What happened?

I was thinking tonight as I pondered the cleaning up I would have to do before family comes to visit, 'what happened to the old me?'. For the first 12 years or so of marriage my house of immaculate. Not just tidy, but thoroughly and completely clean all the time. I was at home for most of that time I must confess but I had a passion for a clean and tidy house, a place for everything and everything in its place. Even with 3 children under 5 I was super mum when it came to house work, craft, cooking and sewing. Then life happened.

I began to wonder when I lost this passion, was it when I first became ill, or started work or university for the 2nd time, was it while away looking after my brother and nephews when his wife died? I can't remember a time or day just a complete shift in how I spend my time.

It's not as if I don't love a clean and tidy house or I hate housework as such, it just doesn't have the same urgency that it used to. I feel stuck in a never ending cycle of shifting things to make the house presentable and then not being able to find them again. Then giving up because it all seems too much and I don't know where to start.

Now my life is getting back to some kind of normality this problem is going to have to be on my priority list. Not because I'm house proud, I'm definitely not, if I'm going to do it for anyone it will be for me but because I want that satisfaction back, the feeling I had when I could look around and feel the pleasure of a organised, well kept home.

I'll probably have to put my foot down when it comes to some of my better halfs belongings which I think are for outside but which are now inside and I know I want some more cupboards, shelves, containers etc to put things in but finding these can be enjoyable too.

A sewing table set up for me to work at when I feel like it, room in the study to work a place to relax and read away from the TV are all areas I would like in the house and now we have no one at home we should be able to do that.

So here's to a new life, new organisation, new outlook the new/old me!