20 July 2005

the other man

I hate doing dishes. REALLY hate it. My husband has recently made valiant efforts to take over that horrid chore (he is a fabulous man…). To encourage this, I am trying to have the dishes ready to unload by the time he gets home…he tries to empty them sometime between then and bedtime. The cycle starts over each morning. It works great. Until the weekends. Haha!

In addition, during the past several months I have begun tackling the 'stuff' in my home. The messes are slowly being tidied, things that once were homeless are gradually finding a home, the local charities have benefited greatly from us, and I am beginning to enjoy the feel of my home once more. In all honesty, this began to take effect when I got someone to come clean my house every other week. In order for them to clean, I have to tidy. Too, my daughter had no room to call her own until the past couple months...it has finally nearing completion (bear in mind, if 'she' had been a 'he', we considered having 'the boys' share a room...the spare was our backup for a girl. And said spare was not habitable at the time of her birth...I'd been too uncomfy and worn out during my pregnancy. ha!).

This craziness that we are trying to correct stems from the fact that we learned years ago to ‘let things go’ while my husband was in school and working full time for a lot of years. It was definitely survival mode. Now, things feel out of control to us but are slowly being righted once more. We have to relearn to tackle projects in a timely manner.

So, since healing from the birth and ensuing illnesses that attacked our family, I have found a new drive to make my home more livable and lovable once more. It has come a long, long way (though it still has a good ways to go as well)). For instance, today I cleaned my fridge out. I mean CLEANED that sucker. I know I’ve done it before, but cannot begin to remember when that was. I also reorganized where everything goes, including the shelves. I seriously doubt anything but the door is the same (actually, that will be a project of its own, probably due to how long the rest took).
The other day while at Target buying dishwasher detergent, I was perusing the aisle for other items of interest and someone caught my eye…

Enter: the other man.

I fell in love that night. He showed me how to clean the crayon off the wall (it was an accidental mark, though I always expected to find it on the walls intentionally), how to remove scuff marks from the floors and doors, helped clean the white banister and stuff stuck in a pot. In fact, he did a great service in assisting my fridge project today…my husband even likes him he’s so great. His name. . . Mr. Clean.

He has this fabulous eraser that wipes the walls clean and makes my home look incredible. Little bit by little bit. We had to buy more to keep working things we didn’t eve KNOW needed to be cleaned (it’s addictive). This ‘man’ has so much to offer. I think I’ll plan a date with him on a regular basis.

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