Cleaning out the negativity

I'm a lazy girl. I'd rather be doing many things other than cleaning. I am a part-time student; I play an on-line RPG; I am an avid reader; I study religion; I'm addicted to browsing the internet (thank you, Stumble Upon). All of these things are significantly more fun that cleaning house. I have three cats, one husband, and one teenager; my house gets messy. Admittedly, the teenager lives with her mother and only visits every other weekend - moreover, she's by far the least-messy of all of us. Still, the three-cats-and-a-husband more than make up for her tidiness.

For the nineteen years-and-ten-months I have lived in the Pacific Northwest, I've felt much animosity for the region. I don't see the beauty of the trees (so green) or the mountains (so white) or the free-from-smog sky (so grey). I see the overcast, dull, dreary, sopping wet environment that only a true Californian will see. I think I'm afflicted with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and because of the perpetually grey-and-rainy weather here, I experience "winter blues" for about ten months out of the year.

Lately, I've felt a very strong desire to clean. I think all the negativity that I've been feeling towards my immediate environment has finally brought me to my breaking point, and I want to clean out the physical, and meta-physical, negativity.

I start with one room at a time and a list. By listing what I want to accomplish, I can easily break down the task of cleaning into small, manageable pieces. By approaching the task of cleaning in this manner, I feel less overwhelmed than if I thought of cleaning the whole house all at once. Once each room is cleaned to my satisfaction, I start at the beginning and perform a smudging ritual; armed with my sage bundle I traverse each room and banish the negativity. I "sweep" the corners of dust, and of gloomy thoughts and darkness. With a clean room, lit candles, and a purifying scent in the air, I feel free to sit in my positively charged space and read my favourite novel.