Recovering from yet another busy weekend.
I could be blogging today about the "Shabbaton" our synagogue held on Saturday for all the families of kids who will be Bar and Bat Mitzvah between now and June.
I could be telling you about our Robert Burns Night celebration yesterday (which was not so much about Scotland as it was about single-malt Scotch).
And maybe I will find the time to write about those events.
But this is going to be a follow-up to my last post. You know, the one about how much I hate doing housework.
I can feel your eyes rolling upwards. If there is one thing more boring than doing housework, it's someone who is always complaining about having to do housework.
I am ashamed to say this, but it took me TEN HOURS (spread out over three days) to get my house to a point where I wasn't embarrassed to allow visitors in.
That's THREE HOURS dusting, vacuuming, and cleaning the hardwood floor in the living room.
THREE HOURS dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the hardwood floor in the dining room.
FOUR FULL HOURS cleaning the kitchen.
You will note that I do not mention our home's three bedrooms or two bathrooms. That's because I didn't even get to those. My daughter did clean her own room, and my husband took care of the guest bathroom (but only because we had friends coming over and we were running out of time).
Actually, I think I spent half that time just de-cluttering the place, as every single surface of my house was covered with STUFF: Books, magazines, toys, pens, pencils, notices from school... Christmas and Chanukah decorations that somehow didn't make it back into storage when we originally put that stuff away... Material that I've been meaning to write about but still haven't gotten to.
Well, you get the picture.
I got rid of a lot of crap -- but I confess that a good portion of it was moved inside the armoire that is supposed to be my workstation but instead hides a lot of um, crap. Hey, at least now it's all out of sight.
I had finally finished re-mopping the living room floor (because someone had tracked dirt on it, which is one of the reasons I hate cleaning the house in the first place -- it's downright Sisyphean because you keep having to do it over and over again) when the first of our friends pulled up in front of our house. So I literally WAS cleaning right up to the last minute.
That was yesterday.
This morning, I awoke to a house that was STILL CLEAN and uncluttered and... really kind of lovely.
"Do you want to bet how long this will last?" I asked my daughter.
"A week?" she guessed.
"I think it will be a mess again in two days," I sighed... because I know myself and my family and I'm a realist.
Ten years ago - when I gave up my job as a meeting planner and began my life as a stay-at-home mom, I actually sort of enjoyed cleaning the house.
Then I got over my burn-out at trying to excel at a demanding job AND being a mother -- which was a good thing, because living on just one salary wasn't really working for us. I needed to bring in at least a little extra cash.
That's when I started working from home, on the web. And I no longer had the time or the energy to keep up with the housework.
During this period, I joined the FlyLady's email list, and for a couple of weeks, I obeyed.
But it didn't take long for me to slide. The emails reminding me to put the laundry in the dryer became too easy to ignore. I got tired of "shining my sink."
So I know what I'm talking about.
But this morning, when I returned home after dropping her at school, I wondered why not? Why CAN'T I keep it up? Why do I have to allow the clutter and dirt to build up?
Why can't I live my life the way it's suggested in that Home Comforts book? Why can't I be a Fly Lady?
So I spent about an hour this morning putting away the throw blankets that had been left on the couch, throwing out the food wrappers the kid had left on the coffee table and putting away the photography and computer magazines my husband had left on the chair. (Just as the Fly Lady orders.)
I did a quick round through the house with a dust rag and half-assed vacuum (i.e., did not move the furniture).
I wiped down the kitchen counters and the bathroom sink. I mopped the kitchen floor.
The house still looks good, and it only took about 30 minutes out of my day.
Maybe this time I'll surprise myself. Maybe I can change.
I didn't think I could ever lose weight, but I did -- and I've kept 50 pounds off for nearly a year.
So maybe I CAN do this. Maybe I can finally feel comfortable inviting friends over on a whim.
Check back here in a week.
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