A little bit of cleanliness goes a long way. My first year of marriage we lived in the tiniest apartment known to man, with NO storage - as a result the majority of our belongings had no designated home. My husband can attest to days when I just broke down completely and we HAD to get out so I could think clearly. I would drive around town, just to have space. Amazingly, though, when we cleaned, cleared out the clutter, my mind suddenly felt free.
As someone who lives somewhat near the dirtier end of the scale between Neat Freak Maven and Hoarder's Haven, it is surprising to me that my mental clarity does seem to be so closely related to the state of my home - trust me, my mother would be surprised at this revelation coming from the daughter she once had to bribe with a mystery prize for cleaning her room, and then had to give her said prize as a birthday present THREE MONTHS later because the room NEVER got cleaned!
Perhaps it's society that has led me to believe I am a failure as a wife and a mother when I cannot even keep the physical being of my home in order, but whatever the reason, I find that the best solution these days is to just close the door to the offending room and pretend it doesn't exist. Thus, the living areas of our home, the rooms with no door in our open floor plan, are those that are routinely cleared (not daily, mind you, just routinely - meaning weekly or whenever someone's coming for a visit) and those with doors - we just won't talk about those.
I've had to learn how to be a cleaner. Marybeth is the cleaner at our house. She loves it, except for dishes...she hates those.
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