cleaning house

Cleaning house requires nerves of steel.

People are always encouraging you to keep what you don't need "just in case."  You start to doubt yourself and before you know it, the "to go" pile is two-deep and the "keep" pile is a bigger mess than you started with!

Making time to clean house is an entirely different battle.  Right about the time you get up the resolve to take out the trash and do some nitty gritty scrubbing, it seems like everybody in your life decides they "need" you.  Before you know it, you've not only put off cleaning, you've also added to your junk.  You've run out of time, patience and energy.

Of course, even if you are able to clean house, the old stuff often seems to find its way back inside.  And even if you keep out the old, new dust and grime settles in quicker than you can call on Mr. Clean (who might be otherwise preoccupied anyway!).  You look for backup support, but it just isn't always there.  You look inward, but realize the only sound you hear coming from within is the muffled snarl of deep-sleep breathing, but it's better than moans of despair or screams of insanity.

Cleaning house isn't some domestic rite of passage for stay-at-homers.  It's just part of life.  A stressful, unpleasant, excruciating part of life.