scattered local mom tries to clean house before holidays

First, clean your house. Like really, go through all your cupboards that have decades-old spilled spices. Rip all your clothing out of your closet, determined to go all Jaanese on it. Then spray a homemade cleaner all over your tub, only to find it does nothing to the scum build up.

Then start sorting your child’s hoarded bag collections of ripped up tissue, pearler beads, buttons, coins, and hair binders.

Realize you need a photo taken for your write-up in your Waiting in the Word newsletter. Ask your husband to take a “casually happy” shot of you because you washed your hair today. Realize you look like you have a kink in your neck and your head is weighted down by your heavy hair (factually accurate).

Meanwhile your feral children have taken to jousting with cardboard tubes and knocked each other down and bonked each other’s heads and OH MY GOSH we have to get a Christmas tree and decorate the front of the house and make something for dinner.

While you’re texting your sister about what her kids need while in town for their visit (and talking on speaker to your other sister about what her meal plan ideas are), remember that you didn’t take the potatoes off the stove top yet and they’re probably boiled over.

Step over the contents of your closet strewn on your floor. Step on top of the piles of children’s toys you’ve carefully sorta-sorted. Hold your nose as you pass the bathroom your two children just used, subsequent to one another, no ceiling fan turned on, lots of toilet paper and the toilet is clogged.

Get downstairs and realize that no one is watching the toddler who just destroyed three books. Three of them. All Christmas related. Make mental note to find new ones. Or used? Thrift? Too much work? Amazon prime. Yes.

Turn off the potatoes, still talking and texting to your sisters, make frantic gestures to your husband about the book feast your son was enjoying and hustle back upstairs to survey the damage to every single square inch of your living space that you really were going to clean out before guests arrive later this week.

Wipe the bathroom down in paper towels quickly. Save the plunger part for your husband.

Sweep all the kids’ random assortments of junk into two big bags, resolving to meticulously go through them later.

Pile and push all your clothing back into the closet and selectively ignore the fact there is a stack shin-high of summer shoes that should be stored properly. Shove harder and eek the door closed.

Return to the downstairs and survey your work that is more than cut out for you. Pull the I-have-three-kids card on your guilt complex and brew some tea. Call it a day. Girt your loins to tackle it tomorrow.

Yes, this is a blend of my last few days. I DID get it all organized and cleaned and I feel a million times better. But maybe this mashup is really what most days are like around here??