My Monday Morning

It is a coldish, snowy Monday morning. We had a lovely interlude of spring temperatures, 30's and 40's, but we are back to real winter with below zero temperatures expected in a day or two. It was nice while it lasted anyway. And really, having warm weather for the kids February break was awesome! This morning was a return to cold and to routine. After two weeks of family and being over at Mom and Dad's a lot, I needed a little routine to keep the house from descending into wrack and ruin. 

The grey snow of February....

 Monday mornings tend to be rather intense around here anyway. I have lately become one of those people who like to keep their house clean. (Or, I should say neat, since I will never be capable of the ordered 1950's housekeeping where I pull out my stove and fridge at regular intervals to clean behind them.) I like being able to walk through my living room without a GPS. I heartily embrace this change. As does Justin. Up until the past year or two, I have taken a rather detached and depressed view of the state of my house. An out of body experience--"I am surely not responsible for this living room that has gone from neat to disaster in half an hour, am I?" As a teenager, I firmly believed that there were more interesting things to do than to keep the house neat. Housekeeping was what you did when there was nothing, and I mean nothing, else to do.  I assumed I would magically be able to manage housekeeping after I got married, as though a housekeeping gene would be flipped on when the keys to our first apartment were handed to us. Ha! After realizing my complete lack of the housekeeping gene, I tried to ignore the teetering piles of clutter and envied my OCD friends who vacuumed behind dirty feet and washed a dish the minute it hit the sink.

My sweet little morning mess makers

More civilized

And now, miraculously, through some trick, housekeeping has become enjoyable to me. It is not my favorite thing in the world. But there is a satisfying sense of accomplishment in folding the last basket of laundry, knowing that under the kids bed is clean, that I even recently swept behind the sofa. I feel like I might be setting feminism back a few decades by admitting a sense of accomplishment in these things, but it is so. There is a rhythmic comfort in picking up the days messes and piles before bed. Like recharging the house to full capacity before the next day.

So things now tend toward neatness in our house. Except on weekends, when things get a little frayed around the edges. There is so much for the kids to do, (except for the inevitable "I am SO bored!" comments at 2:30 PM Saturday) that I hate to be nagging them to pick up, pick up every 10 minutes or so. And laundry tends to pile up, as well as dishes and the like. I hope to discover a weekend housekeeping gene soon. Until then, Monday mornings are busy. Several loads of laundry, an hour or two of picking up, sorting, and organizing, paying bills, a good sweep, changing sheets, making beds, and a dishwasher load later, I am definitely less enchanted with housework. But, my house is neat.

I am not sure that my house will ever be company ready at all times. But it is now capable of looking neat within a half hour or so. And for me, that is accomplishment enough.

 Now for my afternoon tea and a chapter or two of a book...

Watching the snow