Another fine mess I've gotten myself into

I think I'm missing some important cleaning gene. With all of the cookies we've been delivering, I've been in and out of a lot of houses, some unannounced, and they have all been basically tidy. If people walk in to my house, especially unannounced, they would find backpacks piled on the couch, dishes piled in the sink, papers piled on the table. Basically, we live our lives in and around piles.

If you ever had the pleasure of visiting my old house, not only did we have piles, we had some active dirt going on, especially there at the end. I've made a real effort to do better with the new house but it still isn't as good as it should be. While I was sick last week, RF and WF did a great job of helping keep things running and people fed but cleaning wasn't on either of their radars. On Thursday, my Daisy co leader stopped by to get the cookies for the meeting since I couldn't make it and I was totally embarrassed by how filthy my house was! The dishes had completely taken over the counter, the kitchen table was covered in papers and toys and under that layer it was sticky where someone spilled syrup and didn't clean it up. I do better at seeing messes than the kids or RF but I have a HUGE capacity for simply ignoring things like that.

I will spend hours doing marathon cleaning binges but can't seem to take the 5 minutes it takes to stay on top of it, to begin with. The kids and I spent 2 hours cleaning the garage top to bottom Friday night. To be fair, it hadn't been cleaned since before the bathroom remodel because we were using it as the staging area for everything for the bathroom. Then I got sick, then we filled it full of cookies and I got sick again. But still, it was dusty and gross and smelly and took 3 people 2 hours to clean it. Saturday, I spent 2 hours cleaning my kitchen. I did the dishes, washed the counters, table and chairs, scrubbed the stove and cleaned the fridge, dishwasher, the cabinets and the walls, as well as sweeping and mopping. Today, I cleaned the kids' rooms, our room, the bathroom and changed all the sheets, besides re-vaccumming the rest of the house.

It took about 6 hours of solid work to get it all done but it looks great right now. By tomorrow, it won't look great and by Tuesday or Wednesday, you won't be able to tell I did anything because I just don't stay on top of it like I should.