The Deeper Things of Life and Carpet

Disclaimer:  No children were harmed in the writing of this post. As for the husband ...


After reading my last post, I want to assure you that no one had to eat peanut butter and jelly with a straw last week. When I arrived home, most all of the bacon grease had been thoroughly cleaned and my kitchen looked wonderful. Of course, last night my kitchen looked like the aftermath of an explosion, but Thursday night it looked good.

And therein lies the stumbling block to my Christmas wish. I want a clean house for Christmas. I'm not sure that's possible unless we spend Christmas Eve scrubbing, and then Christmas Day not moving. I'm perfectly fine with that, but the rest of the family seems to feel that plan lacks a little in celebrating style. So I've had to compromise a bit. But I think I've come up with a philosophy that helps me achieve my goals. I've summed up this philosophy in a very common phrase.

It's the thought that counts.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, a friend and I were discussing the work I had planned out in order to finish my fall cleaning before the holidays. She commented on how many days were left before Christmas and I agreed that I didn't have much time.

"That's not the point," she argued. "You're never going to be able to keep everything clean all the way up until Christmas. Not with that many boys in the house. It's impossible."

That was true. And it would be discouraging to a lesser individual. But I was quick to point out the one thing that would save me.

My standards of clean are lower than hers.

They have to be. I've finally gotten to the point that, if I've made the effort to clean, then I have to be satisfied with that. In my heart I know it was recently clean. Therefore, at the very least, it's cleaner than it was. So at least whatever dirt that has accumulated is newer dirt. And that has to count for something, right?

I apply that principle to most of my cleaning (as anyone whose been in my house can see) with the exception of the carpet. A couple of times a year I rent one of these and clean my carpets. And believe me, I do a thorough job. To me, clean carpets and upholstery are the final sign that things are deeply clean. I love seeing a broad expanse of carpet free of stains and tracked in dirt, and I really enjoy smelling the freshness of all that cleanliness. For the next month, I notice the clean softness of the carpet every time I walk across it.

If I'm enjoying the clean sensation of carpets for a month, that will last me through Christmas, surely.

So after tackling all my baseboards and air vents this fall, I spent the two days after Thanksgiving cleaning my carpets. I cleaned and re-cleaned. I pretreated. I used the hand tool along the edges. I had the boys bringing me buckets of water and moving furniture out of my way as I went along, determined to clean my carpets better than I ever had before. My husband offered to help, and I let him do part of the family room, but he didn't overlap his rows as much, and he went faster than I wanted him to so I did the rest of our over 3,000 square foot home myself.

Late in the afternoon of the second day, I was finishing up the last of the two bedrooms upstairs. My back ached and I was exhausted, but my carpets looked wonderful. I flipped the machine off and called for more water to finish the last little bit, but no answered. They couldn't hear me because they were running the vacuum downstairs. Indiana had found an incredible Black Friday deal on a Dyson for the church, and he decided to try it out.

I was more than a little aggravated. I had just cleaned all those carpets last night. What was there to vacuum? I found out a short time later when one of the boys ran upstairs to show me the canister.

It was over half full.

My first thought was that he must have been vacuuming outside. There was no way there could still be dirt in my carpets. Especially not that much dirt. I was briefly consoled when they told me it came from the family room.

Well of course. Wasn't that where Indiana had worked the carpet cleaner? Hadn't I told him he needed to go slower? I was vindicated.

At least, I was until they showed me the dirt they vacuumed from the living room. And the hallway. And my bedroom ...

I went downstairs and stared at the carpets that had looked so clean half an hour ago. They looked dingy.  They felt soft the night before, but now they seemed brittle and stiff when I walked on them. My guys took my month of carpet cleanliness enjoyment and sucked it out in less than thirty minutes.

For one wild moment I was tempted to haul the shampooer downstairs and start all over again. But I was out of time, out of weekend and out of cleaner. So I reminded myself that there was less dirt in the carpets than there had been before, and that it was the thought that counts.

I've said it before and I need to face the truth again. I'm no June Cleaver. I need to accept that.

But I'm still tempted to clean the carpets again after the holidays. Maybe if I wear pearls and heels this time ...

All I Want for Christmas

If you were to ask any of my boys what their mom wants for Christmas, they would always tell you the same thing.

 Actually, they'd probably shrug and say "I dunno", but if I were to ask them what they think I want for Christmas, they would know the answer:

A clean house.

They know the answer because I usually ask this when I'm handing out chores that need to be done, of course.

Don't get me wrong. I want presents. Come December 25th, if I have a gleaming house and nothing wrapped for me under the tree, I will not be a happy camper. But surely I'm not the only housewife that enjoys the holiday a little more if her surroundings are clean. I mean, seriously. Isn't it a little easier to enjoy opening your gifts if you know all the toilets are scrubbed and the floors are mopped? How much better to relax knowing that no one can write their name in the dust on the coffee table? I don't think that's too much for any hardworking mother to ask.

So with the holiday season in mind, I end up doing some fall cleaning every year. Some years it's in depth. Some years I feel good if I manage to keep the condemned sign off the front of the house. This year for some reason I became obsessed with air vents and baseboards. They've been neglected for quite some time, and it shows. And that has bothered me for--well, for quite some time.

About five or six years ago, I got one of these for Christmas, and it is absolutely my favorite tool of all time. But you know how it is--once you take care of one dustball or cobweb, you see six more. And once one area got cleaned, another area just looked too dirty, so I had to clean there as well. Before I knew it, I was spending every spare minute (there were surprisingly few of them) this fall scrubbing my house.

The problem is, by the time I cleaned one area, the first area was dirty again. I considered roping rooms off as I cleaned them, but that wasn't always practical. Sure, I could get everyone to stay out of the guest room, but I couldn't convince anyone that we should stay out of the kitchen until Christmas. Especially when Thanksgiving hadn't even come yet.

Don't get me wrong--I would have let them eat. I'm not completely heartless. But no one was enthusiastic about menus that consisted of cold cereal and sandwiches. I don't know what their problem was. I was still letting them use dishes and silverware. Well--plasticware anyway. And don't judge me. I had a very nice set of Oneida flatware--32 place settings to be exact. I was going to loan it to the church for a ladies' luncheon, but I could only find seven forks. Seven. No one seems to know what happened to the other twenty-five. So I think I'm perfectly within my bounds to relegate the boys to the plasticware at the back of the drawer.

When the guys tired of the Cheerios menu, I agreed to occasional hot meals--easy meals--with the stipulation that they clean up after themselves. Clearly I live in a dream world. I have one word for you.

Bacon.

Apparently they could live with cereal and sandwiches if I would only allow them three to four pounds of bacon a day. I'm not willing for the trade off because they're not holding up their end of the bargain. I pulled a knife out of my knife block the other day only to discover the handle was coated with grease. Closer inspection showed grease splatters on the entire block, plus the counter, the cabinets, the microwave and the dog. Harsh words and a demand for cleanliness produced smeared grease on the counter, the cabinets the microwave and the dog.

I've now banned fried foods for the duration of the holidays. And if all that grease isn't cleaned up before I get home from work tonight, they're going to be eating their peanut butter and jelly straight from the jar. With a straw.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

Kylee's Coming to Town

So we're having something new for Christmas this year. Or I guess I should say we're having someone new for Christmas this year. You may remember that I blogged about going to the doctor and starting on a weight loss program (I've lost 40 pounds so far, by the way) waiting for applause. Thank you. because my son told me that he would probably want to get married sometime next year.

Well, Matt's girlfriend, Kylee, is coming to spend Christmas with us this year.

She is a brave girl.

Not only is she spending her first Christmas away from her family, but she is traveling from the frozen north, where she lives, to experience her first Florida Christmas. We're going through a cold snap right now--the temperatures are barely going to stay in the sixties for the next several days, and everyone is bundling up in sweaters and jackets. But we could have eighty degree weather on Christmas Day. You never know.

In addition to the shock of the weather, this girl is willing going to expose herself to the inner workings of the Boyd family for a solid week. It takes a brave soul to do something so foolhardy. Either that, or she's in love.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to having another female in the house. But I'm faced with a few dilemmas of my own. I mean, this could be my future daughter-in-law some day. What kind of a potential future mother-in-law impression do I want to make?

She's going to be staying in my house for a week. Now, Kylee has been here to Florida before. She visited last summer during VBS. She and Matt were interested in each other at the time, but they weren't really a couple. At least, they weren't at the beginning of the week. And they certainly weren't as serious about each other as they are now. And she wasn't actually staying in my house.

So all sorts of details are running through my mind like, what kind of meals should I fix? I need to get a Christmas stocking for her to hang with the others. I need to get the guest room ready. How clean should I have my house?

Yeah, you read it right. How clean? My first instinct was to scrub everything in sight. I also wanted to clean out and organize closets and cabinets and corners that might have been neglected for the better part of--well--a long time. I wanted the house to actually sparkle when she walked through the door.

Well can you see the obvious problems? As much as I would love a sparkly house (merely for my own enjoyment) I'm afraid it would leave an impression straight out of Everybody Loves Raymond. And I am so not going there.

So then I thought maybe I shouldn't fuss at all. You know, just take her right into the family and take on a love-me-love-my-house attitude.

That seems a little cruel. I should probably save that for when one of my boys brings home a girl I don't want in the family.

So I'm back to cleaning again. Just a few things that needed to be done anyway before the holidays. Cleaning carpets. Scrubbing out kitchen cabinets. Nothing major. Except maybe for the guest room closet. And the laundry room. And--

They make a cute couple, don't they? And I am looking forward to her being here. Sixteen days, Kylee!

Of course, with me being me, I did run into a few problems when I attempted all that cleaning. But I can fill you in on that tomorrow.