Time for a "Fixin' Stuff Up" Montage
I just need one tiny thing to go ok right now, and cleaning the kitchen is it
I’ll be honest. Some stuff is really not working out right now.
Work is absolute insanity as we downsize staff but of course still have the same / higher level of work, and the proposed solution is to be “AI-first” except AI doesn’t (yet) do what my department does;
My 9 year old is experiencing some 9-year-old developmental leaps like, “I don’t fit in with anyone” and anxiety about doing well in her sport, which my husband and mother feed by being way too flipping intense about recreational sports;
We only have one car and are too in debt to buy another (actually, I’m fine with getting in more debt to buy another car, but my husband veto’d that so here we are);
I can’t leave my 9 year old alone with my husband because he has zero patience with her, and her ADHD mildly defiant spicy tween attitude sends him over the edge, and she just ends up getting yelled at for not immediately obeying everything he demands of her;
My marriage is, without question, over (lol see points above as well as my many other posts that mention how my husband is playing video games while I’m at the end of my rope taking care of everyone and everything - don’t get married young, people!), but we will continue living together because we can’t afford divorce and we’ve reached a relative détente where we basically are ships passing in the night and never have to spend any time together (and I feel I can protect my daughter better this way, because if we did divorce she’d probably have to spend more time with him without me around);
I have to take time off work to travel for a family event, which leave me even further behind and mean that I’m staying up late while “on vacation” trying desperately to stay on top of things;
My house is a mess.
This is the part of the movie where I need, at the very least, a fixin’ stuff up montage.1
I Need My Home to Be a Refuge, Not a Burden
Right now, what I need is a calm refuge to come home to. Instead, I open the door to my house every day and am confronted with my absolute failure to maintain my home.
Conveniently, working on my house is the one thing I have at least a tiny bit of control over, whereas all the other things that are falling apart are much too big to solve in the span of a couple of hours fueled by a caffeine and K-Pop.
The core of my messy house is we have too much stuff, despite the fact that I feel like I’m constantly throwing things away, and I know we have way less stuff than the average household.
It’s all kid stuff. Art projects and supplies. Tiny pieces to larger sets of toys my very well-meaning mother in law sends. Stuff my kids genuinely play with and love.
I can’t get rid of everything, unfortunately, but I can create one Tiny Pocket of Less.
You’ve Got To Put One Foot In Front of The Other
My favorite place to find a spot of calm in the house is the kitchen. Nobody’s really in there but me, unless they are dropping dishes off on the counter with no intention of cleaning them (my husband), opening every drawer at once (my toddler) or spreading his kibble all over the floor (my dog).
I set a goal of having NOTHING on the kitchen counter. The kitchen counter is hot lava. Nothing can be set down on the counter. Dishes go in the sink, not set on the counter, and everything - everything - is put away.
The first step is to completely empty out a cabinet big enough to house whatever the heck is on the counter, including: the air fryer, olive oil, coffee tin, salt, pepper, etc. Trash is trashed.
I picked a cabinet and just threw everything away in there (it was mostly grocery bags and containers with no lids and lids with no containers). No Mercy.
The ONLY appliance allowed on the counter is the coffee maker. The coffee maker is life. The coffee maker is my friend, and I use it every single day.
The air fryer, while lovely and useful, is not used every day. It can go in the cabinet.
The magic thing about keeping the counter clear of everything is the ability to wipe down the counters and have them actually look clean. When you can’t pick up everything off your counter and wipe them all completely, somehow you can sense the detritus that lines whatever is sitting on your counter, even if you can’t consciously see it.
Once everything is out of sight and the counters are wiped, I magic eraser the cabinets themselves which are astonishingly gross from splashes of cooking, spilled drinks, markers, and general toddler/kid mess.
I do all of this while listening to K-Pop, enjoying my candle burning on the kitchen table, and coffee brewing in my good buddy the coffee maker, and blessedly, being alone because it’s 4 in the dang morning and that’s the only time I have to myself.
And, I’ll admit, imagining it’s the scene in the movie where the main character, who is a chaotic mess with a list of problems a mile long, finally gets something under control.
Just one tiny thing.
And then - one foot, in front of the other.
From the one episode of Family Guy I have ever seen, which I now know is a reference to Revenge of the Nerds -