Does a messy home (or office) make you anxious and cranky, or is cleaning something you just do before company comes over?

There is a minimal amount of clutter that I can contend with. I don’t keep my house immaculate all the time, and there are certainly phases where I feel like the house has devolved into a mess and it has to be addressed. Quite often it’s when family comes to visit, but they are more of an excuse than anything else. I don’t want to be seen living like a slob, even though I don’t, not really. It’s impossible to say that I’m not at least a little bit slovenly but I will say that I’m at least functionally organized at home. The only bits that make me cranky are when there is too much obnoxiousness all in one spot – a giant heap of dirty clothes strewn about and dirty socks in random places, for example. It doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does that gets to me. The solution is snap easy, just gather everything up and throw it into the washing machine. Dirty is clean, at least in a bin, and it just takes a wee bit to put order to that chaos.

One thing that I will admit to is that a messy or disorganized kitchen does drive me to distraction. I’m fine with making do with what you have, but things should be with other things that are like them, the wooden spoons need to be together, the spatulas need to be together and the knives need to be together. I don’t think I’m too pushy about these things, but they do get to me.