Friday, November 19, 2010

My Waterloo

            I am merely average in my housekeeping. I may actually be sliding slowly on the spectrum towards "good", but I doubt that I will ever be envied for my abilities. Nonetheless, since I've had my third kid, I've hit a nice stride: beds are usually made, floors and rugs are vacuumed, if not daily, every other day, and I like to the kitchen to be cleeaaan. If possible. My husband even comments that our house looks like a hotel, because of a general lack of clutter (don't look in the closets, David. He's blissfully unaware of many unseemly details of our life. Like our bank account). I even felt confident enough, a few months ago, to let my bi-weekly cleaning lady go. A good canister vaccuum and a Swiffer-like mop were pretty much her equivalent.
         But, regardless of how much my housekeeping will improve, there is always my Waterloo: The Armoire. (Yes, say it: "Armoire". Don't feel silly that you can't really pronounce it. No one can). The armoire sits in my living room, and is high enough so that the kids can't reach the top. It also is an arm's length from the door. So absolutely anything and everything gets put there: anything small that you carry into the house and anything that you don't want the kids to get a hold of. Right now, just looking at it from the couch where I write, I see a baby video monitor, vaseline, a camera., a change jar, Aveeno baby sunscreen. a pen jar, keys, and a basket of stationery. And that's just the first row. 
         So, why is this my Waterloo? No matter how clean my house is, the armoire always has stuff (junk) on it. It always defeats me. And it's no small defeat. It's in the main room of the house and absolutely everyone who enters (legally) sees it. So, the house may be tidy and clean but the armoire betrays me every time. 
         The funny thing is, I feel like I can blame this (too) on my genes. My sister bought my mom the print
 "An Irish Dresser" and I see a definite resemblance between that and my Waterloo. At least in terms of housekeeping abilities...(the camera shutter is slow or I would have caught our chicken passing in front of the armoire).
  

2 comments:

  1. Why is it always like that? I often have the same problem. Maybe one week its the computer desk, and once its clean, maybe now its the top of the fridge collecting things, and always somewhere in our bedroom something beings to collect things. I always get rid of that darned thing, like lets say the ironing table. It begins to collect and out of the room it goes, then the baby's stroller bed but IT then collects things... it never ends. Just throw the thing away you will feel so liberated.

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  2. move it to a place where 1)it is more discrete and 2)where it won't be so easy to plop things on it on your way in and out the door. either way, i think we all have something like that. mine is my computer cabinet (not fancy enough to be considered an 'armoire') because its where i pay the bills and also where i drop all my junk mail that i don't know what to do with (its so hard to dispose of those poor nuns asking for $).

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