Neat freaks, I envy you.

Cleaning. Bleh.

I am not a fan, I'll be honest. My mom can attest to that. Every since I was a little kid, my bedroom has been on the messy side more often than not. And even now, it's a good day if my room has a clear path from the bed to the door. And an even better night. Getting up at 3am in the dark and tripping over a giant exercise ball or stepping on the pointy heel of a boot is not fun at all.

I don't know why I don't stay on top of this better, because when it comes down to it, there are few things as satisfying as having a clean room when you go to sleep at night. Ahh the feng shui of it all. My main problem is too many clothes. I know I'm not alone in this (girls). Clean, dirty, still in the yellow plastic Forever 21 bag, on the floor, on the bed, hanging to dry on drawer knobs and chair backs... it takes over. Ugh. Even the Jersey Shore kids have it under control better than I do.

A made-up bed without piles of clothes on top: straight up dreamy

Well, I've made the decision to try really, really hard to improve. I'm 26, I should have this. So, like most things people are bad at and want to get better at - I need practice. I need to practice every night with a plan of action. Well, thank god for Google... because I found one: the "15 Minute Bedroom Cleanup" from About.com's Housekeeping section. My goal is to get my time down to 12 minutes and 15 seconds. And the best part is that it tells me that the difficulty level is "easy." Phew. (Which reminds me of one of my guy friend's favorite quotes and now one of my favorite quotes: "How good it feels to do nothing and then rest afterward." In the same line of thought, this friend and I have an ongoing sleep competition - so far I hold the record - 17 hours without waking up for more than a rollover. What can I say, I have a comfy bed. Which is much comfier in a clean room ... back on track!)

This 15 Minute Bedroom Cleanup proposes some simple steps to a clean room and I'm going to condense it into something even simpler:

1) Grab all dirty clothing and put it in a hamper or laundry bag. Okay, easy and kind of fun. I'll be showin off my Ray Allen skillz.

2) Grab all clean clothes and re-hang or fold and put away. Here's the doozy.

3) Grab all trash and put in the trash can. Easy. Like a cool down after dealing with all of those clothes.

4) Make the bed. I totally agree with this. It makes a huge difference because it will look like a pretty cloud in the middle of your room. At least mine does. (down comforter...)

5) Straighten surfaces. Okay, this one needs a little more direction. "If it has been a long time since you have cleaned in here, you may have large accumulations of your stuff that belongs in your room but is not in its proper place. Take a brief survey of this "stuff". If in a minute or less you can put it all away, do so. If not place it all in a container so that you can go through it and organize it later." Ahh okay. Sounds good to me.

6) Sweep/Vacuum. This sounds a little ambitious for a daily clean up aka this part probably won't happen, but whatever.

And.... dunzo! I'll let you guys know how this works out.... starting tomorrow. I'm tired and diving for the bed!

**** After seeing this post my darling Aunt Bongie (that's pronounced Bon-jee, short for Bondurant, it's French... my family's cool like that) emailed me some more ideas to make the cleaning process a little more fun. And she's so right...cleaning should be as fun as it can possibly be, cuz like I said, by itself it's Bleh. Here are her suggestions:

"Before work make up your bed, it only takes a few seconds then when you come home your room looks great and you're in a good mood just entering. Also, buy yourself some flowers that always makes me happier, just having them in the room. Another thing to try is when really having to clean the place put on your fav music even if on your ipod so you don't bother the roomies and light your fav candle. It makes cleaning much more fun and I actually like cleaning now, well except maybe the toilets.... you just can't make that good!!!"

Thanks Bonj! :)