Cleaning

Tonight I am sitting here writing instead of doing what I am supposed to be doing...cleaning. I have about 55 hours of potential cleaning time ahead of me (if I don't sleep...unlikely because I'm taking sinus medication and I currently feel like I might float off any minute).

For the past two weeks, I have been cleaning the things that we normally overlook unless we are big time OCD...baseboards, the inside of the microwave, the doors of the kitchen cabinets and behind the washer and dryer. From what I have cleaned already it is quite obvious that I need a little more OCD in my life.

"A little" is quite the understatement.

What I really need is a team from HGTV to come in and shame me into channeling my "inner Martha." She's in there somewhere. She hasn't seen the light of day in awhile...but every so often I'll get a burst of creativity. That creativity normally involves calling my friend Nedra to do something for me that I am woefully unequipped to do for myself. I just write a check and she makes it happen.

A couple of the projects I have to do this weekend include cleaning off the dining room table that has a computer, printer, packaging tape and envelopes, a tape measure, a Christmas ornament from 1983, an empty Zoe's Kitchen container that originally had chicken salad in it, an eBay package awaiting mailing, my purse, a camo shirt Brian has seriously outgrown, a mail receipt for something I sold through Amazon, "Chemistry: The Easy Way" (as if that is even possible...or believable), a receipt for Big Dave's haircut that transformed him back into something human from a wildebeast and a napkin holder with no napkins.

On the bar there is a Christmas candle, an empty water bottle, Brian's keys, a sad looking Christmas cactus, a phone that I bought for $14.99 that is almost impossible to hear from, a really nice candle that nobody will let me burn and a brown Sharpie. What SHOULD be there is the phone and nothing else. Yeah...right.

My dining room buffet is covered in stuff that is currently listed on eBay, two candle holders I got free at Ulta during Christmas and a uniform layer of dust. Nice.

The kitchen is clean except for the fifty homeless ears of corn that are currently on the counter and the unmatched dishtowels. Above the cabinets there are two old oil lanterns, a tray, a mirrored window and a nut chopper. Cute and decorated, it "ain't."

But tomorrow, my friend is coming over here to rectify that situation...or to at least guilt me into dealing with it on my own. I don't have a lot of clutter...but I do have a complete lack of decorating know-how. I tend to find something I like and emulate it. But sometimes, that can go horribly awry if left to my own devices. I'm not the most pathetic example of "decorating don'ts" you'll ever meet, but I'm certainly not a shining example of the "happy homemaker" either.

Although I really love my home, and it is definitely comfortable, I do long for the ability to make people envy my decorating know-how. Frankly, I consider it positive if someone visits and they don't laugh hysterically.

Well, I've been exhibiting avoidance behavior long enough...so I'm getting up and getting to it. I've done three loads of laundry and put them away so far...and the kitchen is clean...relatively speaking. Tomorrow is a big day for me...a day when I get my very own "Merry Maid" in the form of my friend, Bonnie. I doubt she'll be very "merry" when she arrives here at 7 a.m., and she definitely won't be when she leaves.

Wish me luck in getting it all done. Once the dust settles - literally - I should be able to breathe easier...in more ways than one. Here's hoping!