/filed/dealt with. I was going to take pictures of this as well, but by the time I got my camera out, it was dark outside, and I didn't want gloomy shots. And I've organized my linen closet, electronics drawer and random junk drawer, the shelves of our bookcases that always attract things we want to keep out of reach of the girls, and even the games shelf. See, I have to put this out on the Internet so that I can feel special, because no one thus far in my entire life has spontaneously opened my electronics drawer (kept in my upstairs hallway), and exclaimed over how well I have pared down on the random ear buds that went to nothing, and how they see no sign of the outdated and outmoded technological gadgets we had lying around, waiting for the resurrection to give them new meaning to their life. In a nutshell, my blog validates me, and my activities.

All I really have left to conquer is the two desk drawers, one more random drawer, and the walk in closet (which I am thinking of of magically transporting to another dimension, so I don't have to deal with it. It is the last holdout of random junk I don't know where else to put/what else to do with it.) Then my house will be completely and finally beautified. Oh, sure, I could clean out the inside of my fridge, or organize my food cupboards, but let us not be ridiculous.

As I've face down the end of my daily activities, except for maintaining this state of cleanliness, which never completely happens, I have been faced with a stolid truth. When my house is completely and utterly clean, I don't know what to do with myself. I do not mean to imply that I am someone who glories in cleaning, and whose hobbies are accomplished via Comet, Lysol, and a Vacuum. Rather, I am such a lagging housekeeper that when I finally do not have nagging responsibilities to accomplish around the house, that really should have been done yesterday, if not last month, I don't know what to do without that sense of vague guilt. Thus far, I usually pick up some good, or fluffy, books, and read until my house falls apart again. A falling apart house puts me right back into my comfort zone, and I once again know where my place resides in the universe - the grubby corner, next to a large bookcase.

As I approach this parabola of cleanliness that turns back into what I usually call "home sweet mess" I'd like to break out of my inexorable mathematical equation of a life, and actually maintain a clean home. I was thinking, perhaps I need a new hobby - one to do in the afternoons while Elisheva is sleeping. Perhaps I need more places to go during the week - currently we leave the house only when necessity calls (Lydia's playschool and grocery shopping at the same time, usually), although I remind myself that could be a function of the season, and not just my laziness. I used to attend the Library story time, and I'd like to incorporate that back into my life again.

I know that once I have three children, I'll be quite happy, at least for the first little while, in spending all my time not feeling completely overwhelmed. Until then though, what can I spend my free time on? Lydia thinks it should be playing Peggle with her through all hours of the day, but I am fairly certain there must be better past-times out there.

I suppose I'm not completely asking for advice (although any offered is welcome), since I am in a state where I am already vetoing anything I think of. Part of the difficulty is I need to think of something that is 100% free. And more than just reading, because as much as I love to read, we have already seen that this leads (in and of itself) back to mess. What do all the other stay at home moms out there do with their time? I was going to say free time, but I realize that most people would laugh at the idea of having free time every day. I do read blogs, but I feel that I can only do this so long every day before I feel that I ought to be doing something else. Yes, yes, I could write blog posts. If Lydia stopped climbing over me, while we played princesses (and I read on the Internet). We don't have T.V. hooked up. I do already spend time with Lydia every day on writing. She can now read four words: zoo, no, cat, dog.

Am I the only one who feels like they have extra time on their hands that could be used for self improvement? Should I just play with my kids more? And does anyone have any oil paints and canvases they want to get rid of, because I've always wanted to try painting?