Clean it up!

I complain about the weather in my town a lot. It's crappy. It's so crappy that last summer it rained or was cold and gray everyday. For like one day it hit 20c. The guy on the radio, at this point tired of coming up with excuses just announced that it would be 20c. Finally, he said, it's summer weather! 20 degrees is about 68F. While that is nice in April it is hardly hot August summer conditions. The clouds finally lifted this weekend. We spent most of it watching World Cup and eating soft pretzels in Munich in a beer garden. We came home late Saturday night and woke up Sunday to the sun blazing in through the windows. Awesome. Unfortunately, what the sun has hidden from us for the past 10 months is an incredible amount of dirt, grime and crumbs that we couldn't see. Our windows were filthy, there was the entire pot roast under the oven in bits and pieces, our bar stools actually had grime clinging underneath the seat and on and on. We are by no means pigs- we clean up after ourselves. We vacuum and wash the floors. But while you are cleaning what you can see, there is twenty times as much filth accumulating where you can't.


So we went to town. I put on the yellow gloves and clothes that could scare the dirt away. I started at the hightest point in every room and cleaned the crap out of anything in my way all the way down to the ground. I scrubbed with soap and water and anti-grease stuff from the tops of cabinets, under the fridge, in the microwave, behind cupboards, behind the sink, in the drawers. Everything in something came out, was cleaned and put back again. We cleaned windows, washed candle-holders, scraped out hunks of god knows what from all the drains, bleached the grout in between the tiles and scrubbed it with a toothbrush. The drain in the sink is actually white if you brush off all the scum and hair clumps. Who knew!

I'm telling you this because a thousand pounds has been lifted from me. To have a clean home- I mean ridiculously clean like new is like being given a new start. I recommend it to everyone reading this. You probably already have clean homes. I mean we're not in college anymore. But I recommend to really clean it. Not just the surface areas, but as if the Queen was coming for tea. I don't think that way and instead imagined how it would need to cleaned if I was CSI. Whichever incentive you choose, there will be a new spring in your step. Today I will tackle my office which is organized disorganization and then I think I might float away with my incredible new lightness.