Clean kitchen psychology

We started a new thing last week: Keeping the kitchen clean.

By that, I mean no piles of mail on the counter, no keeping art projects and crayons on the counter, no dirty dishes in the sink and no leaving clean dishes in the sink to air dry.

Now, I like to think of myself as a glass-half full kind of girl. I don't like to dwell on the negative. And I LOVE coming home to a clean kitchen after work.

There is a but....

When your kitchen is clean, you don't really  like to mess it up. (Of course the "you" in this sentence is really "me" but I'm hoping that I get a few commiserators nodding their heads!)

But the messing up part is inevitable.

I made cookies one night after supper this week so my son could take them to a function the next evening. By the time I cleaned up after supper, messed up the kitchen making the cookies and cleaned up again, I was seriously starting to question this whole clean kitchen project.

I felt like my whole evening was spent in the kitchen, and truthfully, I guess it came pretty close. Because by the time I had everything cleaned up, it was time to start getting kids ready for bed.

Suddenly, I'm going, "I thought this clean kitchen thing was supposed to make me feel good!"

And that makes me crabby.

So, contrary to making me feel all happy and in control, I'm crabby because we have a clean kitchen.

I'm also crabby when the kitchen is a mess.

What have we learned? Maybe I'm just crabby!

Hmmm. Time for lunch.

Dawn