Sunday, May 13, 2012

Preventative Maintenance

Cuddles turned two on Monday.  It's been difficult for me to adjust; I've been identifying her age in months for...well...24 months now.  I can't believe I have a two-year-old!

On Monday, we celebrated ourselves; Mini-me and I sang her "Happy Birthday" in the morning, and I made brownie cupcakes for a special treat after dinner.  Her party, though, is today.  All grandparents, aunts, and uncles are invited, and that means I'll have about ten people in the house.  Time to clean!

Saturday morning, My Love took the girls to the park so that I could get some work done.  I started the washing machine, then got busy.  I assumed I had several hours' work ahead of me; that's been the description of most of my cleaning sprees thus far.  However (I timed it), I had the house shining in an hour and eight minutes.  Pretty impressive!  And I can identify exactly why the job was so quick and easy:  the house wasn't dirty...at least not dirty enough that I normally would have said it "needed" cleaning.  There was no visible dust and no debris on the carpet.  Still, I dusted all surfaces in all the common areas, swept the hallway and kitchen (I DID turn up a pretty respectable pile of crumbs there), and ran the vacuum.  By the time my family swept back into the house at 10:38, I was emptying the dust pan into the garbage can and looking with pride at a clean house! 

All members of our family have seen the home at its worst (specifically, when there was a newborn in the house), so there's no real need to impress them.  However, it does make me feel good to hone my hostessing abilities and set a nice backdrop for Cuddles's party.  She won't remember it, of course, and I hope that our guests will care more about the event itself than the clean carpets.  I guess, in the end, today' activities were mostly for my own satisfaction, and I'm proud to report that housekeeping is fast becoming a habit!

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