I used to be a neat freak.
That's not to say that I live in a pig sty now, but I was the type of person who cleaned on a daily basis. And I don't mean cleaning in the "oh-let-me-brush-off-those-crumbs-on-the-kitchen-counter-into-a-paper-towel" kind of cleaning. I mean the "what-the-heck-is-that-speck-of-dirt-doing-on-the-bathroom-floor-better-get-the-bleach-out-and-sanitize-the-whole-house" kind of cleaning.
I admit that my obsession with cleaning subsided when I started graduate school. Suddenly, I became engrossed in a world of scholarship, theory and brain aerobics that I hadn't really encountered before. And graduate school quite literally drained all the energy out of me.
Now that I have completed my degree, my brain is once again returning to its "must-have-everything-clean-and-organized" state. That has been quite difficult as of late with the holidays, the whole family being sick, and an eight-year-old out of school for winter break. Dirty clothes keep piling up, Christmas presents aren't put away, and I'll only say one thing about the mess inside of the refrigerator - cranberry sauce. Sure, I "cleaned" it up, but it's not CLEAN, at least not to my standards.
There is paper littering every horizontal surface in the house. Mail, old newspapers, Netflix envelopes. Two stacks of journal articles, each about six inches high, sit on my desk where I left them after finishing my thesis. Another stack of papers - tax forms, old bills, more class papers - is hidden away where I can't see it, but I still know it's there, and it must be conquered.
So, two of my goals for 2013? Cleanse and purge. I wonder as I write this if I'm really talking about my house.
Maybe I'm talking about myself.
That's not to say that I live in a pig sty now, but I was the type of person who cleaned on a daily basis. And I don't mean cleaning in the "oh-let-me-brush-off-those-crumbs-on-the-kitchen-counter-into-a-paper-towel" kind of cleaning. I mean the "what-the-heck-is-that-speck-of-dirt-doing-on-the-bathroom-floor-better-get-the-bleach-out-and-sanitize-the-whole-house" kind of cleaning.
I admit that my obsession with cleaning subsided when I started graduate school. Suddenly, I became engrossed in a world of scholarship, theory and brain aerobics that I hadn't really encountered before. And graduate school quite literally drained all the energy out of me.
Now that I have completed my degree, my brain is once again returning to its "must-have-everything-clean-and-organized" state. That has been quite difficult as of late with the holidays, the whole family being sick, and an eight-year-old out of school for winter break. Dirty clothes keep piling up, Christmas presents aren't put away, and I'll only say one thing about the mess inside of the refrigerator - cranberry sauce. Sure, I "cleaned" it up, but it's not CLEAN, at least not to my standards.
There is paper littering every horizontal surface in the house. Mail, old newspapers, Netflix envelopes. Two stacks of journal articles, each about six inches high, sit on my desk where I left them after finishing my thesis. Another stack of papers - tax forms, old bills, more class papers - is hidden away where I can't see it, but I still know it's there, and it must be conquered.
So, two of my goals for 2013? Cleanse and purge. I wonder as I write this if I'm really talking about my house.
Maybe I'm talking about myself.