Tidying

I was all set to start on my to do list last Monday when it hit me-- the sudden, overwhelming urge to tidy.

I didn't, alas, have the urge to clean. There is a distinct difference between tidying and cleaning. Tidying is putting things in order, eliminating the clutter hotspots in the house. Cleaning is the scrubbing, the dusting, the vacuuming and mopping.

The house has several clutter hotspots. One of them is my office, which becomes what my mother would call "The Pilot Room". You know, pilot here, pilot there. I hadn't tidied the office since Mama de la Casa's visit and that disorder made it all too easy to just throw stuff in there that I didn't know what to do with. The room was virtually impassable.

The office was the worst, but there were other areas: the hall tree where mail had piled into an eight inch tall stack, the "landing spot"-- the kitchen counter where I leave my purse and lunch bag when I get home from work, the bedroom dresser which became a clothes' magnet. I systematically worked through them all and others. I stopped to admire my work when I had cleared each area and then immediately jumped into the next. I finished, but the tidying energy was still strong.

So I treated myself to a Netflix show (not, as you may image, Marie Kondo's show) as I sorted through the endless stack of filing, putting papers into their designated folders. I pulled old bills and outdated paperwork for the shredding pile.

At the end of the day, I wandered from room to room, reveling in the neatness of the house. Gretchen Rubin says "Outer order leads to inner calm". I concur. A day was a worthwhile investment to have a space that is tidy and organized and my psyche enjoys the results.

I have never been able to figure out what brings on these moods. Is it a feeling of "Enough is Enough"? Was the Moon in Virgo? Was I subconsciously avoiding working on a more important project? I don't know. I just know that I am grateful to have had the chance to take advantage of the mood and reap its benefits.