See, in terms of keeping house, I'm pretty good at the cleaning part. I don't mind mopping floors, wiping off counters, washing dishes, vacuuming, etc. The part I do mind is that it never seems to end. But such is life.
However, I am not so good at the non-clutter part of housekeeping. I have clutter EVERYWHERE. I have papers shoved into corners, photos that await framing behind those papers, postcards my husband sent me from overseas languishing behind other papers, and pens in all areas of my house.
Why pens?? I am a pen whore. And I'm all right with that!
Most of the time my house doesn't look too bad. But there are some areas that ALWAYS need work. Like this computer desk. There are pens and papers and bits of my life all over this thing. It's a computer armoire that is supposed to have doors on it, but since we have it pushed into the niche beside my front door basically in the hall, I can't have the doors on it. This foiled my plans to just shut my mess behind the doors. I feel like I'm constantly cleaning and straightening this damn thing. I think my papers mate like rabbits. It's the only explanation for the accumulation of clutter!
Last night Kurt took a look at the bottom of my feet (I refuse to wear shoes in my house, and in the summer I also refuse to wear socks) and said, "Geez, did you go outside in your bare feet??" Since there is no way to leave our house from the front door without stepping on gravel, which is no friend to bare feet, I gave him an odd look and then looked at the bottoms of my feet. They were filthy, reminiscent of the summers I spent completely barefoot, all the time, as a child.
So I figured it was time for a good old mopping of the kitchen floor. Usually I use a damp microfiber mop for light cleaning, but this time I brought out the big guns -- my real mop, Simple Green, and hot, hot water.
My floor is now clean. As well as my bathroom floor, which is usually covered with a thin film of hairspray.
The mopping really got me going. So after I finished the mopping, I began to dust. I cleaned off the knick-knack shelf in my living room, took my wedding cake topper off the top shelf and moved it to the china closet, and got rid of knick-knacks that I just don't need anymore. I even took the three rocks that were on my knick-knack shelf and put them outside.
I love rocks. Don't ask; I don't get it either.
I dusted my bookcase too, then did the entertainment center. Then I realized I really ought to vacuum as well, so I went into Grace's room where I had a basket full of her clean clothes and another full of clean diapers and put them away to get them off the floor. I really hate folding baby clothes. They're too damn small, yet they seem to take up a bunch of room in her dresser drawers. Onesies (aka bodysuits) are the worst. I hate folding those things. But since she wears them as jammies every night, it has to be done. The diapers just had to go; they were taking up way too much room on her changing table if she wasn't going to be wearing cloth anymore. So I folded all the diapers and the cloth wipes and the doublers and shoved them in the cabinet underneath her changing table to await our next child, whenever that is going to be.
In the midst of all this straightening and cleaning, I also washed two loads of laundry, which I will have to be putting away soon. Fortunately Kurt and I don't generate much laundry in general. I wear my pants at least twice before I wash them, and Kurt wears one pair for usually a week or so. I know that sounds gross, but when you consider he only wears them for maybe three hours a day (an hour in the morning to get to work, then he changes out of his civilian clothes and into his coveralls, then he wears them for the two hours it takes him to get home because he rarely wears pants when he's relaxing), it's really not as gross as it sounds. So while I do probably at least one load of laundry every two days, it's not because of the clothes we wear. Our clothes get washed once a week, Grace's laundry once a week, the towels once a week, and random loads (like Kurt's undershirts and other whites) once a week. I couldn't stand to do laundry the way my stepmom does. She does all her laundry at one time every weekend. She's basically doing laundry all damn weekend. It would drive me insane.
This weekend Kurt brought his Navy coveralls home, the special ones that electrician rates have to wear, and asked me to repair one set and put patches on two more. So I hauled out the sewing machine and started sewing. His rank badges went on just fine (and yes, this time I made sure the crows were facing in! The first time I did it, I didn't realize the crows had to face a particular way, and it was pointed out to him one day at quarters), but then I started having issues with the US Navy patch above his left breast pocket. At first I thought it was because the fabric is a lot thicker than I'm used to working with because it seemed like the feed dogs just weren't feeding the fabric. But the bobbin thread kept getting all tangled up. So finally I decided to take the thread off the bobbin and start again. Talk about a fiasco!! It took probably twenty minutes for me to successfully fill the bobbin, and I nearly killed myself with the flying spool before I realized I have a spool holder that prevents it from flying off at high speeds. Finally I had all his patches sewn onto his coveralls. That is definitely not my favorite thing to do. I think I would rather eat bleu cheese (bleccccccch!) than sew on patches. But then I'd rather sew them on myself than pay someone to do it.
Just call me a domestic engineer!