Funny how the act of cleaning can make things appear to be much more messy than they actually are.

I’ve never been much of a cleaner; I’m more of a “stacker.” I usually figure that if my two-year-old son’s books are neatly stacked atop each other and all the toy race cars are in a bag, that counts as clean enough for me.

But not for my wife, and at the moment, not for me, either. We’ve been pulling everything out, going through it in great detail, and putting it back in a reasonably organized order – not to mention throwing out junk as it comes along.

We’re doing it solo this year with some help from Angie’s tips. Next time around, we’ll probably call upon the services of a professional organizer from The List. My closet alone could use an efficiency upgrade.

In the meantime, since I have some unpleasant allergies that flare up around this time of year, we’re taking extra care to scrub the house of allergens and keep it clean for at least a few months of clean breathing.

Angie has plenty of thoughts on that right here. She’s still my first source for information about this sort of thing. I’m not only an employee of Angie’s List; I’m also a member!