Friday, May 15, 2009

Perpetually Picking Up Peas


I was bitten by the cleaning bug today. It is May 15, so perhaps a little late for actual spring cleaning...and I only got one room done. But, any sort of actual cleaning (not just picking up) with a one-year-old and a three-year-old in the house is huge!!


Now, my house isn't messy. In fact, most people who visit my house will probably tell you it is clean. But clean is such a funny word...it means different things to different people. My house is not CLEAN. Meaning the absence of dirt! Things are put away and there isn't clutter (the biggest annoyance in my life), but there is dirt. The miraculous thing is that dirt isn't quite so obvious when things are put away. Thank God! :)


I decided to clean today as I was cleaning up after my son Connor's lunch. You guessed it, he had peas. Loves them. I love them too. Well, for him I love them. They are easy to prepare, he can eat them by himself and they are healthy. However, peas are messy. As I was bent over picking up forlorn peas on the floor (I should just let my cat eat them up, she likes them!) I find my three-year-old taking my (white) flip flop and smashing the peas into the tile. She's smashed about three by the time I discover what she is doing and put the kibosh on it. As I'm down on my hands and knees on the floor this time wiping up pea mush...I discover that yes, my floor is DIRTY! And this astonishes me because ever since I left my full-time job I have put a cleaning schedule in place and I stick to mopping my floor once a week. (Let me state for the record that when I had a full-time job I honestly actually mopped my floor maybe once a month.) But my floor is still always dirty!!


So cleaning up pea moosh turned into hand cleaning spots on my floor with disinfectant wipes. Which led to wiping down the baseboards, then the window sills and then washing the windows. (Just the kitchen and family room windows mind you...I am NOT superwoman!!) Followed by wiping down the cabinets and then reorganizing the cabinets, cleaning the refrigerator and clearing off our hutch (which in our house serves as the catch-all for anything "important.")


Thank God for the rainy day we're having, otherwise I'm pretty sure I would have cleared every item out of my cabinets and then decided I'd rather be outside enjoying the sunshine! Long story short, my kitchen is clean. Really clean. Well, except for the floors, I actually didn't get around to mopping - I'm too tired!! :)