Guilt: the ultimate motivator

I know that in today’s current “whatever-makes-me-feel-good-is-okay” climate guilt is a nasty, terrible, horrible, very bad word.  But honestly, I think it is truly a God-given trait to help us achieve more than just being the world’s great couch potato.  Sometimes, however, it does go on the fritz and makes us turn into obnoxious over-achievers.  Perhaps this is where the bad rap comes from.  Anyway, my name is Amy, and this is what guilt made me do….

Last Thursday, I decided I wanted to spend most of the day working on the quilt I am making for Sophie.  But I felt GUILTY about hanging out in my beautiful craft room all day when the house was such a wreck.  And besides, Chris was working from home and was looking forward to fresh-not-leftovers lunch.  So I put the ingredients for chili in the crockpot, resolved to clean the bathrooms and vacuum downstairs, and then I could sew the rest of the day away in guilt-free peace.

The bathrooms were all sparkly and shiny, and I went to grab the vacuum.  But there was no way I could do a decent job with all the toys and stuff lying around.  So I picked up the books, toys, dirty socks, cardboard tubes, and whatever else couldn’t get sucked up by my trust Dyson, put them back in their respective homes, and then was able to start vacuuming.

I was doing a really good job; getting in all the corners, lifting up or moving furniture, you know, all the things the kids usually don’t do when it’s their job.  And that’s when I noticed how dirty the floor was.  Like, sticky dirty, not dusty dirty.  I tried to ignore it, but I kept seeing more and more spots everywhere.  Even though I had just mopped like two weeks before. 🙂  So, I decided to mop the hard surfaces as well.  Might as well, now that I had done such a fantastic job of vacuuming, right?

I walked into the kitchen only to realize that the place where I normally put the mop water (the sink) was full of dirty dishes.  sigh.  So I opened up the dishwasher to quickly fill it, and saw that it was full of clean dishes waiting to be put away.  Naturally, I put those away, THEN filled the dishwasher with the dirty dishes in the sink.  Oh, there were a few pots in there as well.  So I washed them by hand, and then I finished the job by wiping down the counters.  Please keep in mind that so far, the only job I have done that isn’t one of the kids’ daily chores is cleaning the bathrooms!

But now I could finally start the actual mopping.  whew!  Oh, except when I was mopping the washing machine bathroom (that’s what we call it for obvious reasons) I remembered that I promised someone their favorite pair of pants would be clean to wear the next day.  Might as well throw in load of laundry while I was in there.

While I was mopping the doorbell rang.  Chris went downstairs to sign for a package from the postman.  It was some new computer parts he had ordered for the one I use most often.  He opened up the casing and was attacked by a rabid hoard of dust bunnies.  It was brutal.  Since I was done mopping, I grabbed the vacuum (again!) and helped him clean up the worst of it.  There were a few spots that could only be reached with a cloth, so I went to get my special “computer cleaning cloth” I bought a few months ago.  Aw, that’s better.  While it was out and in my hand, I decided to clean all the computer/tv screens as well.

Finally, I felt like I could stop and enjoy my nice clean house and my guilt-free sewing time.  Except by then it was so late, that I needed to get the cornbread started so it would be ready when the kids came home for lunch.  Curse that guilt, making me spend my time so industriously instead of frivolously! 🙂

Don’t worry, though.  I spent the entire afternoon cutting out material and sewing on the quilt, just like I planned.  And the bonus was my whole house was clean for the weekend.