cleaning and cleaning and cleaning

What on earth did folks do before television was invented? Or even the radio for that matter. Today we watched 1/2 of Season 2 of the Office and disc 3 of Season 4 of the Simpsons while scrubbing and cleaning the downstairs of our house. I have always had to have a television on while I'm cleaning. Not only that, whatever I'm watching while I clean has to be funny. I hate cleaning so much that laughter is the only thing that gets me through it. I wonder how our great-grandmothers did it?? I mean, they also didn't have dirt devils and swiffers and lemon pledge in a can. It's depressing to even think about it.

I realized today how very much I despise cleaning. I cannot think of anything I hate more actually. I love the result but I hate the action of doing it. It did not help at all that the downstairs of our house was pretty grubby. Ever since Joe moved in, it's been tough to clean the living room properly. He likes to watch television down there, in his recliner, which is smack in the middle of the room. When he's not down there he's in his room sleeping but not for very long, not for long enough to do a proper clean down there anyway. Seeing how the company we're expecting is technically "his" company (his twin brother, nephew and his wife) I explained to him what I was doing and he was a pretty good sport about keeping out of the way. After dinner tonight, I did the kitchen and everything is looking very nice right now. It actually looks like clean and tidy people live in this house.

Fortunately, the company aren't staying with us. We don't have the room for them (unless they wanted to sleep on the floor!) so they will be staying at a motel which is literally around the corner. I don't think they knew that when they booked it but it's actually the closest motel to our house in the area. They aren't arriving until tomorrow afternoon so I don't have to worry about getting the bathroom cleaned and the upstairs vacuumed until tomorrow morning. Ugh.... oh well, at least it's getting done and I won't have to worry about cleaning or yard work for the rest of my vacation!!

One thing that made me smile today: Several years ago, some very good friends of mine bought me a chrome pole lamp for my living room. It's got three lamps on it and they are chrome globes. I'm sure that most folks would find it a little tacky but I really love it. Tonight, looking at the reflection of the clean living room in the chrome globe totally made me smile. I stared at it long and hard too because you just never know when the house will be that clean again!!