Spring Cleaning

Michael's working late nearly every day this week, and here at home I've developed a severe case of Spring Cleaning Fever.

Our little house seems a magnet for clutter. I can clean this place EVERY DAY until it's spotless, and yet it seems every time I turn around the house snickers at my pathetic attempts and promptly grows another dish towel, two grocery shopping receipts, five bobby pins, and a moldy tupperware in a corner that's just out of my line of sight. I'm not kidding. Maybe it's a clutter possession or something. But it is ASTONISHING how one minute it's clean, and then you squint your eyes and look closer and there's another bagful of junk hidden there, eternally reproducing at the molecular level.

It doesn't help that we have too many books for not enough bookshelves, miscellaneous photo prints and/or empty frames haunting any available floor wallspace, a dozen camera bags, and several thousand electronic cords plugged into each two-pronged plug--one per room. Poor Michael tries, but it's hopeless. His "office" is our house entryway, and, well, let's just say the whole situation probably violates fifty "flylady.com" laws of cleanliness.

So this week, we're Spring Cleaning. Michael has the fever, too, but unfortunately he's rarely home. So Baby and I have taken on the task. After tearing the house apart in our exuberant plans for reorganizaton Saturday night, we have since made little progress in the front room.

Yesterday my future brother-in-law-in-law (is there such a thing?) came by to drop off some wedding announcements. In a moment of shock, I realized that I had forgotten his impending arrival. I quickly threw a blanket over my baby-feeding-utilities (which were sadly lacking in supportive devices, if you know what I mean)and made myself decent. I smiled graciously while simultaneously kicking the above mentioned support device beneath the couch, brushing the sweaty, unwashed bangs from my face, and patting my still-in-PJed baby's back. The couch, heaped with laundry to be folded, was facing the wrong direction, facing the desk with the TV and coffee table askew behind. So we sat on the floor. Which brought me close enough to identify all sorts of exciting lint, candy wrappers, potato chip bits and bobby pins strewn on the floor from our afore-mentioned exuberant yet unfinished furniture moving efforts. As we sorted the invitation stacks, I brushed unidentifiable crumbs off the thankyou notes and tried to casually point out several dozen times that I WAS in the middle of cleaning the house. Despite evidence that would seem to point to the contrary.

Poor man is probably terrified of marriage now. I promise, Mike, it isn't really always this bad.

Good news: the bedroom is reorganized and cleaned as it hasn't been cleaned in, well, let's just since before the thoughts of Jed entered our consciousness. All the winter clothes are put away, the summer clothes out, the furniture reorganized to fit Jed's new bed (he outgrew his bassinet already!) and the scary corners tackled with valiant effort and lot's of anti-bacterial spray.

The dining room but now soon-to-become-Michael's-office is cleaned out, even the carpet edges swept and scoured. The new dining area is set up and lovely. So now... all that's left is the living room.

And that, my friends, is my thrilling adventure for tomorrow. Stay tuned. (If you've stayed tuned this long. I can't imagine you have. Why on earth would I think it is interesting to write such a long post about cleaning my house? What a nerd!)