Spring has sprung

The first day of spring came and went and I didn't even notice it, due to the torrential rains. And I'm not complaining! I just love the rain! I just wish we'd have them in July and August when we really need them. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a really good thunderstorm in summer!

I have a gigantic list of "To Do's" for today, my very first full day off in over 14 days, and so far I don't feel like doing a single one of them. Get gasoline, pick up my contacts at Wal-mart, clean the litter box, find the little box of white lights I bought at the Christmas close-out sale in the likely event of the strand I have over my plate server burning out, which it did a couple days ago, get groceries, scrub the cabinets and put down new shelf-liner paper, tackle the floors with broom, mop and vacuum cleaner, and dust at least one section of something that needs to be dusted. (Whew! How was that for a run-on sentence?)

Why can't I get people to do these things for me? If I won the lottery, forget about expensive cars, cruises and beach vacations. I would hire some help. I want people to do all the things I just don't want to do! And it's not that I am lazy, because really I'm not, it's that I'm incompetent. It's quite the realization, at 49, to wake up and clearly see that I can't do a darn thing to meet my own cleaning expectations. When other people mop the floor, it comes out clean. When I mop it, I make a rather muddy swirl of slob-water that I spread out evenly on the floor and let dry, hoping it will look like a nice coat of finish. Dirt Finish. But even.

Things I do well: make the bed and brush my teeth, daily. I do those things whether they need it or not. But vacuuming? I will stare at little annoying pieces of scrap paper on the floor for a week before it even dawns on me that I could vacuum them up and then they wouldn't annoy me anymore! But when I do vacuum, it doesn't stay that way. It takes a mere 30 seconds before it looks like I never did any cleaning whatsoever!

If I had people to do these things, the floors would stay mopped and vacuumed, the powder room would miraculously smell like a bouquet and the toilet tissue would be forever folded into a little point at the end.

I guess this tirade is my version of 'spring cleaning!' I call it Airing my Grievances.