Neat Freak

First of all, I need to point out that I rarely come up with good titles, although I try (when I grow up, I want to write titles like Quigs LOL). Today, I'm giggling like mad at my title and that makes me happy. On to the post.

I'm generally lazy and slovenly. My house is generally a mess and usually that doesn't bother me. Recently, we've started having people over more often (I tried to keep people the heck out of my house as a general rule before) so I had to clean it up. Surface cleaning, the type I do most often, just wasn't going to cut it so I kicked it up a notch and really started CLEANING things. I have managed to finish every room in my house except my bedroom(on the agenda, I just didn't feel like it today), the bathroom (I need to really scrub the hell out of the tub, but otherwise it is done), RF's room (he needs to clean off his desk and I need to vaccum) and TB's nook (we are going to clean the hell out of that place over break. He has had it set up only a few months and it is already a health hazard. He is gonna hate it but that is too bad).

Overall, I'm really enjoying the effect of the cleaner house. We have less stuff because I have been mercilessly tossing things, which means less stuff to keep clean in the future. I've managed to stay on top of the rooms that I've cleaned and I'm making the kids, who are more than old enough, help out, especially with picking up their junk. They hate how dictatorish I've become about cleaning but that is just too bad. They need to know that they can't trash the house and then walk away and let someone else clean it up. I'm done being the maid.

I'm also using up stuff that I've been saving. When TB was little, I sold PartyLite for awhile. Basically, it was overprized junk but I have a ton of it. I never could really burn it because TB was facinated with the flame and would try to pull them over or climb to get them. My kids are old enough to leave that kind of thing alone now so I've been burning candles like mad. Anytime we are home for any length of time, I light them. I started digging through the "candle cabinet" looking for a pillar candle and I discovered that I had over 20 dozen tealight candles, several pillars, some tapers, a few jars, etc etc etc. So I dug out a bunch of candle holders and I'm getting rid of all of them. My goal is to have the candle cabinet empty by spring. At least empty of candles. I have a bunch of nice (expensive) holder that I intend to keep and use with cheap candles in the future.