Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Selling My House...

When my Little Sister moved to England she left behind her CARPET CLEANER...

Lately I have been noticing a few spots and I decided that YESTERDAY would be the day to CLEAN my CARPETS...

After I put the kids down I got the Carpet Cleaner out. The directions suggested Vacuuming the floor first. Duh. SO I got the Vacuum out, then I realized what a MESS my house was. SO I began picking up toys. Which made me realize how unorganized my toys are! SO I thought about better ways to organize them. As I was finding a new home for a toy, I tripped over the Carpet Cleaner chord and remembered that I was suppose to cleaning my Carpets. I abandoned organizing and got back to vacuuming. Then I realized it would be a waste of time to clean JUST the carpet that "shows", so I would need to move all the furniture. After pulling out one part of the couch I realized this is MORE than I could do by myself.

SO I resigned to the SPOT CLEANER and attacking the spots. Have you ever noticed that removing the BIG SPOT should seem like a RELIEF and like you might be done... when really it just makes you notice the SMALL SPOTS MORE!! And now you have EVEN MORE WORK than you thought?? (Gospel Principle here?? I won't go into all that with this Post)

As I worked on what started as a few BIG SPOTS and multiplied into a MILLION LITTLE SPOTS I began to wonder WHY there were so many spots on my two year old carpet?? Was someone secretly SNEAKING food out of my kitchen and spilling it on their way up stairs? (my kids, thankfully, have still not figured out sneaking food - which would only leave me to blame since JT is very careful and I am not, so that CAN'T be it) I looked into my Kitchen hoping for an explanation when I noticed (because I was ground level) how HORRIFYING my KITCHEN FLOOR is!!!

No one is SNEAKING food out of the kitchen! We are TRACKING it out on our FEET!!!

This was more than I could take so I cleaned the stairs and called it a night.


TODAY, after getting all of my little ones in bed for naps I crept downstairs to start it again.

This time, I would begin IN the KITCHEN (the SOURCE of the problem) I got out the Mop, but realized I would definitely need to SWEEP first. (my BIGGEST pet peeve on earth is SWEEPING) So I grabbed my pink broom (which I bought hoping it would cheer my up to do my least favorite chore with my most favorite color... it actually does help) As I started to sweep a path through the cereal, bits of crayon from Blake chewing them last night, and every other scary thing on my floor I noticed the Counter Tops.... Can you guess where this is going?

HOW could I sweep with dirty Counter Tops?? There is nothing worse than having a shiny clean floor and then wiping a counter top only to have a crumb fall to the ground!

So, set a side the Carpet Cleaner for the Vacuum, and the Vacuum for the Spot Cleaner, and the Spot Cleaner for the Mop, and the Mop for the Broom and now the Broom for the Sponge!!

I WISH it stopped here.

Of course I noticed how awful my counters are! Sometime I am guilty of wiping the counter but not getting into the cracks between the counter and the wall, or the back splash, or around the edges of my sugar canister. All of these SNEAKY little places where shouting out at me "You CAN'T SWEEP IF I'M NOT CLEAN!!"

Now nap time is drawing to an end. I hear rustling through the Baby Monitor.

AND I AM NO CLOSER TO CLEAN CARPETS THAN I WAS YESTERDAY!!!

How on EARTH are we suppose to KEEP UP?? In a few minutes, 3 little ones will be awake and set back out on their daily mission of destroying my home!! (don't get me wrong-- I am actually OK with the mass destruction of our home-- it is the CLEANING UP I can't handle!) By the time I get them back down for bed tonight we will have gotten out all of the toys I tried to organize, I will make a dinner which will get crumbs all over my counter tops that are bound to be wiped onto the floor, which won't matter because Blake will have tracked dirt in from the backyard, while Riley drips paint from her art project, and Macie spits Green Beans down her bumbo, missing my lap, directly back onto that floor!! Just in time for JT to come home, step in it and accidentally spread it to my Living Room Carpet. So when I get the Carpet Cleaner back out- I will be right back in the KITCHEN!!


It is so discouraging I don't even know WHERE to begin!!

I guess the ONLY thing TO DO is let the little ones mess it up. Keep making yummy dinners that end up on our feet and in the Living Room and just SELL THE DARN HOUSE WHEN MY KIDS ARE OLDER AND DONE DESTROYING IT!!!!!!!!

4 comments:

  1. I know exactly what you mean!!!! I feel like my house can never ever be perfect (I am thinking specifically about when company is coming and i have tried to clean the whole thing through and through). There are always more finger prints to wash off walls and more cupboards and drawers that need to be organized. All I know is that if I keep cleaning this much after I am an empty nester my house will be perfect, but chances are I will be wishing there was someone here to mess it up.
    p.s. panic attack with the title of your post. Thanks Katie!

    ReplyDelete
  2. oh katie. let's build a house for the little ones. or cages. just kidding. i'm just lucky still that flora isn't crawling or rolling around yet, so i'm still letting a lot slide. she did get into brad's watercolors the other night though--we came out and she had a fistful of payne's gray. what i'm trying to say is--amen to everything you said.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This sounded like if you give a mouse a cookie! I say just enjoy it. Before we know it our houses will be clean and quiet and we will all miss our happy messes!! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. ok first I'm reading the top post...then catch a hit of the lower post "part II" then I scroll down and start reading...not fast enough...shes moving...what... oh gees I skipped all over that post to see what I was missing and then read it all through...not usually how I ready posts... and walla...I totally agree...been there...done that... I mean...doing that...constantly../.evevryday! seriously. ( and it's not OCD) BELIEVE ME... the fact that the spots are there to start with and the crumbs were there to start with... NOT OCD, and You know i've done ALOT of reaserch...I know OCD.

    ReplyDelete