I figured it out! I always wondered why am I so incredibly neurotic about my kitchen being clean? When my entire (albeit cute and cozy) house is a disaster I am okay as long as my kitchen is clean. If my kitchen is a mess watch out. Crazy mama up in here.
Ok let me back up a little bit. I have always had a special way to have a space where I spend the most time. As a 3 year old little girl my mother found me lining up my toys in my room and organizing. I always had a clean messenger bag in high school with neatly labeled binders. Wherever I studied in college or graduate school had to start out neat....Fast forward to my first major career. When I got my desk - you could find me purging the old dusty files, getting out the Lysol wipes and making sure the highlighters and pens were put in the right place. Then I got to work. Before I wrote this post I tidied up my desk. So cleaning just may influence my "zen." So what?
I am raising children. All of this work, self control, teaching and patience does not have the same satisfying result at the end of a day as looking at a clean space which was once dirty. Now that's tangible.
I can feel my departed past feminist self cringe as I prepare to type the next sentence. I really do spend a majority of my time in the kitchen. It is mynew work space. It is my desk. It is my three year old self's room. When you have a 3 year old boy and 1 year old girl and they are absolutely starving every 2-3 hours the kitchen is unavoidable. Especially since nutrition and budget are important to me. I am in that space either making a meal, cleaning from a meal or somewhere where they have uncontrollably overlapped and I am desperately depending on my dog to help me clutch to whatever sanity remains while I dramatically lower my standards of work space order.
I came to this revelation tonight as I started to feel better when I saw the clean counters and actually cleaned my range. (Hey, I had a rough day). This is my work space. It is important to me to get it prepared for the next work day. I need to start with a clean slate to start my morning off right. When my 1 year old has her first breakfast at 5:30 am it's in a clean kitchen. It might not be so sparkling by their third meal of the day at 10 am but that's ok.
Somehow looking at it like this makes it seem more important to do. As if I am justifying spending time in my kitchen at 8 pm while the kids are sleeping. I'm not drudging doing chores no one else will do. (It is true no one else will do them) But I am cleaning up my desk. My work space. It's all set for my 5:30 am meeting.
I wonder why I feel so embarrassed about this post. Probably because a kitchen feels a much humbler place of work then a desk which could have been. Or maybe it is a place of work where I will make the biggest impact on the smallest of people.
Ok let me back up a little bit. I have always had a special way to have a space where I spend the most time. As a 3 year old little girl my mother found me lining up my toys in my room and organizing. I always had a clean messenger bag in high school with neatly labeled binders. Wherever I studied in college or graduate school had to start out neat....Fast forward to my first major career. When I got my desk - you could find me purging the old dusty files, getting out the Lysol wipes and making sure the highlighters and pens were put in the right place. Then I got to work. Before I wrote this post I tidied up my desk. So cleaning just may influence my "zen." So what?
I am raising children. All of this work, self control, teaching and patience does not have the same satisfying result at the end of a day as looking at a clean space which was once dirty. Now that's tangible.
I can feel my departed past feminist self cringe as I prepare to type the next sentence. I really do spend a majority of my time in the kitchen. It is my
I came to this revelation tonight as I started to feel better when I saw the clean counters and actually cleaned my range. (Hey, I had a rough day). This is my work space. It is important to me to get it prepared for the next work day. I need to start with a clean slate to start my morning off right. When my 1 year old has her first breakfast at 5:30 am it's in a clean kitchen. It might not be so sparkling by their third meal of the day at 10 am but that's ok.
Somehow looking at it like this makes it seem more important to do. As if I am justifying spending time in my kitchen at 8 pm while the kids are sleeping. I'm not drudging doing chores no one else will do. (It is true no one else will do them) But I am cleaning up my desk. My work space. It's all set for my 5:30 am meeting.
I wonder why I feel so embarrassed about this post. Probably because a kitchen feels a much humbler place of work then a desk which could have been. Or maybe it is a place of work where I will make the biggest impact on the smallest of people.
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