How to Clean Your Living Room

I really am the most awful housekeeper. I never would have expected that growing up, because I always cleaned my room, did the dishes and a host of other chores, and they never bothered me much. Of course, now I realize that I just did those things because my mom told me to. As an adult, my house is a horror zone. It's all I can do to keep the dishes washed, and, truth be told, my husband usually takes care of that. For the more labor intensive stuff, forget it. It's not that I'm too busy, it's just that I hate doing it, and I keep telling myself that I'll do it next weekend and suddenly a year has gone by. It's a good thing my mother occasionally comes over, otherwise I probably wouldn't even get around to doing the basics like cleaning my toilet. There are certain things that one simply has to do if their mother is coming to visit, even a too-lazy-to-clean bum like me.

The most random areas in my house need cleaning. For example, I can't remember anyone in our house ever cleaning the baseboards under the kitchen cabinets when I was growing up, yet in this house they most definitely need to be scrubbed down. Did my mom have magical baseboards that cleaned themselves? Did little fairies come and do it in the night? No idea. All I know is that mine look like they are going to grow paws and grab at my feet when I'm making a tuna sandwich.

I need to take each room in the house and make a list of things to do. Otherwise it's just too overwhelming. I'm currently sitting in the living room, and here are a few things I can see right now, although I'm sure I'll think of more later:

1. Haul out the step stool and clean the blades of the ceiling fan. There must be a solid inch of dust clinging around the edges of the blades.

2. I just noticed paint flecks on the glass of the barrister's bookcase from when we painted the room in September. (It was a miracle that we ever got around to painting at all, but that's another story.) So that needs to scrubbed or scraped or whatever to get the paint off.

3. Vacuum. This is really embarrasing - our vacuum died about six months ago. We finally replaced it three weeks ago, but we still haven't vacuumed!

4. Wash the windows, in and out. We've lived here four years and that hasn't been done once.

5. Dust in general.

6. Beat all the couch cushions into submission.

7. Clean and paint the baseboards (didn't get around to doing that when we painted the walls).

8. Touch up the ceiling paint - we taped it off when we painted the walls, but the paint pulled away when we took the tape off.

Hmm. That list actually isn't too bad. Of course, it's only one room, but that might manageable next Saturday. See? All one needs is a list. (Sure, Lisa, you just keep on telling yourself that, honey.)

And, I promise, if any of you ever come to visit, I'll clean my toilet for you, too.