Tricks, Traps, and Huh?

I've written before about how much I enjoy cleaning my house. I look back at the days when it was just Jamie and I, and wonder how in the world I ever got behind in it back then. Then again, my "getting behind" then is a lot different than my "getting behind" now. Then we would get busy with school and after a week or two decide that things were getting out of hand and needed some touching up. Now, one busy day, even a half a busy day, can leave the entire place shot. It's a conspiracy!

When I really can't work myself up to start cleaning, sometimes a little game will come into my head to play while I clean. Almost like talking to myself, only different.

Today as I was dragging myself to the sink to do dishes I noticed a piece of hard candy on the counter, unwrapped it, and popped it into my mouth. Then the thought came, "Clean as long as it takes to melt that in your mouth." Voila! Like Mary Poppin's spoonful of sugar, it helped the medicine of cleaning go down. "In every job that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and SNAP! The job's a game!" What a wise woman Mary Poppins is. And since many times I just need to get my motor going, the candy game was enough to do that. I didn't even realize when it was gone! But when I did notice, I was already seeing the good results of my efforts and kept moving (till I stopped to blog about it).

Another starter for the day was writing on facebook, "I am such an amazing person! I can think of at least 684 things to do besides clean the house. Any independently wealthy people out there want to send a maid over for me?" As soon as I clicked the "share" button, I thought, "What if one of my friends and neighbors reads that, thinks, gee, sounds like Marni could really use some help today, and actually comes over to help. How embarrassing would that be?" That thought sent me on another cleaning frenzy.

Unfortunately, distractions abound around here, and some days it seems that I hardly get going before someone or something stops the progress. Today it was Madeleine getting a big bonk on the head, after which I held and loved her for about an hour. But somewhere I remember hearing that the distractions in life are life, so here's to the distractions.

Something else struck me the other day. I was looking at a picture taken of me in our kitchen the month before I turned 16. I hadn't noticed much about the picture except me before, but this time I noticed a kitchen chair showing in the picture. I stared at it, digging in years of unused memories, and for the life of me, I do not remember those kitchen chairs. (Coincidentally, I mentioned it to my sister today who would have been 9 at the time and she did.) We moved a month later and a new dining set was purchased, so those are what I remember. I've heard it said before that kids don't remember the mess, they remember what you did with them, how they were loved, etc. etc. So by golly, if I can't even remember chairs I probably sat on for the first almost 16 years of my life, yet I do remember a lot of really fun things, I guess that's got to be true and it's most important to enjoy being with your family instead of stressing over the mess. Then again, I don't remember Disneyland. But that's another point for another day.