Messy week..........

It's been a rough couple of weeks for several reasons, but this past week was notorious for something that happened EVERY morning.

Monday, just as I was slinging my purse over my shoulder to leave for work, I heard a crash followed by the sound of water being poured out - and this went on for an alarmingly long time! As I rushed to see what happened, I found that Benjie, our special-needs cat, had (after a week of trying) figured out how to knock over a very heavy vase full of flowers - and about a gallon of water! The water spread in a large puddle across the floor and also poured through the crack in the "entry table" which is what we call the furniture near the door - except that it's really an antique sewing machine! Water poured through the machine as flowers scattered in wilted repose across the hardwoods and met their untimely demise in the trash as I scurried to clean up the mess. One huge beach towel later and a text to my daughter telling her to clean up "her" cat's mess, and I dashed out the door - late!

Tuesday, as I attempted to fill my water cup to take to work, I noticed the ice maker making a grinding sound - but no ice was coming out. I opened the freezer to investigate and a virtual iceberg crashed to the floor, scattering ice in all directions across the hardwood floor! Seems the mechanism was a little wonky and the ice had been storing up inside the (very small) receptacle. An iceberg formed and when I opened the freezer door, it created an instant global warming effect that necessitated another big clean up - only this time it was worse because I had to scoop up hundreds of ice cubes. I dashed out the door - late again!

Wednesday, I was heading downstairs to grab my purse and lunch to leave for work when I happened to turn my head and notice some dark spots on the carpet down the hallway. Upon further investigation, what I thought might have pet puddles turned out to be several large spots of dog diarrhea soaking into the carpet. I yelled to my son to come and help. Half a roll of paper towels, half a cannister of Lysol wipes and two very thorough passes of the carpet cleaner later we both headed out the door - late again. I didn't think the school would appreciate the note I wanted to write "Please excuse my son for being late - he was cleaning up shit" so I just signed a generic note my son penned on the way. I got to work - late.

Thursday, I woke early to the stench of dog crap. NOT AGAIN????? Mysteriously, I could spy no tell-tale stains save for one small spot in the dining room. The smell, however, permeated the house and made me gag. WHERE WAS IT? I finally found the offending pile of - you guessed it - more soft-serve dog crap, this time right outside the kids' bathroom door. I could NOT be late to work again, so my son and I worked frantically to clean it up. We used up the rest of the previous' day's paper towel roll, the rest of the Lysol wipes and I plugged the carpet cleaner in to do the final cleaning. I grabbed the hose, pressed hard to suck up the nauseating poo and suddenly noticed my hand was wet! The hose had broken WHILE I was using it, effectively leaving my hand soaking in freshly-washed dog shit. After steaming my hand with soap and a scalding flush of water, I found some duct tape and quickly "fixed" the hose. But not before texting my husband a picture of the hose, lying on the floor leaking crap, and secretly wishing bad things upon him for leaving early two days in a row and leaving me on doggy "doo"ty. I finally got the carpet marginally cleaned, scrubbed two layers of flesh off my hands under hot, running water, and left for work - late.

I realized at this point I was on a roll. Four out of four days running I'd had to clean up a mess. Surely Friday would be better?

Friday, I headed downstairs and fixed myself some toast and an instant breakfast drink. I prepared some packages for mailing, grabbed my lunch, my purse, the packages and my drink and headed for the door. The packages were unwieldy - a long, flat one, a shoe box and a much smaller box, and I was trying to re-adjust them in my arms so I could lock the door. As I did so, I inadvertently poured my breakfast drink all over the entry way floor! This time, however, I was not surprised. I knew something like this would happen, given the four previous days, so I simply wiped up the mess and carried on with my day. And I got to work - on time.

Life is messy. Clean it up.

Something to clean.......

This morning I thanked my husband profusely (there might have been tears) for cleaning our bathroom. It was long overdue and just yesterday morning I looked at it and thought "disgusting". If I were to use this bathroom in someone else's home, I'd be appalled. Yet, in my own home, I let it slide. Why? Anyway, great minds think alike (and apparently some of them actually put those thoughts into action) and my wonderful husband cleaned our bathroom last night (yes, he ruined another shirt with bleach but let's put petty things aside...). I was thrilled and wanted to express my gratitude so I gave him a big hug and a "thank you". He then replied "give me something to clean every day - if I do one thing each day, you know, leave it better than when I found it, then things will shape up around here." And, of course, my first thought was WTF? Am I not doing a good enough job keeping this house clean? (No!). But then I got over myself and suggested some things that desperately need a thorough cleaning. Among them, all three (yes, three!) refrigerators need a deep cleaning, the hardwood floors may contain deadly bacteria, and the pantry is stuffed full with various half-eaten packages of food products and an embarrassing amount of dog hair (the kids don't seem to remember the pantry floor when vacuuming). My husband just looked at me with a grimace and said, "yeah, that's not really what I was thinking" then proceeded to tell me he liked to "transform" things so they were obviously changed! Like cleaning our room. He went to town one day recently and "cleaned" our room, which really just meant rearranging and stowing my various crafts and hundreds of photos into other places. I will never find them now, which is probably just as well, because we all know I'm never going to scrapbook seventeen years' worth of my kids' photos.

His favorite "cleaning" project is the garage. Now, I have never understood men in that regard. My ex-husband used to busy himself cleaning the garage when we were planning for a party. Why? No one goes in the garage when you're hosting a party! Who wants to see your twenty Rubbermaid boxes of Christmas decorations? But for some reason, this is how he found himself "useful" and so I'd have a clean garage and be inside frantically wrestling children and trying to keep the dogs off the freshly mopped hardwoods. Go figure. Jeff enjoys cleaning the garage combined with a weight workout. He will do a rep of weights, then go around reorganizing our junk, then do another rep of weights. Never mind that there's a Pepsi can in the dog kennel amongst the many blankets they've chewed holes in and have now claimed as their own. That's been sitting in there for months, but the dozen or so softballs no one ever plays with are neatly tucked into their own little cubby.

I can't complain, though. Ninety percent of the time, he's the one cleaning up the really disgusting things like dog barf and poop. Just last night, he and the carpet cleaner became reacquainted at 4 a.m. when Shade decided to deposit the remnants of the last three days' worth of Christmas candy he's consumed (wrappers and all!) on our bedroom carpet. But we all had to pitch in with the pet indiscretion yesterday. For some reason, yesterday the pets decided the world was their toilet. I returned from yoga to find barf in the garage and office and poop in the family room and upstairs hallway. Everyone excpet Hannah ended up cleaning a portion of that. But she got hers - in the evening Georgette decided to drop a turd on the kitchen floor in the middle of a movie party. Nice. Hannah got that one.

Cleaning around here is never-ending and often feels like a futile effort. The only way things stay clean is when the kids are not here and lately there's ALWAYS a kid here. This week, for example, my kids were supposed to be with their dad all week. Arlie is in Spokane, so I was looking forward to a nice long week of a clean house, time to do projects, read my book, shop in peace, etc. But no. They've been here every day, having parties and creating a mess in their wake, not unlike Pig Pen's cloud of dust. And so we clean. And they mess it up. And they sometimes clean it up (although not without an eye roll or extended sigh), and the cycle continues.

So, while Jeff's "clean one thing a day" sounds like an ideal plan, it will never surmount the growing monster of clutter, trash and grime that follows a family of six. It's inescapable, and oftentimes feels like a preview for an episode of "Hoarders". But we keep cleaning and staying a half a step ahead of the chaos. And, by golly, my bathroom is clean right now so I'm going to thoroughly bask in the sparkling porcelain while I can because it might be weeks before I see the elusive gleam again.