Hang the environment! I want to see my floor again!

When I was much younger, a favorite family vacation place was Ainsworth Hot Springs in beautiful British Columbia. The resort gift shop had an assortment of interesting items, the best one being the disposable swimsuits that were invariably a huge hit with the Japanese tourists. The swimsuits were made of an uncomfortable plastic material, held together by elastic at the arm and leg openings, and puffed out like a marshmallow. I scoured the internet for a photo, but it seems that even Japanese tourists are ashamed to be photographed in such a monstrosity. The best comparison I can come up with is those horrid old-fashioned diaper covers:

Probably not the Beach Babe you were envisioning.

After two weeks of having Baby D home and not getting a blessed thing done around here, including laundry, those disposable swimsuits are starting to look reeeeeeeeeeeeal good.

Baby D demands to be held at all times, and I am all too happy to cuddle with him 24/7! But if I have to trip over one more dirty shirt...........

Or hunt for one more clean spoon............

Or go one more night without putting sheets on the bed...........

Ainsworth will be hearing from me.

My Bare-Minimum Company Cleanup

Tonight is the final dress rehearsal for the last opera of the season. Phew! My feelings about the opera for the past couple weeks? Picture the stereotypical teenager screaming, "You're ruining my life!" Yeah, I'm just a little ready for it to be done. :-P

My younger sister, who just recently moved to a city a few hours away, is coming down tonight to see the show! Since last night was my first free night since Friday, I had to do a little housework. Luckily, my sister already knows that I'm a slob, so no need to pull out all the stops there! But even so, there are a few things I ALWAYS do before ANY company darkens my door:

1. Vacuum the floor. At least SOME large surface of the house will be clean!

2. Clean the bathroom. For me, the biggest yuck factor when visiting a house is the state of the bathroom. So, at my house, I always sweep the floor, wipe down the sinks, and clean the mirrors. I get the toilet, too, if I have time.

3. Get rid of any visible trash. Clutter can be excused if it's actually real stuff. But that Taco Bell wrapper? Not so much. Not that, um, I'm actually using a real-life example from my house or anything.

When I'm in a hurry, I actually try to restrain myself from doing too much to the kitchen. Although that is the one room in the house that I MUST have clean on a day-to-day basis, guests aren't going to come over to hang out in the kitchen. So I just turn off the lights in the kitchen and pretend like I always fumble around in the dark when I make tea.

What is on your Bare-Minimum Company list?

The Bedroom Mess Monster

All right, it's time to tell you the horrible story about our bedroom, and about my valiant cleaning efforts this past week.

Before marriage, I was always hearing the phrase, "Don't bring baggage with you into the marriage!" I thought to myself, "Great! I don't really have any emotional issues, so I'm just peachy!"

Now, I'm wondering if those advisors were being a little more... literal.

A year and a half ago, my husband and I joined hearts, hands, and lives, as well as all of our random college-life paraphernalia and boxes of junk from our childhood bedrooms. I was suddenly the proud new co-owner of a HUGE Rubbermaid container literally bursting with clothes, a Darth Vader costume, and a large collection of random glass bottles that DH to this day refuses to part with; and DH, I'm sure, felt that he had moved into a Jo-Ann Fabrics store/Obscure-BookWorld.

The Monster was born.

We consolidated our things the best we could as we set up house. We live in a one-bedroom 705-sq. ft. apartment, so our bedroom became a sleeping area, sewing room, library, study area, and general storage area. We crammed everything in as best as we could and went on with life.

Meanwhile, throughout the first eight months or so, our families and friends sent us a large volume of boxes full of goodies as well as random junk. Not quite sure what to do with all this stuff, we stashed it under the bed, promising to "go through it later". Little did we know that we were inadvertently feeding a Monster.

Christmas came and went. Birthdays came and went. The monster under our bed started creeping out and even sprouted a couple of clones in the corner and the closet. We got cats, who spent many delightful hours romping under the bed, pulling things out of boxes and gleefully doing the Monster's bidding.

Finally everything came to a head the other week when I realized that I hated stepping on Christmas ornaments first thing every morning (that's just not quite the way I like to feel the Christmas spirit).

So last week, I just went in and decluttered a corner. Nothing too big. The Monster barely stirred. The next day, I cleaned out my dresser. Again, just a little baby step. The day after that, I sorted through a chest. The past few days, I've been under the bed, just doing one box a day.

Inch by inch, the Monster is shrinking. I have carted out two bags full of trash and a box full of give-away stuff. Sometimes, when I'm going through things, the Monster whispers insidious things in my ear like, "But that was your mom's sweater in high school! Shouldn't you keep it, even though it has a huge tear in the arm?" or, "But you've only had those magazines for a year! Maybe you'll read them next year!" I smile in his direction and chuck the offending item in the trash.

I purposely didn't clean up all the visible mess before starting on the deep-cleaning, because I still need a visual reminder to get some work done, so the bedroom still doesn't look very impressive. I'm still a loooong way off from Martha Stewart clean. However, I have already found many treasures:

• $39 cash
• The tweezers I have been tearing apart the house for
• Nine ponytail elastics (I was down to one)
• This awesome book on homemade stuff (underneath a pile of magazines in a box sent by family)
• Also underneath that pile of magazines, a wedding-gift check for a good sum of money. And it was expired. I wanted to jump in a lake.

So that is what is going on with my bedroom now. I'll keep you posted!