A Clean House is a Happy House

Spring Break: a time to relax, play, and WORK!

Woohoo!

I look forward every year to Spring Break because it's a fairly unpredictable time for us. Sometimes we take off for the whole week, sometimes we stay home, sometimes we just go where the wind blows, but I like to try to fit some "spring cleaning" into the week no matter what we do. Yesterday the kids helped me work in the yard, and today we're cleaning the house.

It never fails. Cleaning = happiness. --sigh-- I should clean more often.

I like the lemony-fresh scent.
I like the lack of clutter.
I like the organizing.

It never fails: the happy, relaxed, contented feeling afterwards.

I don't like cleaning.
I don't like dusting. or scrubbing. or sneezing at the dust.
I don't like finding ant entryways and spraying them with pesticides.

But I like the results. And it never fails. Everyone's happier afterwards.

Maybe the work gets out our figets.
Maybe it's the space.
Maybe it's the sense of accomplishment.
Maybe it's the family time.

I dunno. All I know is my kids like to fight for their favorite chores and things to clean. And not like, "No, YOU do it!" but like, "I wanted to dust! Not fair! MOOOOOM! I wanna dust and s/he won't let me!" And when we're done ... or half done ... or the ice cream truck drives by ... we take a break. And we do more later.

The kids fight less.
The kids learn life skills.
The kids find toys they forgot existed.
The kids take ownership over their own stuff.
The kids begin to realize we clean up after other people a lot less when we each clean up after ourselves more.

And those all make me even happier.