Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Sound the jubilee trumpets, the floor is mopped!

This may not sound like a reason to celebrate to you, but in this house it truly is. I somewhat embarrassedly admit that it's been six months since I last mopped (I know this because the last time I did it was just before a Christmas open house we had in mid-December). It was getting bad enough that the five-second rule no longer applied. "That fell on the floor? Yeah, don't eat it."

Now, I'm not trying to sound cocky here, but I consider myself a fairly adept, industrious and capable woman (okay, so I consider myself more of a girl than a woman, but that's another topic). I cook, sew, homeschool my kids, garden, take all our own family portraits, scrapbook and even blog -- and enjoy most of it! But cleaning is one area that I have no passion for. Oh, I'm alright at keeping up with the clutter, and I sweep regularly (though not quite as often as I should) and I'm really good about doing laundry, but the deep-down cleaning -- the mopping, scrubbing bathrooms, washing windows, vacuuming -- I really slack off on those.

Perhaps it's the futility of trying to maintain cleanliness in a house full of boys that deters me. Inevitably within 24 hours of mopping the floor, someone will spill a large cup of grape juice or chocolate milk on the floor, sending spatters everywhere, some of which I'll definitely miss in the clean-up, and there they'll sit, never really drying completely, just absorbing more and more dust and debris with their tacky stickiness... forever, or until the next time I mop, which may be even longer.

And windows! There's no point! We have a sliding glass door leading from the dining room to the deck, which is our primary mode of exiting and entering the house. I have concluded that it is physically impossible for boys under the age of 8 (and possibly quite a bit older) to open this type of door using only the handle. Nooooo, it's a full hands-on kind of job, and all-too-often those little hands are covered in peanut butter or freshly applied marker or whatever that mysterious greasy stuff is that is ALWAYS on their hands, even just after washing.

Now don't get me wrong, I love those little dirty boys passionately. I wouldn't trade them and their accompanying filthiness for anything, especially not a boringly spic-and-span house, but I do look forward to the day when perhaps they will be able to scrub their own bathroom and open glass doors by grasping the handle. In the meantime though, I will continue to procrastinate those nasty chores that won't stay done for more than five minutes, and on the rare occasion that I do mop the floor I will sound the jubilee trumpets for all to hear... and wait for the cup of juice to hit the floor.