Housework

I was trying to take pictures of my Santas, which are now displayed all over the house – thinking that I’d fill the void in my blog postings with pictures. But when I looked at them on the computer, enlarged and in all the detail that only an 8 mega pixel camera can provide, I realized that I should have been doing something else. Dusting.

Now we all have our individual standards when it comes to housecleaning. Obviously mine are a bit more lax than, for example, the mother of a friend, who was mortified when visiting relatives to find that they had neglected to dust the tops of the light bulbs in their lamps. Or another woman I know who couldn’t help her neighbor get a child to the emergency room because it was her day to vacuum the drapes and she simply didn’t have time. Even my dental hygienist, with whom I had a one-sided conversation just yesterday, was despairing about how, in her new larger home, she had trouble keeping the baseboards dusted and the window tracks clean. (I realize that some readers will be puzzled at my examples here, and unable to perceive these as impossibly high standards for some of us. And to you I apologize – and won’t invite you over.)

(I’ve recently painted my baseboards and suspect that they are probably not too dusty, but now I’m thinking it’s time to start checking them!)

I didn’t realize.

I think there is a great deal I’m not ‘realizing’ is dirty in my house. It looks, with a casual glance, neat and clean, but obviously that isn’t the right standard. Years of being a working mother taught me to just jump in and do what I noticed needed doing – a little bit at a time – every day. I just didn’t have time for the Big Cleaning days because I wanted to spend time with my son and always had other things to do. And now that I have much more time for it, I lack the energy or enthusiasm. There are SO many more things I'd like to do with my time.

And of course there is the whole ‘I just can’t see it any more’ business besides. You can blame a lot on failing eyesight as you get older!

But now I’ve embarrassed myself and need to get at it.

Or maybe I could just crop the pictures and photoshop out the dust!