Git Er Done

I wanted to put the groceries away today. I wanted to know where each item was so that when I needed to grab an item to make dinner I knew exactly where it would be. Rob asked me to make sure that I cleaned out the fridge. He wanted me to take out anything expired or clearly not going to get eaten. He reminded me to green bin the food and rinse off the containers before washing or recycling.

All I heard was 'clean the fridge'.

I mentioned the OCD before, (I actually prefer CDO, it's alphabetical, the way it should be) so when I hear clean out the fridge it means something totally different in my head.

No, Rob has not learned how to take advantage of this particular quirk yet.

A hour later the food is still out of the fridge and I am cleaning each bar of each shelving rack. I have scrubbed the top, sides, bottom, and spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to remove the crisper drawer assembly so that I can clean that too.

He can't figure out why I am not done yet. This should have been a 15 minute job at most. It's that line I can't walk between "git er done" and "git er done right". There is no in-between for me. I can put the food away or I can clean the fridge.

Sadly for my family I generally suck at housekeeping. Rob doesn't understand how I can step over the same shirt on the floor for a week and look surprised when he explodes and shows it to me lying there. I really didn't see it. I really don't see the messes that the kids leave all around the house. I really don't see the wrinkles in the fabric.

But when I do I can't stop. I can't just tidy the toys, I need to organize them by function, colour, shape, season, who bought them. I can't just sweep the floors because I end up in the corner picking individual pieces of dirt that I can't seem to vacuum up. I can't just clean the bathroom because I end up standing in then tub with my toothbrush cleaning grout lines.

I guess my coping strategy is to just not see it. That does not make me very easy to live with (or easy to work with if you have seen my classroom!).

There must be a balance. I just can't see it.