spacer
spacer
spacer



{ Sunday, December 18, 2005 }
 
Today has been devoted to one simple goal: preparing for the arrival of my family. Both the mother and the sister have come to visit before and on those prior visits, they have attempted to clean my house for me. Not because I didn't clean up in preparation for their arrivals, just because apparently the kitchen floor just really wanted someone to get down on her hands and knees and scrub it 'til it shined like the top of the Chrystler Building.

Putting three more people into this apartment for a week is a challenging prospect. One that does require a certain level of organized cleaness that this place currently lacks.

My family is accustomed to close quarters, many many Christmases (including last year's) have been spent in a house with two bedrooms and one bathroom. This one has two bedrooms and two bathrooms and a futon in the living room, so I don't think it'll be too bad once Steady and I manage to pick up all the clothes and whatnot cluttering up all the surfaces.

The stepfather is allergic to cats, so we really have to work hard at ridding the house of cat hair. Last time they came to visit, the allergies lead to them cleaning my apartment which lead to me losing my shit. We're trying not to repeat that. It wasn't good for anyone.

Both times Mom and the stepfather have come to visit Arizona, they've done a lot of laundry. I'm not sure how two people on vacation can need to do a load almost everyday, but they have. So, I can't just hide the dirty clothes in the laundry closet... people will be in there. At least now I have a full sized washer and dryer. It should cut down on the vacation time spent washing clothes.

We also should have clean dishes and silverware and a basically hygenic and not scary kitchen for these people. Another very large task. And we need to exhume all of my extra blankets so we can make up some beds for folks.

And then we have to ready the downstairs bathroom for people to shower in it... clean towels, clean tub, some soap in the shower, change the cat litter, vaccuum up the errant cat litter... another large project.

At this point, the room where Mom and the stepfather will be staying is very clean. Steady's closet is in there and we're not sure how, exactly, that's going to work, but that room is clean and dusted and vaccuumed.

I managed to wash the windows and dust everything. Several loads of laundry have been done, along with two loads of dishes. I suspect I'll be spending Christmas Eve cleaning house...

posted by mary ann 8:06 PM


spacer