Write This Down

Hold onto your seats for this bulletin: I cleaned the house yesterday. I know, I know. I'll give you a moment to soak up that news. It's not that I made cleanliness some kind of new year's resolution. Heck no. I was forced to do it. And I determined that I still suck at it.

The lovely Linda who cleans our house on Fridays was not able to come this week because she has a very sick relative. Everybody who is the prayin' kind stop right here just a moment to say a quick prayer for her family. I'll wait. If you're not the prayin' kind, well, just send good thoughts her way. Okay.

She wasn't here the week before either because of Christmas, so we had two weeks of dirty build up. I knew we couldn't manage a third week, so I took a deep breath yesterday afternoon, tossed the dog off my lap, put away my book and grabbed the mop. And the broom. And the vast assortment of cleaning products on the shelves. I did it all. Bathrooms. Kitchen. Dusting. Vacuuming. I even wiped off the heating registers and cleaned that greasy gunk out of the microwave vent cover. I was on fire. This would be the point where you would expect me to say, "It's not that I can't clean, I just choose to have it done." But that wouldn't be true. Try as I might, I'm just not that good at it. I managed alright, but I left plenty of streaks and spots. It will do until next week, though. Hubby was in shock. He said he couldn't remember me ever cleaning the house, but that was a big fat fib. I used to do it every week when we got married...eighteen years ago. Just don't tell him I didn't know how to turn on our vacuum cleaner because I hadn't touched it before yesterday. Don't ask me how long we've had it. Just say another prayer for sweet Linda.