a lady by 27: take control of messes

the messes i'm talking about here are not life messes as one of my girl friends misinterpreted when i shared with them my lady-rearing list this morning.  hehee  no.  life messes are far beyond my scope of practice.  i'm speaking to tidy and cleanliness - think martha stewart spreads and the last 5 minutes of hoarder's.  to be a lady is to keep the home clean.  i can attest that i'm always in much better spirits when i come home to a clean apartment rather than one where plates are stacked high in the sink and bunny poop overruns the rug.  there's also more impetus for creativity/productivity as well as comfort and relaxation, which for the modern woman is very very important after a day's work.  a lady should also be ready to entertain guests at a moments notice without freaking out and stuffing crap in the walk-in closet 2 minutes before showtime (guilty)

i came up with a few ideas to help me curb my tendency to tornado my room every time i open the door.  and here's a note for those of you who enjoy group participation: i'd love to hear any of your thoughts on keeping a space in apple-pie order =]

minimize  this is hard for me.  if you ask me why i need 20 green dish towels, double copies of the same book and 5 million sets of tupperware in both plastic and glass form, i will stare at you blankly and wonder if the brain monster got hungry and partook of a piece of your cognitive thinking.  kidding.  i'm starting to grasp onto the concept that less is more.  i used to pride myself in the ability to strategically wedge loads of treasures into small nooks in my studio so that no one would suspect how much junk i really have.  unfortunately clutter is clutter and no matter how hard i try to hide it, it's still there waiting to pounce and raid precious surface area.  a lady knows exactly what she needs and does not buy in excess.  must minimize!

purge  i love stuff and from the deepest parts of my heart, i believe that each piece of stuff has potential.  so it must be retained, that at the perfect moment it shall have its chance to realize its full potential  >__<  i feel like if i went to hoarder's anonymous group, i'd find great company with others who uphold this same belief.  whether it's an issue of costco connection from 4 months ago or a mish-mash of amazon boxes in varied sizes, i want to keep it all!!!  however this does nothing in my effots to keep a clean house.  i'm slowly learning to just throw things away, operating on the objective that if something hasn't been used within the past 3 months, it likely will never be used ever and therefore must be purged.  a lady can tell the difference between junk and true treasures.

restraint  i have a microwavable chip maker that i've never used.  i have numerous pairs of super hot shoes that have never touched asphalt.  i have t-shirts from shirt.woot that i rarely wear in public.  i have boxes of cookies, candy, cereal that all looked so good in the store but have never been opened.  want me to go on?  embarrassingly, i definitely fall into the trap of consumerism, flash sales, and impulse buys.  this is inappropriate lady behavior for several reasons - it reflects badly on finance management, lack of self control, wastefulness and poor purchasing decisions.  a more astute lady would consider her expenses and necessity before making a purchase.

initiative  just do it.  i tend to let things pile up over the course of several days until i finally resolve to clean up, which usually takes a significant amount of time.  the only remedy to this is to clean as i go.  so easy but so haaaard ;)  but a true lady has all her ducks in a row, always.

yikess that's a big list to tackle!  but turning 27 was never meant to be easy, right?  >__<

up next: exercise

feel free to object to any of my beliefs on the lifestyle of a lady.  these come primarily from my own understanding of how women were created to be based on what i've witnessed in my own family , what i've learned from jane austen and what i've gleaned from a few select bible heroines.  thank you 1900s feminist movement for your hard work but the side effects of your achievements have also caused much havoc to the modern female life that i'm looking to change.