I dropped Caroline off at school yesterday morning and came straight home. I was a woman on a mission. A mission to clean my entire house. ALL AT ONCE.
It has almost been a year ago that I became officially unemployed by the pharmaceutical industry. With that decision came a few changes. No phenomenal health insurance. No bi-weekly direct deposits into the checking account. No 401K program. And, most importantly, no housekeeper.
I’d like to say that I was most concerned about no longer contributing to a retirement plan and thus, leaving my financial future up in the air. But the truth is what I was most afraid of was having to clean my own house. Clearly, my priorities are in order.
And since that time, I have risen to the challenge. We have managed to live in a relatively clean house. I have become acquainted with Soft Scrub cleanser and the miraculous hard-water-deposit-eliminating power of vinegar. I mean it’s not like I had never cleaned a house before, I had just never cleaned a house with a child constantly underfoot.
I may not be that bright but I understand that Small Child + Deadly Cleaning Chemicals = bad combination.
All summer long I kept saying that once Caroline went back to school I was going to clean the entire house. But then school started and I found better uses of my time such as looking for funky, retro shoes at Target or staring in the mirror trying to figure out what is going on with my complexion. See? PRIORITIES.
But finally, I could stand it no longer. I mean the house had been clean, but I never made the time commitment to have it all clean at the same time. I’d clean a bathroom and vacuum the living room one day. And then I’d dust the dining room and clean the kitchen windows on another day and by then the bathroom would be dirty again and the living room rug would once again be covered in unknown crumbly substances ranging from Chex Mix to ground up Crayons.
So, with the fervor that can only be achieved by a woman high on LimeAway fumes, I scrubbed, I scoured, I vacuumed and I dusted. I even used a toothbrush to clean hard to reach areas. I moved rugs and cleaned underneath them, and, interestingly enough, found an old SweetTart under the living room rug that had to have been there for the better part of four years.
Unless there are small elves that burrow under our living room rug at night to enjoy a snack of SweetTarts. Which is probably the more likely scenario.
It took me all day and by the time I was done it was time to go pick up Caroline. We went to HEB for a few quick grocery type items and then came home.
Since I was hosting Bible Study, I decided I should bake something and Caroline wanted to help. I hated to defile my pristine kitchen, but I thought we could manage to bake with minimal mess. As we poured the two cups of flour into the bowl, I told Caroline, “Don’t touch the flour. Don’t stir it. Just leave it alone.”
I turned to pour the brown sugar and butter into the mixer, then turned back around in time to see Caroline put her face right over the bowl of flour and BLOW as hard as she could.
Yes, she did.
And, literally, my clean kitchen went up in a puff of smoke.
However, in the spirit of turning my misfortune into something bright and happy and shiny, later today I’ll post the recipe for the Chocolate Chip Brownies we finally made after we survived The Flour Fiasco of ’08, also known as That Time I Almost Lost My Mind. While the mental breakdown wasn’t so great, the brownies were delicious.