Cleanliness is next to Godliness

I don't like to clean my room. In fact, I downright hate it. It's not fun, and the finished product never seems to last long enough to be worth the hours of toiling effort it takes... I used to clean it once a week, when my parents made me, but it was ok because afterwards they would give me 12 dollars. If I spent all day Saturday cleaning but still didn't get it done (sounds impossible, but believe me, it happened plenty of times) I wouldn't get any money, and I had no allowance that week. It went in cycles, for weeks I would get 12 dollars, and then the next few weeks I wouldn't because if I didn't finish, then it was already dirty for the next week, and it just kept getting worse.

We've sort of abandoned that now. My dad never formally sat down and said "You don't get that anymore," but we just don't do it. But that also means I have no incentive to clean my room. I mean, it doesn't bother me, and I never have friends over, (at least not upstairs) so they don't mind. But it severley bugs my parents. Sometimes I'll clean it to be nice, sometimes because I'm bored, and sometimes because they say I can't leave the house until I do. Today I'm cleaning it for a different reason. I'm not bored, I have a ton of homework to do and Boris wants to play games on and I've been dying to go rollerblading... I'm not nice... I just haven't been very nice today or yesterday, especially to my parents. I'm not being threatened. In fact, I haven't talked to/seen my mom since early Sunday and my dad since Thursday night. Besides, where can I go without gas or money for gas?

No, I'm cleaning my room because I've found the connection between it's dirtiness and my level of stress. The two are directly proportional (a phrase I learned the REAL definiton of in my Chemistry reading today). When my room is clean, I tend to feel less stressed out, when I'm less stressed out, I don't grind and clench my teeth in my sleep, when I don't grind and clench my teeth in my sleep, I suffer less headaches throughout the day, and when I don't have a headache, I'm not as likely to less stress out.

So, as a last ditch effort to keep my level of stress down through the turmoil of marching season and the hard tri, I have vowed to keep my room clean. Not 100% dustfree, just tidy enough to keep me calm and happy. Everyone love a happy Ashley!