i used to absolutely hate going to bed with a sink full of dirty dishes. i'm not an obsessive clean freak by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something nice about waking up to a clean kitchen to brew my coffee in, it just starts the day off right.
so i would often find myself doing dishes late at night, right before bed. then wiping down all the counters. then while i have a half-used clorox wipe in my hand, the range hood looks a bit dusty. may as well pop another wipe and swipe the inside of the microwave while i'm at it.
then the sofa pillows need to be straightened. well, there's a pile of junk mail sitting on the table, may as well sift through it. whoops, there's some dust bunnies under the chair, let me just grab the vacuum.
seriously??? that "second wind" that would come from doing the dishes late at night was ridiculous. two hours would go by in a flash, and i'm still cleaning and organizing. the problem is that i tend to crash for a few hours shortly after coming home from work and getting some dinner pulled together. and by crashing, i mean draining the dvr of my favorite daytime shows and feeding my facebook addiction.
then i feel guilty that maybe i should have used that time more productively. i mean, my job is not so exhausting that i really need more than an hour to relax before doing a chore or two each evening. instead i languish in front of the tv and computer all evening, and then around 10pm i become a little whirling dervish, doing, stressing, doing, stressing.
now i am making a conscious effort to physically wind down an hour before a reasonable bedtime, so i can get a better night's sleep. if i got the dishes done earlier in the evening, great. if i didn't, no big deal, they will be there tomorrow.
exhale.
