Proof

My mom's visit is right around the corner, and I'm already doing what I refer to as "stupid cleaning". (I call it "stupid cleaning" because when I first did this as a newlywed, Bruce just looked on and pronounced my efforts "stupid".) The house is a complete mess... more on why in a minute... BUT my kitchen cabinets are looking really organized.

Yes, stupid cleaning. When you don't hit the stuff that company would actually see if they came without warning, but you do finally get to the stuff that's been bugging you for way too long. When you clean junk drawers, but leave on the counter tops the piles that are leaning nearly over. When you wash curtains, but leave the grimy fingerprints smeared on the glass windows. When you scrub baseboards, but wait to mop.

I spent time over the weekend culling out-of-date items and putting some plastic containers on my shopping list. Like these canisters:



I was going to buy glass canisters, but what I planned to store in the canisters is usually shoved way back into the nether lands of my cabinet, so I thought about what would happen if they clanked together and broke. And I didn't like the image of my arm stretched into the dark recesses of a cabinet to fish out glass shards. Plastic is my friend.

Right now, my three canisters are snug in the rear section of one of my cabinets, holding pinto beans, elbow macaroni and rice.

I also bought two plastic shoe-box sized containers to hold stuff that I found in triplicate when I cleaned the cabinet out. I kept buying Lipton onion soup mix, taco seasoning, Italian dressing mix and buttermilk cornbread mix over and over again... because I couldn't find them in the cabinet.

Proof that just because you don't see something doesn't mean it's not there. (I'm sure there's a deep theological meaning in there somewhere, but I'm already tired of digging deep.)

Moving right on into theology... I missed church Sunday because Clay vomited Saturday night. Thanks to the Lord, he did not have the virus that is makings its rounds at the school.

He had gone to two birthday parties Saturday and the last one was a sleepover. Clay does not do sleepovers well, so we've suspended them for now. There's only so many times I'm willing to pick a child up in the middle of the night. I told him to let me know when he thinks he's ready to try again. He hasn't let me know yet.

But at the second party he did stay late. And he came home with a list of all the things he had ingested. A Coke, an orange Fanta, four brownies, "tons" of popcorn, some cocktail wienies... I can't remember the rest.

After he got home and started getting ready for bed, he said he was hungry. I asked, "Clay, how can you be hungry? You just told me all the stuff you had to eat there."

He rubbed his stomach and said, "You're right. I actually feel stuffed."

Proof that God is merciful. Because any more put in would have come right back out.

Also proof that gluttony is not good.

Two hours later, Clay did his best to make it to the garbage can we'd put by his bed, "just in case". After a few minutes of cleaning, I informed Bruce that we'd be renting a carpet cleaner for the Sabbath day.

Sunday morning, Bruce took Spencer and Allison to church and I stayed home with Clay. That afternoon, when everyone was home from church, I rented a steam cleaner and we spent the rest of Sunday moving furniture and cleaning our carpet, the inside of the van, a used couch and loveseat we bought a few months back for the kids' playroom, and our couch and loveseat in the den.

Monday morning, the exposed carpet was mostly dry, so I moved pieces of furniture back to their normal spots and let the areas they were sitting on dry. On Tuesday, I picked up all the pieces of plastic garbage bags that I had cut up to put under all the wood and metal furniture bases and legs.

Proof that sometimes you have to make a mess to clean a mess.

Here we are on Wednesday. I'm finally starting the normal housecleaning.

But I'm expecting more "stupid cleaning" in the next week or so, too.