A few thoughts on housework.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm losing my mind. Two nights ago I decided I needed to vacuum & mop my house...at 6 o'clock at night. I know some of you are everyday moppers & sweepers. I am not. I'd like to be, but most days I'm doing good to keep up with all 4 kids, feed, and clothe everyone. Toss in BabyGirl's Sensory stuff & homework & I'm usually up to my ears in tasks to preform.

So, at six in the evening Wednesday I broke out the big guns. Stupid really as my kids eat dinner at 6:30 and we start settling in for the night at 7. I do this to myself with great regularity. I'm one for starting a load of laundry at 10 o'clock, then being mad because I have to wait up to put it all in the dryer.

Once upon a time we (Husband, BabyGirl, and a very pregnant I) lived in a 700 square foot 2 bedroom house in the little town near us. We were waiting for this house to be finished. It had hardwood floors (real, old, refinished hard woods), an all white kitchen (I HATED that kitchen...white tile floors, white tile counter tops, white cabinets, white appliances), and an all white bathroom. We were renting from an old man I was terrified would make a surprise inspection of the place*. I kept that house immaculate. I had to. It was too tiny to get messy. Besides, half our belonging were in storage.

Every morning I vacuumed the entire house, Swiffered the hard surface floors, dusted the few surfaces around, wiped the tiny bathroom down top to bottom, and washed down the cabinet fronts. I was a waddling June Cleaver.

I think back on that time fondly as I survey the mess around me. I get irritated at myself for not maintaining the same level of cleanliness. Then I remember. I had one child then. She was small. She made small messes. She had few toys. And most mornings I sent her with her dad to visit our dogs boarding at her grandma's house. We had few belongings in that house.

Then I remember a time when we thought the only toys scattered around our house would be the few I'd saved from my childhood that our niece liked to play with when she came to visit. I'd much rather have the mess I have now, than the empty house we had then. So, as the note pad QM gave me says, "God bless this mess & the kids who made it."

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*I never should have worried. The tenants that lived in the house prior to us ran a meth lab in the living room. I kid you not. Uncle Gick went with me to see the house before we rented it. As Mr.Smith was showing us the property, he was explaining all the up grades he'd recently made to the house. New windows & doors, "Because those last folks drove 4 inch long nails into the wood to keep 'em all shut." Newly patched plaster walls, "Please don't put nails in it. Those last folks busted 'em up something fierce." Newly refinished hard woods, "Those last folks melted the carpet. Not sure just how they did that, but I had to tear it out." That's when Uncle Gick said, "Hey! This is where those people lived that were running a meth lab in their house last spring." Unkie Di's folks lived right behind the house & they watched the cops come in to take it all apart.

If he didn't pay enough attention to know there was a meth lab in the living room floor, he would never notice the dust bunnies under my couch.

In fact, the week we moved out, I went back & scrubbed the entire house top to bottom. When Mr.Smith met me there to get the keys & give me back our deposit I told him I wasn't sure what to use to clean the hardwoods, so I just damp mopped them. He was shocked. "You came back & cleaned? You didn't have to do that. Most folks just leave the mess." I told him my mother & grandmothers would have my hide for that.