A ha!

Every Sunday I read a kind of chick lit column in the paper written by Maggie Alderson, who also happens to have written a "novel" that could only be described as pure unadulterated fluff, I offered it to The Sister when she stayed suggesting it would only take a matter of hours to read and was the equivalent of watching the Sex and The City movie, only a smidge longer. Anyhow, a column is ok to be fluffy, and last week she hit the nail on the head for me. I quote....

"..after noting that I have at least 4 planets in the anally retentive sign of Virgo, my astrologist concluded that if I ever felt confused or low, tidying up would always make me feel better. I could only agree and ask him to tell me something I didn't know....Nothing works as well as tidying a drawer. I think it is the finite nature of the task. A drawer is a limited area and you can start quite confident of finishing the job, whereas "clutter free whole house" as I recently included on my mile long ongoing To Do List is a prospect so daunting, it is likely to send you supine to the sofa, clutching the remote control at the first obstacle..."

Finally, there was a reason for my innane, desperate desire to have a clutter free (or as I like to describe it...a "noise" free house. It's not my fault, it's my parents for forcing me to have a birthday in September, making me a Virgo and therefore a wannabe organised and cleanliness geek. Unfortunately my planets mustn't be aligned properly as I have the DESIRE for organisation, but seem unable to deliver. I live in a constant state of mess, picking up like a mad woman behind three boys and one boy/man. I'm grateful not to have girls with all the bindies and my little pony shoes and hair clips, however a small single square of lego can hurt just as much if you stand on it in bare feet. I claim that we can't replace our nanny/cleaner, the fabulous Flora, now back in Brazil, due to the GFC (Global Financial Crisis for those who haven't read a newspaper for 6 months and picked up on this fresh new acronym), however the reality is I think I'm the only person truly capable to scrubbing those toilet floors and removing the "old mans toilet" smell with an enormous range of cleaning products. Now that I have two days a week free I have also started to tidy a space every day or so, with my family paperwork now organised and efficient. However Saturday to my horror, The Husband tried to find Will's old soccer boots for Rafe. He started to go through the boys wardrobes. A space I HAVEN'T STARTED YET. He was a man on a mission. The boots were almost new (soccer boots in Oz barely get dirty on the hard turf) and they'd cost a bit and we are in a GFC (or at least in our house we are). I stammered..."I'll sort that cupboard out on Monday, I'll find them". Deaf ears. I tried to intervene and do it my way. I realised this would create more tension than there already was. I did the only thing I could think of. I went and cleaned somewhere else. Two hours later, the boots emerged, the cupboards were cleaned and tidy and "noise free". The Husband had done a great job.

So today is Monday and I have a hour before the afternoon onslaught. I think I may start on the study. There are a couple of drawers that need tidying.