What's Come Over Me?

I'm not sure what's gotten into me today.  I woke up with a compelling urge to clean house ...really clean house.  While I don't believe that I brazenly neglect those domestic responsibilities, let's just say I'm not known among family and friends as a compulsive clean house nut!  But today, I'm motivated.

Maybe it's the cooler weather.  Autumn is still hanging on, but only by a toenail.  The nights are routinely down in the 40's now and daytime temperatures above 70 degrees are becoming a rarity.  Some people get inspired to do 'spring cleaning' ...I have always leaned more toward 'fall cleaning.'  It makes more sense to me to do deep cleaning in the fall.  For one thing, the weather is cooling off so you can work pretty darn hard for a few hours and not run much risk of working up a sweat.  But the main thing for me seems to be the threat ...er, I mean prospect ....of holiday visitors descending upon your household.  We wouldn't want family or friends to think we didn't live in perpetually spotless conditions, now would we?   I guess I've only been mildly successful in that regard since, as I mentioned ...I'm not known among family and friends as a compulsive clean house nut!  But still ...deep cleaning in the fall rather than the spring is how I roll.

Since Yeoldfurt started his new job, his schedule finally seems to have settled so that he has Tuesdays and Saturdays off.  In some ways, we miss having our two-day weekends together.  But in other ways, it's been good.  With only Saturday as our mutual day off, we tend to appreciate the time together and use it more wisely.  When he's off on Tuesdays and I'm at work from 6:00am to 4:00pm, he has the luxury of a big block of time to use any way he pleases without worrying about what I might have in mind to do.  Same thing for me on Sundays.  With the time change, it's dark here by 5:30, so I've had to start feeding the livestock at 5:00 every evening.  So I spend Sunday mornings and afternoons catching up on paperwork and housework and ...if I'm lucky ...whatever yard work needs doing.  Then at 5:00pm, I put the chickens to bed and feed all the outside critters.  I'm done by 5:30 and have plenty of time to get cleaned up and go to the 6:30pm evening service at church.  When I leave for church, supper is started and on autopilot ...usually a crockpot meal ...so it's ready in minutes when I get back at 7:30.  Yeoldfurt gets home about 7:15 so we still have our evening together. 

In the two and a half months Yeoldfurt has worked at the bakery, they've changed his days off two or three times.  But for now, it's working well for me.  With both of us having one day while the other is at work to take care of all our main chores, we are free to do whatever we both want to do together on Saturdays.  If his schedule changes again, I'll adapt ...but for now, I'm liking it. 

Laundry is always a big part of my chore list on Sundays.  A normal week is two or three loads if I just do sheets and the clothes hamper.  If I do rugs too, well ...it just depends.  Today is a rug day.  The washer has been going non-stop for the past four hours.  In the meantime, I stripped everything that wasn't bolted down (literally) out of the bathrooms and have scrubbed the shower stall, toilets, baseboards and counter tops.  I don't mean a lick and a promise with a sudsy mop either.  I mean on my hands and knees with a bucket of soapy water and lots of elbow grease ...just like your momma did it.  Well, like my momma did it anyway!   I have gone over the floors by hand, but will go over them again with a mop and some clorox, then again with just clean water before I'm done.  I'll do the same for the kitchen after I finish the bathrooms but have to wait until the last load of laundry is done because my access to the washer and dryer is through the kitchen.  Once all the floors are done, I'll be vacuuming from one end of the house to the other.  I dusted yesterday, but will probably have to dust again when I'm done with the vacuuming as I'm sure I will have stirred up a bit more!

As the title of this post implies, I really don't know what's come over me to be in a such a cleaning frenzy all of a sudden.  But I'm not going to waste it.  I just hope I really do get some visitors this holiday season so all my labors won't be in vain!