Lie #10: I love to clean....

She sat and watched an ant traipse across the counter, wondering silently to herself... "I wonder where he came from?" Perhaps a little friend from outside that migrated in from when one of the children ran through the open door for the hundreth time that day. Or could this new little pet reside inside her kitchen on a regular basis? Perhaps...


Ever since her childhood, Josie had been known to hide a plethera of items in her long dark walk in closet in order to pass Saturday morning inspections by her mother before being allowed to run outside to enjoy the rest of her day. It is no surprise that in her adult life, cleaning is not a high priority on her list of things to do throughout the day. However, with three young children, she finds that if she lets things go to long, her house can become a chaotic clutter of candy wrappers and juice boxes. 


Her newest invention has been the super deep clean, where she hauls in the large garage garbage can and just starts dumping for the day or the week, whatever time frame it happens to land on. 


Since her husband moved out, Josie had begun to deep clean with fury... a sort of purging of the soul so to say. It was amazing just how much shit they had accumulated in their 19 years together and how good it felt to throw out all the miscellaneous broken crap that her former husband had insisted on keeping, "just in case..." 


How many plastic tops to three rubber-maid bowls did they really need? Ah.... only three please... Did they really need the token waffle maker that every newly married couple acquires in the slew of wedding gifts,but never uses? No thank you. As her children grew she realized that they could finally throw out a couple dozen plastic to go cups she had stowed away by various fast food excursions, they were old enough to be trusted with a plain glass juice cup. How refreshing it felt.... how grow up she felt...


For ten years she had itty bitty hands that couldn't manage to keep away from picture frames, candles etc.  And so her counter tops remained bare for the most part, no sweet knicknacks were sitting out on her table tops. 


Recently, she  had felt adventurous and bought some black candle holders at a garage sale for a dollar and even christened them with brand new cream vanilla scented candles in her living room. She now felt like flippin Martha Stewart! How she-she poo poo she felt... her house was beginning to feel like a home and each paycheck she managed to buy a little something to introduce to the mix. Whether it was a black and white floral picture to hang on the wall she found at a local garage sale, or a sale priced basket to hold the kids picture books. Somehow these things made her want to keep her house tidy... somehow she had discovered that keeping her house clean, no matter how cumbersome and time consuming, was in a way, thanking her home for keeping her family warm and safe from the sometimes cold and bitter world outside.