I can’t seem to get to bed before 12:30 these days. I admit that some nights it’s been because I just couldn’t put the latest library book down (I’m reading the Earth’s Children series, but fortunately will be forced to wait for the next installment because someone’s got it checked out). Most nights, though, it’s because of lunch-packing, dish-washing, laundry-folding, garbage-collecting, meal prepping… you get the idea. And yet I never feel like I can get ahead.
We’ve been falling farther and farther behind on the housework front over the past few months. (We must have way too much clothing because how could we possibly have clothes strewn all over both bedrooms, all the laundry hampers full, the laundry room floor covered in laundry, and yet still have 14 loads of clean laundry to fold?!) Because the greenhouse has been torn down and Jade’s new room (previously a catch-all storage room) is being renovated, we have boxes and bins of junk filling our family room in the basement, much of which will someday move out to the as-yet-non-existent shed. It’s all a bit overwhelming.
I once read a study that showed when the area around a garbage can is tidy, people tend to be very conscientious about putting their garbage in the garbage can, but as soon as there’s a bit of litter around it, they tend to get lazy and not care if the garbage goes in or falls out of the can. I think the same thing happens in our house; once things start going downhill, things tend to snowball. Please, God, let the shed get started soon, because despite being busy now, I know things will be all the crazier come November. And if our household standards “relax” any more than where they are now, our house will be deemed unfit for human habitation.
On Monday, we actually hired a couple of girls from down the street to babysit Jade for two hours so that we could do some serious scrubbing and cleaning upstairs. Yes, it had come to that. The toys got put away, we got everything dusted, the rug vacuumed, toilets and sinks scrubbed, and Michael actually got down on his hands and knees and washed the upstairs floors. Plus, Jade’s room (which is downstairs) got aired out and all her clothes got cleaned up, and I found a basket to stack her books in so it’s not just a pile of books next to the recliner. It was an epic few hours of cleaning, but it was so good to be able to focus on it, and two whole days later it still feels so much cleaner. (Laugh, if you must, but there have been so many times where we’ve cleaned and it felt like we were right back to square one the very next day.) It’s amazing what a relief it is to not cringe when Jade decides to eat something that fell on the floor. The $20 in babysitting was well worth it.
Bonus: last night we popped in Music & Lyrics and folded all but one basket of laundry — and put most of it away. We are on a roll, baby.
There’s still tons left to do, but some of it will have to wait until Jade’s room is finished and the new shed has been built. But on our next free weekend (not this one coming, as we’ll be at the music festival in Atlin) I’m thinking we need to hire another babysitter. And there will be culling, oh yes, there will be boxes of recycling, goodwill, and garbage. Is it wrong to be excited?
