Ramblings of A Labradoodle Owner

To this day I cannot figure out who causes more anguish with keeping a clean organized house: 2 dogs or teenagers and one fiancé. I replaced 2500 sq. ft. of ugly, worn out, matted down, stained, 12 year old carpeting with cherry laminate floors. The rest of the house is Mexican tiles. I must say when they are freshly mopped my house has a shine to it! Then I vacuum thick wool throw rugs. Next thing is to do is to wash all fingerprints and paw prints off archways, walls, light switches and wherever else one finds them. I get 4 loads of wash done and neatly folded managing to put half of it away. New freshly laundered towels are hung on bathroom towel racks. Sinks are devoid of toothpaste and whatnot. Toilets scrubbed squeaky clean. Mirrors no longer have spots on them. I even dust half the house too after throwing out the cluttering mail that accumulates on my dining room table. The million and one shoes by the door are organized into neat rows with the oldest dirtiest ones being hidden in a closet. Dishes are unloaded from the dishwasher; the lazy Susan gets cleaned and reorganized. Bills are even paid.  Dogs are put in their crates to nap while accomplishing the tasks of household cleaning duty as they too have been played with, fed and walked. My teenagers are not at home and neither is Dave. Life is grand! I feel so relieved, happy and ready to take a nice short hot bath alone. My goal of conquering housework feels great! I almost feel smug sitting down for a moment with hot coffee admiring not only the house but wow nice clean shiny floors! Up I go to take my bath and rejuvenate while basking in my well deserved glory of doing a fairly decent job before going to work later in the day or on my day off.

Do you know how short lived this  glory of a clean uncluttered shiny floored house lasts? Let’s say, “NOT very long”. I once took a picture and now look at it when I need to feel reassured that my house USED to stay this way for more than a few hours or even a day at times. The pre-doodle and pre-teenager days I think I had more control over this situation. Oh, let’s not forget pre-fiancé days too. Being immaculate has never been one of my life’s goals. However, having a fairly decent straightened up house has been. I have now learned to attempt this feat 2 times a week, quickly admire it and know it will get undone within 6 hours or less. ( correction: having 3 doodles now shortens the the timespan to being undone within 3 hours or less).Soon there will be skateboards, a disarray of assorted shoes, numerous dog toys, a lone sock dripping with dog salvia, bits of fuzz from a de-fuzzed dog toy, more mail on the table, paw print patterns scattered here and there, more dust, some dried mud by the door, new fingerprints, a bathroom towel that somehow manages to fall on the floor while wet, toothpaste in the bathroom sink and so on. Dave has an affinity for buying movies, as of present day we have enough movies to open our own video rental store. I don’t think my house is zoned for commercial use otherwise it could be a nice side income. I keep finding movies scattered here and there though we do have shelving.    Do I abandon ship? NO! I am the captain and I go down with my ship! But my ship is really a house. Do I scream? Do I give up? Do I complain (once in a while), should I start my own housecleaning business, as I have gotten really go at it the past 20 years. Hmm, there’s a thought for another day. Then again I did mention earlier that I like challenges ( in a previous article). Folks, living with teenagers, 1 adult male and 3 dogs in a large house and yard does present daily challenges. I put my reality in perspective and realize I am happy.

 My house will never be in a “Beautiful Homes and Gardens” magazine nor will it ever make it to the state of a “Farms and Gardens” one either. Life really isn’t that bad I realize. I think I just found the happy medium. Clean  2 to 3 times a week, know that you did your best and just accept it even though I was raised that cleanliness was next to godlines. I figure God knows I put my best foot forward and is ever forgiving. Lastly, if my house has a bit of clutter, tad of dirt, and not sterile looking I am making my friends feel better about themselves. Think about it, who in their right mind really wants to visit someone who always has the cleanest neatest house in town? I’ll let each and every one of you answer that one for yourself. I know my answer. But if I ever win a lottery or inherit money, I will hire a housecleaning service so I can take longer hot baths while they clean and restore clean shiny floors to my home helping me achieve godliness my parents tried to teach for years on end. Perhaps my floors look cleaner than I perceive as I am asked a lot by company if we have a 5 second rule for anything that drops on the floor. My answer now is “I don’t but my dogs do!” For the time being, I’ll take the paw printed floors, movie and mail cluttered house, shoes galore by the front door, coats hanging on dining room chairs along with knowing I DID CLEAN earlier and go sit on my favorite leather chair to also put my feet up on the ottoman to relax. Moreover, I can always look at the picture I took a while back to remember the good old days when I had clean shiny floors more than present day. Yet i do believe today is even better as I am in a home many call cozy and well loved by my children, fiance and 3 doodles. Besides who wants to be perfect living in a perfectly clean house with shiny floors all the time?! 

So is it nice clean shiny floors? Or a Carpe diem home attitude that is filled with love, laughter and a bit of clutter and some pawprints on my floors ? I’ll take the latter of the two any day.            

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 8:21 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.