I've always struggled to keep my house clean. I was never really taught how to clean well when I was growing up, so I've had to learn as I went along.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever read in regards to this was about keeping the areas "below the surface" clean. In other words, you can clean the surface of your house - tabletops, counters, etc. - all you want, but if it's a mess below the surface, if your drawers are so full of junk that you can't shut them and your closets are a jumble of junk - you're fighting a losing battle.

I really have found this to be true. If things below the surface are under control, it takes a lot less time to clean the house, and it stays neater longer.

I've been doing a few organizational things in this vein today. There's one cupboard in my bathroom that really has been horrible - I just stuffed every random thing into it and forced the drawer shut. That finally got cleaned out today, along with a couple of spots in my kitchen. I'm now going through my DVDs while I watch all three LOTR movies on TNT.

It can be a real pain in the ass to organize the stuff below the surface, but trust me when I say it does help.

So, I made it through my crazy weekend in (relatively) one piece. Here's a brief update (since I know you're all dying to know every detail of my weekend):

( Details behind the cut... )

So, that's it. I did get my advanced submission story for the Writer's Conference into the mail, so that's good. I need to get writing done this week and finishing reading Anatomy. I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff I need to do, but I don't have enough caffeine in me yet to know what they are...