Spring Cleaning

Welcome, March!!!

To usher in the new month, I decided to bleach down my house today.  I've dusted, scrubbed, vacuumed, and wiped down every visible surface area in our home.  You name it, I cleaned it: dusty fan blades, dog-snotted windows, ceiling can lights, and every inch of every baseboard including the dark-corner ones that scare me.

As a reward, I instituted mandatory naptime for everyone under 3.5 feet tall and not only showered by myself, but also enjoyed the last little bit of Tam-Tam's soup and a yummy corn muffin... ALONE!!!

I absolutely savored the silence...  right up until the moment that I swallowed the last bite of carbohydrate goodness and Chewie started barking which woke up the entire house.  I think I got a total of about 23 minutes to myself... but it was 23 minutes of pure bliss!!!

I have put myself on a bi-weekly cleaning schedule.  Anything more makes me feel overwhelmed and a little like Cinderella, while anything less makes me worry that DFCS will come-a-knockin' at my door.  I still vacuum at least every other day and sweep twice daily (because my kids are incapable of getting the food straight from their plates to their mouths), but I've had to learn to ignore the finger and nose prints that grace our front windows in order to manage my compulsion for cleanliness.   When you have as many fingers, toes, and noses running around as I do, it's impossible to keep everything perfect all the time.

My point, however, is that today's cleaning - while part of my bi-weekly routine - was different because I really felt like I was scrubbing all of the sadness and nastiness of last month out of our home.  I felt like it needed to be acknowledged as a monumental event of sorts.  And what better way to give notice to something than to blog about it, right?

I also made bread.  I love, love, love my breadmaker.  I need to learn how to make some other varieties, but for now, the satisfaction of how my house fills with the smell of floury, carbohydrate goodness from the plain white bread is plenty to tide me over.  What's makes me laugh almost every time is that when the aroma hits my nose nearly two hours after the bread cycle starts, I have forgotten that the machine is even working!  Even today, I asked my oldest if she smelled anything and she looked at me with an annoyed-far-beyond-her-years look as she said, "Uh, yeah mama... the BRE-EAD!"  And yes, I know it's lopsided.  I'm not sure why that happened, but trust me, it didn't affect the smell or the taste!

Last, but not least, I actually did follow through on yesterday's promise(ish) to work on some more embroidery projects.  These are custom orders and not for my shop, but it felt good to get behind the machine again and turn something plain into something pretty.

I even have a few more things in the queue and am excited to get in a few hours of work tomorrow.  I just hope that excitement carries over twelve hours from now!

Love, hugs, and blessings,
The Mama