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Anybody who knows me knows I hate cleaning with a vengeance. In fact the only way I manage to clean is with a vengeance.
Case in point, as we get ready for our annual caravan to Lake Michigan, I am wreaking my wrath on the the descendants of the fleas that invaded our house last year while we were on the vacation. For the last four hours I have sweat, I have cried, and Heaven help me, I have cleaned. I have cleaned so much I have lost 2 pounds of pure sweat all to ensure that we come home to a flea free house in a few weeks.
I think that fleas are perverts because they do not respond to poisons or flea collars or any of that nonsense. The only thing they want is to watch me clean before they die. So I have made the ultimate sacrifice this weekend.
But it’s not all bad.
As I cleared my dresser of countless unused bobby pins, headbands for people with hair much longer than mine, and straggling clothing tags bearing sizes that would only fit in my wildest fantasy, I managed to do a little rearranging.
My day of cleaning has culminated in a careful rearrangement on my dresser of some of the many clay sculptures made by my boys when they were in kindergarten. It’s the only safe place in the house where these irreplaceable treasures are guaranteed not to break-mainly because I don’t clean it very often.
I also found and decided to display two pictures. One picture was of thirteen year old Thing1 when he was just a few days old. he’ll be 14 in just a couple weeks, but the soft faded photo of a time not too long ago when he still needed us for everything pulls my heartstrings harder than if it had been taken yesterday. Next to it I put a framed photo of his seven-year-old brother, Thing2.
The top of my recently cleaned and cleared dresser is now a gallery, decorated with a couple of very good things, and that makes all the sweat tears and cleaning kinda worth it.
Now on to my closet. I’m hoping I can
find the same sort of redemption there. I kinda doubt it.