My focus for the last few days has been primarily upon cleaning my horribly dusty house. Where does dust come from? (Don't tell me, I'm sure I don't really want to think about it.) I hate dust. But I also hate dusting. So there's the problem, I do not dust very often. Or vaccuum. Or anything, really.
Sometimes I shake my head and smile while people moan about how exhausting it is to hold down a full time job and manage a household, and think to myself that managing a house isn't really so hard. And it's not, not if you don't bother cleaning it.
Something interesting about dust is that when you really allow it to accumulate, dusting just once doesn't get rid of it. At least, not for any length of time. After an hour, all the dust that you disturbed by dusting settles back down again and you have to dust a second time. Seriously.
The dogs are annoyed with me. I haven't been spending nearly enough time rubbing their bellies the last few days. I've been dusting, repeatedly. And vaccuuming. And washing floors and polishing wood and all the things that normal people do on a regular basis. Every time I get my house all clean and beautiful I tell myself that this is it, I will never let it get so dusty ever again in my whole life. Hah.
This is a true confession.
A couple of years ago I received an urgent phone call at work from the alarm company that secures my house. They said that a door had been opened and that police had been dispatched. I was terrified. I wasn't really worried about the computers or the televisions or anything like that. I was worried about the dogs. What if the intruder hurt them?
I raced home and was only a few minutes behind the police, who when I arrived were just coming out my front door having walked through to make sure no one was inside. "Is everything okay?" I asked breathlessly.
"We think so, ma'am", said the nice police officer. "There's no one inside. But it looks like someone went through your belongings and threw things around a bit."
I nodded. And peeked inside. Hmm. He was actually just referring to the mess, the jumbled piles of books, coats strewn carelessly over furniture, that sort of thing.
But this time it's going to be different.
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6 comments:
Ha! Why does this not surprise me? You and I could enter a No Dusting competition! And you are so right about having to do at least one quick follow-up dusting if you limit yourself to semi-annual cleaning.
I've found that the trick to not dusting often is making sure NO ONE disrupts the dust. It really doesn't look that bad until someone runs a finger through it.
...yeah, and the clothing strewn about? When I was a kid, we went away on vacation--the person who looked in on the house called my parents with alarm. Our house had been 'ransacked'! Now, before I leave for long periods of time, I at least shut my drawers and yes, I actually make my bed most mornings. Oh that's right, I'm reforming myself!
Yes, one either has to dust incessantly or not at all. That's the problem with cleaning. Once I start, I become obsessive because there is always one more thing that needs to be cleaned. And I hate cleaning, so being obsessed with it is unacceptable.
Shawn has just committed us to hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, and that means that I have to keep the house clean until October. Maybe by then it will become a habit or something.
We are so much alike! While I really enjoy living in a sparkling clean home, I am not a very talented cleaner. Flip used to wash floors and vacuum voluntarily, and doing these things exhausts me. The dust accumulates here, too, even immediately after I've dusted, which inspires a philosophical reluctance to waste further effort. That nice policemen must have a wife. We could all use a wife who knows how to clean.
Exactly. I love a clean home, but cleaning is so miserable. I wonder why some people are cheerful about it, and how I can be more like that. And I wonder how I can convince the people I live with to start doing the cleaning for me.
Dust is problem number 2 for us. Number 1 is dog hair.
We had friends coming over last Saturday night, and I was given the task of vacuuming (and changing vacuum bags crammed with dog hair). When I vacuum, the dogs disappear. They do not like the vacuum. When I move to the next room to vacuum, they quite deliberately go into the room just vacuumed and stretch out on the clean carpet....yes, leaving behind more hair.
I want to post a sign. Do not enter unless you love dog hair.
Your dogs and my dogs have very similar behaviours where it comes to avoiding the vaccuum and planting hair on the clean spots. Dog hair is definitely on my list of problems too. And cat hair. Between the five animals' hair, and J's and my hair, it's hard to believe any of us has any left on our heads/bodies. It's appalling. How do other people manage this?
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