Apparently she doesn’t exist in me, so there’s no one to embrace.  Ok, so let’s say I’m trying to nuture an inner housewife within me … augh.  After 10-yrs of conspicuous consumption, my husband and I have gathered a lot of junk.  I’m tackling the large pile of stuff that’s in what should be our dining room (we never bothered to buy dining room furniture because formal home dining has never been a priority for us) .  Over time what has built up is all the stuff we’ve picked up from going to various conferences and offsite training sessions over the years.  I recovered 6 t-shirts and at least 10-cloth bags (great for groceries).  Also buried in this pile was the residue of my former work-life — pens, pencils, paperclips, plush-toys, and old calenders.  Sigh … where to put all this wonderful stuff now that I have no cubicle?  And then there are random things in the pile like hand tools, umbrellas, ancient mail, ancient magazines, and somehow my art and supplies managed to be the foundation of this pile.

Rewind back to last week, I beat back the laundry hydra and cleaned up the family room.  I also researched and purchased a pressure steamer to clean my ~1200-sqft of ceramic tile.  I didn’t enjoy one bit of it, but I did enjoy the resulting clean and uncluttered space in the family room and kitchen.  I even cooked!  Mr. Kuroneko003 was very happy.  The day I finally got everything clean I went to Ikea with my retired Dad to look at organization possibilities.  Mr. Kuroneko003 got home before me and said he thought I had rehired the Molly Maids and then was kidnapped.  Hahaha!!!

Cleaning the big mess initially is always the hardest part.  I’m seeing, though, after cleaning, as long as I’m vigilant, then upkeep of the cleaniless only takes ~1-hr a day.  In this sense, I’m excited about cleaning the entirety of the house, including the garage, so I can have some control.  Either way, it does nothing for my inner housewife.  Rather, I want to get stuff clean so I don’t have to worry about it anymore and I can have that ~1-hour/day to clean.  Regardless, still I hate cleaning house.  I can’t wait to get a job so I don’t have to anymore.  Augh … I feel like I’m going nuts.  Vacuuming and mopping suck!!!

I hope by next week to have the junk sorted into stuff that can be donated for reuse and stuff that can be recycled.  I plan to get rid of the stuff by calling an electronics recycler, a junk hauler, and someone to pick up the old car sitting in our driveway.  After than I can secretly start working on the yard.  My plan is hire a gardener to ever so slowly transform the yard into a rock garden — sorta ease my husband into it while keeping well within our means.