So, anyway. This is as clean as my house has ever been for more than a few days and outside the pressure of a family visit.
I suggest this book: Confessions of an Organized Homemaker and then just read the three box part. I skimmed the rest. Too many lists makes me go a little crazy.
The downside is that I spend a fair amount of time saying things like “you’re not going to leave those shoes by the couch, are you?” and “are you going to put that toothpaste away?” and it’s remotely possible that I might be getting on the nerves of my housemates. Whatever, my house is clean and therefore, my mind is clear and therefore, I’m not obsessively planning inexpensive road trips which I had been doing for weeks because I needed to be away from the disaster.
Now I kind of don’t know what to do with myself, and my kids are insane and my husband’s not one to leave the house without being bribed or threatened, so I’ve been going to the gym a whole lot. Thanks be to my mom who added me as a family member and I’m flying under the radar for a monthly cost less than I was spending on iced coffee every week before I learned the secrets of iced coffee (first: go on a cash envelope system so that you can see the money catch fire as you hand it to the barista. brew it stronger than you would, and cool in the freezer for a few moments so you don’t melt all the ice right away)
You may wonder how the hell I have all this time for working out and micromanaging the housekeeping. Well, it’s summer vacation which means Michael has been home for a couple of weeks. There’s really no such thing as summer vacation when you have little kids though; it’s really more like changing jobs. Except I don’t have to actually go to a job. So I guess it’s more accurate to say that there’s no vacation for Michael. He’s at the school all year, and during the summer he’s on kid duty most of the day. I’m on kid duty all year, and during the summer- well that’s when I do the New Year’s resolution fitness thing (I’m going to do this EVERY DAY!), make and hopefully keep dental, eye and physical appointments for all three kids, and generally focus on banking up some sanity so that I don’t totally lose it in August when he goes back to work and I’m all alone with them again. So it’s like part time work. As if I had a “little job” to “keep me busy” and “work my mind” so that the homemaking and full time mothering doesn’t atrophy my brain. But that’s a rant for another day, that rant about how atrophied your delicate mommy brain gets while you implement systems, manage budget spreadhseets, reconcile statements from multiple financial accounts, create and keep a schedule of health care, sports, activities and education for three (no, five) people and two pets, and on and on.
We’ll get into that some other time.
What I wanted to say is, my house is so clean. And my brain is clean. I’m not sure which precipitated which, and I don’t care.
