Life in the Woods: Dust, Dirt, and Mysterious Gray Crud

Just in case you were wondering, July 20 is Ice Cream Day, October 26 is Mother-in-Law Day, and December 12 is Gingerbread House Day. The first week in December is Cookie Cutter Week, the first week in February is Pancake Week, and the first week in May is Be Kind to Animals Week. I am able to share this obscure information with you because I have a way cool planner that informs me of all kinds of strange holidays. It's kind of a bossy planner because it tells me to do things like watch Charlotte's Web on July 11 (E.B. White's birthday) and play croquet on May 25 (Backyard Games Week), but I love it anyway.

Last Monday, I noticed in my handy dandy planner, that it was national cleaning week. Of course, I resolved to have my whole house spring cleaned from top to bottom before the week was out. All those things that only get cleaned once or twice a year (or not in the entire four and a half years that I've lived in this house!) desperately need a good scrubbing. The ceiling fans are dusty, the blinds are atrocious (that's one of the things I'm afraid I've neglected), the windows are dirty, there's a mysterious gray crud on the seal of my refrigerator that I'm fairly certain is mold (eww!), etc. etc. etc. My house isn't really in that bad of shape I guess, but I'm not going to invite any white-gloved cleaning inspectors over. Did you notice the verb tense? Yep, all those things still need done!

It's not that I didn't try to deep clean the house. I did. Sort of. The problem is, for some reason, I think the house has to be clean to clean it. Does that make sense? Probably not. I think it's one of those crazy ideas that I got from my mother. Kind of like how I only use the "good" towels--the big, fluffy ones that match the bathroom stuff--whenever the old, too-small-to-get-any-decent-coverage, bleach-spotted, should-be-rags, dollar store towels I bought in college are all dirty. Kinda weird, huh? Anyway, all my cleaning time this week was spent doing the regular cleaning and nothing extra at all. Except I got two bathroom cabinets cleaned out. Yippee! What progress! I did, however, get my house clean so I could clean, four times. And Colter and I got lots of playtime in, and that's more important anyway. :)

As you can see, Colter doesn't have my cleaning procrastination problems. He cleans off his book shelf everyday! Isn't sweet how he tries to motivate his mommy? He also takes all the baking pans out of the cabinet, so I can clean the shelves and reorganize. What a big helper! I wish I was as good a housekeeper as my sweetie pie.