Are Neatness and Happiness Related?

So today I have another question for you guys. I guess actually this should start with a confession. My house is generally pretty messy. I used to have a fairly clean house, before I had kids. And these days I guess I have somewhat of a good excuse -- at least for all the toys around the house. But, admittedly, it's not just the toys that make my house a mess. I barely ever have time to mop the floors, and papers tend to pile up on kitchen countertops and end tables. It is a rare day when I actually make my bed. These things, of course, get done before company comes over or family comes to visit. But I don't schedule cleaning into my daily life. When I get some spare time during the day when youngest child is napping, I always choose to write rather than pull out the mop.

I bring this up because yesterday, I was having a conversation with some of the other moms at oldest child's school. Actually, a bunch of them were talking about their cleaning rituals, and how their floors must be spotless and their sinks must be cleaned, etc., and I was kind of standing around trying not to get sucked into the conversation. Until suddenly they all looked at me. "My house is kind of a mess," I admitted, which resulted in some looks of horror. "I mean, I don't have too much time to clean." I think that was even worse, so I quickly changed the subject.

Then I wondered, was it really such a big deal? I could probably back up here, and say that my mom was always a big proponent of a "lived-in" house rather than a house that looked like it should be a model, so perhaps this idea was ingrained in me from birth. But I suppose that some people think neatness and happiness correlate in some way, and I suspect some of those moms at oldest child's school probably thought I was a bad person/woman/mother for admitting that my house was messy (and for not doing anything about it on a daily basis). Believe me, if one of their kids came over for a play date, I'd clean up beforehand. But I thought about it -- if I worried about cleaning my house rather than working on my writing in my free time, I'd be miserable. My floors might be spotless. But aren't there more important things to worry about? On my quest for positivity, am I allowed to simply embrace my messy house and focus on more important things?

What do you think? How are neatness and happiness related? Are they? Do you have a neat house or a messy house?