How does the author use imagery in the novel, The New Me?

The author uses imagery to reflect Millie's mindset, specifically in the description of her apartment. When Mille decides to reinvent her life, the first thing she does is clean her apartment thoroughly (though she leaves a bag of trash in the hallway for days on end). However, after she is fired from Lisa Hopper and resumes her depression, the apartment quickly falls back into a state of chaos and filth. (She mentions stepping over empty beer bottles and discarded boxes from the clothing she ordered when she believed she was getting a full-time position.) In Chapter 22, Millie offers this description: "Dishes on the counter, dirty dishes even in the drying rack, an empty box of cereal...a full ashtray, ashes on the floor, piles of old mail and receipts in the living room, socks, rings of salt on the floor...My bedsheets, which used to be white, have a grayish tinge in the middle. Bowls on the nightstand, coffee mugs on the floor" (146).