Can She Do it?

OK, so today is the day that I decided to push myself out of my funk, to accomplish something falling under the category of "household management", spend about half the day doing some final work assignments and prepare a nutritious, wholesome meal for my little family. Today was a big day because....it was the first would-be housekeeper day that we have dispensed with. That makes me --- the housekeeper. Please note: We are within weeks of the 10th anniversary of closing on this house. I have never cleaned the house, per se, myself. Sure, the handprints that drive you bonkers, the crap on the carpet that has to go, the lemondade to be mopped off the kitchen floor. But I used to chortle with delight that I had never vacuumed THIS house in its entirety, dusted it, scrubbed the bathrooms. Welcome back, Kathy; time to come back to earth.






I thought, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and headed downstairs at 7:30, that I'd begin with a lovely cup of coffee in the sunshine of my kitchen, that I'd sort the kids' laundry and get that going and then sit at the computer taking care of some work, downstairs where there's more sunshine (and closer to coffee). Later I'd decide whether to tackle the upstairs cleaning chores or the downstairs ones.

Problem: the kitchen, though not destroyed, was in pretty bad shape. One of the ways in which I'm probably most like my Mom is that I loathe nothing more than being greeted first thing with a kitchen that needs to be cleaned before coffee or breakfast is made. [sigh]. Suck it up, sweetie; you're the stay at home Mom and the house is your responsibilty (mostly). So, at 10 AM I *finally* poured my first cup of coffee (delicious, I must say; I love Dunkin' Donuts original blend beans). I started the HUMONGOUS piles of laundry and settled down to work.

Another Problem: I really have a hard time sitting in a room that is cluttered. Clutter needs to be picked up, how can I sit and do whatever in a cluttered room? I can't.

I think I have a solution: I don't think I'm going downstairs anymore. I'll have the child-servants bring coffee to my room, make my bed, fire up the laptop and get to work.

Actually, I'm pretty pleased with the volume of work accomplished, especially compared to recent past.

So how do you guys like my new vacuum cleaner?