Cleaning is futile

I like a clean house. When my environment is clean and orderly I can think clearly. It's such a wonderful feeling walking into a clean house. Maybe I'm a little weird for finding great enjoyment in a clean home, but I'm not OCD . Jeff may have thought I was, but having kids messed that up. Let's face it, with kids (and husbands, ha ha) it's impossible to always have a clean home, so might as well accept that.

But I want a wonderfully clean home, darn it! Or is it simply just futile until the kids move out? Let me share what happened the other day. The kids were napping, so I had about 2 hours to myself. Actually, as most mothers know, when you get time like this it's not like it's free time where I can do whatever the heck my heart desires. I wish! It's more like doing whatever I can to catch up and plan ahead for what's next in the day. Meaning that I'm cleaning, organizing, cooking, crying in the corner, regaining my sanity, etc. So for these few hours I decided to clean the kitchen, which I do find pretty therapeutic. Last on the clean kitchen list were the floors. Our vinyl flooring spreads from the kitchen, through a little hallway that leads to the garage, and into our half bath. There's also vinyl in the entry area so I always just clean that at the same time. On a daily basis I sweep the kitchen floors and spot mop, meaning that I just scrub dirty spots with cleaner and a cloth. But on this day I wanted to do the full on cleaning - it had been a while. I moved everything out of the kitchen, meticulous swept the floor, spot mopped the dirtier areas, regular mopped the whole floor, then did round 2 of mopping the whole floor. It was beautiful. I stood back and enjoyed my so-clean-I-would-eat-off-them floors.

Then I got the kids up and we ran some errands. Before getting in the car to come back home I stepped in some dirty snow, not thinking much about it. Well, when I got home and got everyone in the house Jeff had noticed some dirty shoe prints on the carpet, which I had just vacuumed. My first thought was it must be Jeff (he he), but then I noticed it was from me and realized that before I had gone into the living room I had gone into the kitchen. Sure enough, the floor was dirty where I had walked. Great. I wiped it down, determined to keep my floors clean as long as possible, then got to work making dinner. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but dinner at our house ends up with dirty counters, a nasty table, dirty high chairs, and some kind of food on the floor, and this day was no exception. So after the hustle and bustle of dinner was over and the kids and husband were cleared out of the kitchen I looked around at the war zone that just a few hours before had been a spotless sanctuary. Sigh. Better get to work. I do love my "job" and am truly grateful to have it, but it is definitely a 24/7 gig. Thus is the life of a housewife.