Mr. Clean

Well, now that last week's craziness is over...

We had our neighborhood New Year's Day party, a casual affair which nevertheless required Larry and I to work like dogs for approximately 5 hours that morning cleaning up the house (not counting the hours I spent on Wednesday cleaning up the basement family room). Larry went above and beyond by cleaning out all the crap in our computer desk (thus ensuring that we wouldn't have to spend the afternoon praying that no one would open the cabinet doors and discover what disorganized slobs we really are). I almost cried with gratitude, it looked so good.

Then he moved all our files upstairs (to our bedroom), along with the box full of aforementioned computer desk crap, the basket full of unsorted mail, and a box of Christmas goodies I never got around to mailing (hey, I'm not proud of it, okay?). Oh, yes, and there was a tub for Christmas decorations, also. So what if we had to crawl over piles of junk to get into our bed that night? Our main floor was company-ready!

We spent the rest of the day socializing with our neighbors, eating and drinking and feeding the kids tons of junk to keep them quiet. It was fun, but tiring. It would have been great, after our day's exertions, to sleep in a bit the next morning, in our cluttered yet comfortable bedroom, but...

Larry had scheduled a plumber to visit us bright and early on January the second, in an innovative attempt to solve our shower drain problems. This attempt involved routing the garbage disposal pipe away from the shower and through our laundry room instead. If it worked, this ingenious solution would save us the thousands of dollars it would cost to rip apart the basement bathroom and part of the foundation, replace the shower drain pipe, and put in an all new shower, etc. (although, I must admit, I wouldn't have minded that "all-new" part).

But let us review - through our laundry room...

Because we live in a garage-less townhouse, our laundry room serves as home not only to our washer and dryer and second refrigerator, but also to all the items that one would normally find crammed into a suburban garage. Why don't you pause one second and mentally review everything you store in your garage? You know, tools, lawn furniture, gardening supplies, paint cans, painting equipment, all the assorted flotsam and jetsam of suburban living (with 6 kids).

Got a good picture? Great! Now move all that stuff indoors into a 10x10 room, while making sure to leave a path to the washer/dryer barely wide enough to accommodate a laundry basket. I know, it sounds tricky; but let me assure you, it can be done.

(I would have taken a before photo, but Larry wouldn't let me. Party pooper, isn't he?)

Anyhoo, Larry roused both Brian and David early Friday morning to help him move all the junk out of the laundry room so that the plumber could do his work. I helped by not looking at the mess they were making of my (freshly vacuumed and tidied) family room. In Brian's words, "Mommy, you don't want to look down there."

If an 8-year-old boy is saying that, you know you're in trouble.

Today? Larry spent cleaning lint out of the dryer duct (now that he could reach it) and doing I know-not-what to the pile of junk he had removed from the laundry room. Because, folks, it ain't going back in there. My laundry room is now a thing of beauty and a joy forever. I danced around its empty floor this evening and told Larry that just seeing it like that made me hot with desire for him.

And I meant it.