I must be just a little bit slow. Slightly behind. There is no such thing as “spring cleaning”
to me. My massive urge to purge and
clean tends to arrive in…late July when it’s stupid hot (for Seattle, anyway)
and the last thing a smart person would do is lock themselves in the hottest
section of their house (say the windowless, airflowless master closet) and
clean. And yet…
Zachary is a hoarder. He gets from me. While I’m by no means an
I-need-professional-help hoarder, I have slight pack-rat tendancies. What’s annoying is that it bugs me. Fine if you want to be that way, but then it
shouldn’t piss YOU off. The piles of
papers and broo-ha-ha that build on the kitchen counter slowly gnaw away at my
soul…and yet I’m partially responsible for putting them there. The mail, the swim lesson report cards, the
catalogue I want to look at (though shouldn’t order from), the amazing masterpiece
that one of our children created, the Lego magazine that gets looked at and
cherished so much it eventually falls apart, the photo that someone took of our
kids and that I’ll supposedly, someday put in an album (but in the meantime
will just keep on the counter in the pile of paper crap until I eventually
shove it in a folder in a drawer that is bursting with other supposedly
sentimental paper crap that will just stay there until I finally get Mike to
get the kids’ memory boxes down from the garage and I can shove that one
photographic treasure into the accordion folder that is my
get-out-of-guilt-jail-free-card since I have no intention of scrapbooking a
priceless photo album full of love, memories and cut out paper shapes, themed
borders or glitter penned dates and clever captions).
Anyway, Zach has SORTA gotten my knack for
holding on to STUFF. We’ve only lived
here a little over a year and, while, of course, I make my children pick up
their rooms, we haven’t done a deep clean, massive re-org and, well, you can
tell. So, a couple of days ago, we
basically emptied all of Zach’s belongings into the hall. We moved furniture. I cleaned baseboards, I even touched up
paint. We rearranged furniture. This was so exciting you’d have thought that
we’d bought him his own personal bedroom pony.
He excitedly explained to Matthew, “Tomorrow
morning when I wake up [in the bed now located on the opposite wall], I’ll be
all,” making groggy wake-up sounds, “Hmm? Wha?
Where am I? Did we move again?
Wha’s happening?”
Matthew’s been so inspired by Zach’s room
re-do he wants us to tackle his. We’re still not done with Zach’s. We’re on day 3. I feel like Matthew’s – what with all the Lego and small Star Wars paraphernalia
– will take us an additional week. And lazy
summerday time is suddenly dissolving faster and faster. August is jam-packed. Next week we head to Spokane for the Engaged
Encounter Convention and to see Mike’s family.
The week after that, Mike’s doing a computer nerd gaming conference
thingy in Seattle. He’ll essentially be
gone (but sleeping at home) from 8am-12am for several days. The week after that, we head to mom and dad’s
Port Ludlow beach house with the bff’s and all our brood of children. The week after that, Mike heads to Vancouver
B.C. for a computer nerd convention and I’m taking the kids camping with my dad
for a few days. The week after that is
Labor Day and then, boom, school starts and then boom, it’s Christmas, baseball
season, and then our children are graduating from high school and moving
out.
See how time is just flying?! So, Matthew’s room…might have to wait a
little while.
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