Let me set the scene.
I'm in the bathtub with sciatica, which is exactly as glamorous as it sounds. My whole leg is staging a protest, I'm trying to soak the pain into something survivable, and because my brain refuses to sit quietly through anything, I start thinking. Why aren't there more people out there being honest about this? Not the sciatica specifically. The whole thing. The uncomfortable, unflattering, deeply human stuff we're all apparently supposed to glaze over, as if we're perfect little organisms gliding through life with clear skin and zero nerve pain.
I couldn't come up with many. Plenty of highlight reels. Plenty of people who have it all figured out, or at least want you to believe they do. Almost nobody just saying the real version out loud.
And I want to be upfront about something. I truly don't care what anyone thinks of me, and I don't even like social media. But if I can make one woman, or one man, feel a little more seen and heard and understood in the middle of their own unglamorous day, then I'm happy to be the one in the bathtub telling the truth about it.
Also, and I say this with great affection for myself, I'm entertaining. I'm funny and I'm clumsy, and those two things have carried me through more than any five year plan ever has.
Then, sitting in that cooling bathwater, I had a genuine lightbulb moment.
I've been chasing perfection my entire life and I'm still a complete mess.
So I decided that someone might as well be me. The real version. Not the highlight reel. Not the "here's how I built a six-figure business in six months and you can too" version that makes you feel terrible about yourself before you even finish reading it.
The version where you had a mentor and a roadmap and you were still completely thrown into the deep end without knowing what was happening. The version where good enough has never felt like enough and you aren't entirely sure if that's your greatest strength or the thing that's quietly wearing you down.
So. Why P.O.O.P.
It stands for Painfully Obsessed Over Perfection.
I grew up in California with a standard of perfection that was never quite reachable. No matter how good something was, there was always a note. Always a way it could have been better. I carried that voice into adulthood, into every job I ever had, into the cleaning company I now run. That same voice still shows up every single day and tells me I'm not doing enough, not growing fast enough, not good enough. Even when the evidence says the exact opposite. Even when I'm running a business from scratch with zero prior experience and we're growing every single month. The voice doesn't care about evidence. It just keeps talking.
I carried it into the way I check and recheck a client message before sending it. Into the way I built this entire blog in one evening because once I had the idea I couldn't stop until it existed.
The name felt right because it tells the truth before I even say a word. You can't take yourself too seriously when your blog is called P.O.O.P. And also, if you know, you know.
What is actually going on right now
Since this is the first post and I want it to feel like a real diary entry and not a press release, here's what my life looks like at this exact moment.
I run a premium residential cleaning company in Northwest Arkansas. We're seven months in. I just hired a virtual assistant who I'm incredibly excited about. My brother is moving here in September to help run operations and it's one of the things I'm most looking forward to in my life right now. My husband and I are finally moving into our home in Little Rock. We have big plans for it. We're also realistic about how long those plans are going to take and I've made peace with that. Mostly.
Oh, and we have five pets. Two dogs and three cats. I love them with my whole heart and they're also the reason I sometimes sit in my car in the driveway for an extra five minutes before going inside. You'll understand when you meet them.
I committed to my mentor that I would stop cleaning houses myself and finally step fully into the CEO role. That commitment is about three weeks old. It's the right call and it's also the most uncomfortable I've felt in months because standing still has never been something I'm good at.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I built this blog in a single evening because I had an idea and I couldn't let it go.
That's the most accurate description of me I've ever written.
So. If you're new here, hi. Welcome. Pull up a chair.
Hi, my name is Ellyn and I'm pathologically unable to let things be good enough. It has been approximately thirty-two years.
This blog is going to be about cleaning, yes. The products I love, the recipes that actually work, the before and afters that make the work feel like art. But it's also going to be about what it feels like to build something real while your brain is still convinced you're doing it wrong.
If you're here because you're also building something and you're also tired and you're also a little bit of a mess despite your best efforts, then you're in exactly the right place.
And if you're just here for the entertainment, that's completely valid too.
With love and sparkling water,
Ellyn