Doreen's Blog

Well, one thing is for sure. Steve and I won’t be buying toothpaste for quite some time, maybe for more than half a year.

See, I was going through drawers and tower baskets in the bathroom this past week, and I found about two dozen tiny tubes of toothpaste laying about. I’m not kidding either. There were clearly about two dozen of them.

Wow! I wondered. How did we manage to accumlate so many tiny tubes of toothpaste? I blame our dentists. They’re always pushing toothbrushes, toothpaste, and dental floss at us after each visit. Not that this is a bad thing. Oral hygienne is very important, at least if you plan on talking to me.

So anyway, we’ve got loads of toothpaste to last us for the months ahead. And, hand lotion, if you really need to know. There are nearly as many tiny bottles of hand lotion in our house as there are tiny tubes of toothpaste. How did we accumulate so many of them? I blame hotels and motels for that. Hotels and motels are always replenishing rooms with tiny bottles of lotion, even when you only open and use them one lousy time.

When Steve and I stayed at a hotel in Niagara Falls, Ontario (FYI, the Canadian side of the Falls is better than the U.S. side), our housekeeper overstocked our room with tiny bottles of lotion, and shampoo, and conditioner. It was kind of crazy, all those tiny bottles, but that was OK, because it was the Bath and Body Works brand, cucumber melon-scented. Good stuff.

So, yeah, we’ve got an overload of tiny toothpastes and lotions in our house right now, and they need to be used up. That’s why I found a special spot, a special basket for each one of those toiletry supplies. The way I see it, if those tiny toiletries are in their place, they’re much easier to find and use. Makes sense, right?

All this organizing of drawers and tower baskets and such are part of a New Year’s resolution I put into place on January 2. The resolution is as states: “In the year of our Lord, 2013, all drawers, cabinets, closets, tower baskets, attics, spare rooms, refurbished cisterns, and junk drawers will be sorted through and all contents will be either kept, tossed, or Nex-Tu-Nu’ed. No other options for contents will be offered, no matter how many times Steve says, ‘Hey, I might be able to use that one day’.”

Steve was informed of the resolution and, as yet, has not bucked me on it. This is progress in and of itself, that my authority (ha!) has not been questioned. As a matter of fact, Steve himself has sorted through several cabinets and drawers, clearing out stuff I thought would never go away. His big find has been batteries, more dead than alive, unfortunately.

Now, I’m not expecting this resolutionary project will be completed anytime soon. Twelve years of accumulated junk doesn’t go away in a day, or a week, or even a month. It’s going to take time to clean out, organize and make use of the stuff we’ve put in the “kept” pile, like those tiny tubes of toothpaste and tiny bottles of lotion. There are a lot of them.

It’s a Christmas miracle! Steve was actually singing a Christmas song this morning! It’s true! I distinctly heard him sing, “Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!”

OK, so he was only singing part of the a Christmas song. Still, he was singing! And get this – he was singing while helping me with the Christmas tree! I know! I’m just as shocked as you!

OK, so his idea of “helping me with the Christmas tree” meant hot-gluing popsicle-based tree ornaments and reattaching wings on angels and heads on carolers. He drew the line at actually putting the ornaments on the tree, but still. He was helping! And he was singing!

People who know The Christmas Scrooge himself are the only ones who will appreciate this Christmas miracle. You see, Steve really doesn’t  care much for the Christmas season. For one, he hates decorating, especially when it involves outdoor lighting.

Don’t even get me started on the interminable rants he goes on when we pass by a house that’s lit up like a, well, Christmas tree. “What a waste of electricity!” he rants. “What is wrong with those people?”

“Nothing,” I tell him. “They just happen to like Christmas, that’s all.”

“Pfft,” (Steve’s version of “bah humbug.”)

Steve also hates for Christmas shopping. That’s why it always falls on my shoulders. Steve says he doesn’t like holiday crowds; he doesn’t like having to find the perfect present for someone, namely me.

For years, I’ve been subject to Steve’s plaintive plea, “What do you want for Christmas? What am I supposed to buy for you? Tell me what you want me to buy!”

I usually shrug in reply, careful not to give him any ideas. It’s the best way to torment him.

This Christmas season has been no different when it came to those plaintive pleas. But this year, being the everlasting smart-aleck I’ve been known to be, I decided not to shrug. Instead, I decided to torment Steve even more.

This year, in response to his pleas, I laid my hand on his shoulder, dropped my gaze, and said:

“Steve. You know what I want for Christmas. Deep down, you know. All you need to do is look into your heart and you’ll know what the perfect Christmas gift for me should be. Just look there (tapping on his chest) and let your heart lead the way.”

Steve was not amused. I, however, thought I was hilarious.

Last week Steve told me not to go digging around in the Man Shed, that my present was hidden out there and he didn’t want me looking for it. He’d found me a present? Now, that was impressive. He said, “You’ll like it. I showed it to Joe (his co-worker) and he thought it was cute.”

Cute? Wow, I thought. What could he have possibly bought for me that another man characterized as being “cute.” That has kind of got me worried.

However, I’ll admit, it has also got me curious. What could my present possibly be? I really have been wondering about it, a lot.

Still, I’m not going to go digging around in the Man Shed to find my present. I’ll let Steve keep the surprise to himself until we open Christmas gifts with the kids this weekend. Waiting until then to open my “cute” present will be much more fun.

Well, maybe not as much fun as it’s been having Steve actually “help” with the Christmas tree. And definitely not as much fun as listening to him sing!

“Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!” Indeed!

The UPS guy stopped by the house last night to pick up a package inadvertently sent to our address. He said he might as well take it with him then since he might not be back for awhile.

“Oh, you’ll be back sooner than you think,” I told him. “There are five more orders out there I’m waiting to arrive.” (He smiled weakly.)

Five more outstanding orders, not to mention the six that have already arrived at the Tyler home. That’s right. I’m doing most, if not all, of my Christmas shopping online this season. We’ve gotten to know the UPS guy very well.

Oh, I know. People are going to try and shame me for not supporting local businesses, but that’s not what I’m really trying to do. I’m trying to do most of my shopping online for the sake of my own sanity.

With school and (a little) work and a Christmas tree to decorate and famous frosted sugar cookies to bake, I’m trying to keep holiday stress at a minimum. (Last year was not pretty.) Besides, the idea of not having to fight crowds or search store to store for the perfect gift, well, the idea was very appealing – very, very appealing, indeed.

Online shopping was made even easier this season, thanks to my kids’ Christmas lists. Every one of them sent me their “need” lists in the form of a website link. How convenient was that? Very! Just click, view, decide “yay” or “nay,” add or don’t add to the shopping cart, and move onto the next link. I’m so glad my kids are tech-savvy. It has saved me soooooo much time this season.

Oh, not that there won’t be gifts left to buy that require actual store visits. There are a couple things not found online, just a couple. And the days are running short to expect timely delivery of gifts for our family gathering next Saturday. So, off to the store I will undoubtedly go!

So anyway, Christmas shopping has been a breeze this year, and that alone has cut my holiday stress in half. Unfortunately, the other half of my stress involves the Christmas tree standing bare-naked in my living room. Tonight when I get home, I’ve got to convince Steve to help me unload decorations from that attic and, please Lord please, help me place them on the tree.

Now, anyone who has heard me talk about my husband, The Christmas Scrooge, knows that is not going to happen. When it comes to Christmas tree decorating, I am on my own.

Hey, I wonder if the UPS guy will be stopping by tonight. He does have five more orders to deliver. Maybe he could help me decorate the tree? There might be a famous frosted sugar cookie in it for him…

That’s it! That’s the plan! I’m going to ask the UPS guy to help me out. He can’t be that busy, right? Like, crazy busy? Oh boy, I do hope he’ll say yes!

OK, so maybe I should have checked the five-day forecast on Thursday morning. That might have made a difference from what it’s like in my house right now.

Unfortunately I didn’t check the forecast, mostly because the lovely weather of Tuesday and Wednesday lulled me into the mindset that the lovely weather would stick around. And, hey, if we weren’t going to be home for a few days and the lovely weather stuck around, we sure wouldn’t need the furnace to keep us warm. So, I shut down the furnace Thursday morning as we headed out the door. No problem, right?

My first indication that the weather had changed was a Facebook post from someone around Cobden who wrote, “It’s snowing!” Snowing, I thought. How the heck was it snowing, what with the lovely weather we’d been having. And it was still lovely weather in Eau Claire where Steve and I were holed up with two-thirds of our children (and Julie!) for Thanksgiving. How could it be snowing near home?

“It’s snowing at home,” I told Steve. “The weather’s changed.”

He didn’t seem to get my point.

“I shut the furnace down,” I added. “They’re expecting a pretty low temperature tonight.”

Steve had visions of frozen pipes and water spewing all over the basement floor and in the walls where pipes lived.

“I can’t imagine the house will get cold enough to freeze pipes,” I said. “It was 63 degrees in the house when we left. I bet it will be no lower than 55 when we get back home.”

Fast forward through a couple days of pretty cold weather in Eau Claire and Lakeville where we also spent time with two-thirds of our children (and Joe!)…

I was getting a little worried. I had hoped the weather was supposed to turn lovely again, but it wasn’t. I started to wonder, what if Steve was right. What if the pipes freeze, burst, and we have a huge mess before us when we walk through the door? What a horrible way to end a perfectly wonderful few days with all three-thirds of our children (and Julie and Joe!). Cripes.

Steve and I got home about 45 minutes ago, and I still haven’t taken off my three layers of clothing. I put on gloves not long after walking through the front door. It was 45 degrees in our house, not 55 as I predicted, more than a little chilly in my house, cold enough that the fluorescent bulbs were more than a little dim when we turned on the lights.

I turned the furnace back on first thing, even before we started putting away the Thanksgiving leftovers we were given by Tina to take home. The furnace kicked in right away.

The furnace is now running. The registers are warm. I turned two small room heaters on Steve to warm him up; he already has a bad cold. I turned the oven to 400 degrees and left open the oven door. It’s going to take a few hours, but the house will warm up enough that I won’t need these gloves or all three layers of clothes. That will be nice.

So, yeah, maybe I should have checked the five-day forecast. It would most certainly have made a difference from what it’s like in my house right now, 49 degrees, but rising.

When I logged onto my blogsite tonight, I had 251 comments waiting for me to approve.

Holy moley! 251 comments! What in the world? Boy, was I surprised! What was this all about? Did a slew of readers suddenly have something to say to me? And if they did, what? To quit waiting weeks to upload a new blog and write more often? To write about “the girls”? To stop writing about Steve? What did my readers have to say? What? What?

With a click of the mouse, I found out.

Ha! Turns out, my readers had nothing to say, but, oh boy, those blasted spammers just wouldn’t shut up. That’s right. Every one of those 251 comments waiting for me to approve came from spammers. Do you think I approved their comments? No? Good answer.

Call me technologically illiterate, but I don’t understand spamming. What is the point of sending out a bunch nonsensical comments telling me to buy, well, whatever the heck it is those spammers think they’re trying to sell? Gucci belts and bags and Xanax, or some such nonsense, I think.

Or are they really trying to sell something? Maybe it’s something else, like, oh, I don’t know, something else. Can spammers, like, attach viruses to blog comments? Is that possible? I don’t know. Remember, I’m technologically illiterate.

As a rule, I generally don’t even read spammer comments, not usually. Early on, when only two or three showed up at a time, I would actually read them, and they were funny. Here’s an example (fingers crossed there are no viruses attached): “Magnificent gucci fabrics burberry did not experienced mainly because type all of the winter time!” Not the best use of grammar and sentence structure, huh? As a future English teacher, the spammers’ grasp on the English language makes me cringe!

I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure spammers don’t read my blogs. At least it doesn’t appear so. Although, one time a spammer actually made comment about the content of my blog. It was back in March of 2011 when I wrote a blog about using a photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin as the wallpaper on my laptop. It was kind of creepy (not the picture) that the spammer (a Russian, it would seem, since his/her name was written in Russian script; I checked) said (in between poor use of English grammar and sentence structure) that he/she planned to use a photo of Putin as his/her wallpaper too.

Whoa, I thought.

After reading that, my imagination went into hyper-drive, and I suddenly had an image of my name and blogsite being placed on an FSB (formerly KGB) watchlist because I had mentioned Putin’s name and likeness in a complimentary fashion. Hey, it could happen. Oh well, at least I was being complimentary.

Wait. Oh, no. Oh, crap.

Didn’t I just recently mention in a second blog about wanting to go to Russia and meet President Putin “to pick his brain and figure out what could possibly be so fearsome about such a teeny, little man“? “Teeny, little man” is not complimentary! Not to someone like Putin! Surely the FSB is onto me now! I bet if I do visit Russia, they’ll know about it, and they’ll come after me, and there will be a prison cell in Siberia waiting for me with my name on the door…

Ha! Whatever! What an imagination I have! I’m sure the FSB has better things to do than read my blog and place me on their watchlist. At least I hope so. Ha!

No, I think it’s just the spammers messing with me. Stupid spammers, why can’t they just - OMG. In the time it’s taken me to write this blog, and it hasn’t taken long, THREE more spammer comments have been delivered. Cripes.

Well, I’ve got to give it to the spammers, at least they’re persistant, as am I. Approve your comments, spammers? Not on your life. Or, if you’re the FSB, not on mine! (jk…heehee)

“Duct tape is like the force: It has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together.” – Carl Zwanzig

I don’t know who this Carl Zwanzig is, but, clearly, he has no clue what he’s talking about. Duct tape most certainly does not hold the universe together. It doesn’t even have the strength, the force, to hold my broken car window in place, not even during a quick ten-minute drive from Sleepy Eye to the farm.

Quite frankly, I was surprised by this revelation. I’d been told that duct tape could fix anything. Steve always said duct tape could fix anything. Tim “The Toolman” Taylor and Red Green always said that too. HGTV shows? Yeah, I‘d heard it said there too.

Liars, every one of them.

Not that I’ve always felt this way about duct tape. Heck, for years I’ve used it myself to fix all kinds of stuff like hole-y hoses and cracked plastic bins. I’ve used it to tape hidden keys to hidden places. I’ve used it to un-stick cat hair from black pants. Duct tape is highly versatile.

So naturally, I had to give it a try, the duct tape that is, to fix my broken car window. What else was I going to do? Drive around with the driver’s side window wide open to the elements? Not me. Not this girl. A quick fix was in order. Bring on the duct tape!

As fortune would have it, I happened to be in Sleepy Eye when the quick fix was needed, and Shari just happened to have duct tape at the ambulance garage that I could use. And what luck! Shari’s duct tape was black, a perfect match for a broken window on a charcoal-colored car. Quick fix, here I come!

I must say, the best thing about duct tape is its tear-ability. You don’t need scissors to cut it, once you’ve pulled the perfect length strip. Nope. You just rip it apart with your fingers and stick it where you need it. Awesome.

Rip. Stick. Rip. Stick. The quick fix I so badly needed was moving along perfectly. I was pleased.

By the time I finished taping that black duct tape on my charcoal-colored car, I was pretty darn convinced my broken window was essentially fixed, at least for the two days it would take to get my car into the body shop.

But then I drove home. That’s when I could see I had a problem.

A few miles out of Sleepy Eye, it became clear; the duct tape was not holding. I watched in horror as the duct tape slowly began tearing away from window. I watched in horror as the window started sliding down, inching ever closer to being lost forever to that mysterious sliver of space where windows slide down into and, sometimes, never return.

By some favor of saving grace, just an inch of window remained above that sliver of space by the time I arrived at the farm. Disgusted, yet determined to fix it, albeit temporarily, I jerked and pulled on that blessed window until it was high enough to reach the duct tape. Then, I taped it again.

The duct tape actually held for two days until I got it into the body shop. Still, I told the fix-it guy what a useless piece of junk duct tape turned out to be. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “Duct tape is awesome. It can hold the universe together.”

Well, at least I know who Carl Zwanzig is now.

(Writer’s post-script: I wrote 98 percent of this blog about five months ago, and I still think duct tape is a useless piece of junk, except for when it comes to un-sticking cat hair from black pants. Then, and only then, duct tape is awesome.)

Remember in the movie, A Christmas Story, when Ralphie’s teacher tells the class, “Now, boys and girls…I want you to write a theme,” and the whole class groans? If I’d have been a member of that class, I wouldn’t have groaned. I loved writing themes in elementary school. No reason in particular. I just loved themes.

I’m still a big fan of themes. Why, in daily life, every single day, practically, I look for themes. And, sometimes, even when I’m not looking for them, themes evolve all by themselves. It’s true.

Once, quite unexpectedly, when I was on ambulance call, my fellow EMTs and I became part of a theme. For whatever reason on that particular day, there were three ambulance runs involving people falling down, and on two of those calls, each patient was 90-something years old AND they each broke something. What are the odds, huh? That was one heck of a theme.

Another time, in class at MSU, I noticed a theme where a high percentage of young women in class were wearing scarves. It’s true. One after the other, young women walked into the classroom with scarves wrapped around their necks. Was it fashion? Or something else? I guess I’ll never know. That’s just how themes go sometimes. I can tell you this though. Fully, two of the many young women wearing scarves were wearing them for one reason – to cover hickeys on their necks.

Now, I have to say, hickeys was not a theme I saw coming. My god, I thought, guys still give girls hickeys? I would have thought that theme died out years ago! Shows you how much I know, huh? Or that I’ve been married too long?

Anyway, back to the subject of themes…

Today, I found an interesting theme evolving, quite unexpectedly, right there in the McCabe’s Hardware parking lot. After buying the coldest Diet Dew in town, I found myself outside chatting with a friend who told me about her dream of taking college courses in an area of study near and dear to her. Why would I need to do that? she asked me. Well, I told her, you need to do it for yourself. I told her to go for it, that I hoped she would follow through and achieve her dream, because how great would that be!

A couple minutes later, I ran into a former co-worker who has begun a new career doing something he’s dreamed about doing for years, since he was a senior in high school, and that was years and years ago! Life’s too short, I told him. You’ve got to do what you want to do before it’s too late.

Now, sitting here at home, I was reading the November 2012 issue of Queen of the Castle magazine, a fab women’s mag from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Just guess what the theme is this month? Attraversiamo. Fans of “Eat, Pray, Love” will know what that means. It’s Italian for “let’s cross over.” Essentially, the issue deals with making changes in our lives, of living our dreams.

Do you see today’s theme evolving? Dreams! The theme is following your dream!

For myself, my dream has always been graduating from college and earning a degree. It’s been three years in the making, so far. Barring anything stupid from happening, I will graduate next December. Hooray!

And when next December comes around, when I don the cap and gown and step on-stage to receive my diploma, you’d better believe my kids are going to be in the audience that day. Why? Because I want them to know that life really is too short to be mediocre. Life is so much better when you follow your dreams and achieve your goals. That is so important.

Do you remember the subject of the theme Ralphie and his classmates had to write about? “What I Want for Christmas.” Ralphie wanted an “official Red Ryder carbine-action two-hundred-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock,” and he wrote about that. In his dream sequence, Ralphie imagined Miss Shields would give him an A+ for his fabulous theme. In reality, he got a C+ and a post-script warning, in red, “You’ll shoot your eye out!”

And that’s how I’m going to close this blog, with a YouTube montage of the themed A Christmas Story line, “You’ll shoot your eye out.” Enjoy! I know I did.

You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!  (On your iPad or mobile devive)

You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out!  (On your PC or laptop)

Steve can’t stand the aroma of my new Scentsy scent, Coconut Lemongrass. He says it stinks too much like coconut.

Well, duh, I tell him. It is COCONUT Lemongrass, and I think it smells good – crisp, clean, light, and airy. Nope, it stinks, Steve says, his manly mind set in its ways. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to convince him otherwise.

Which is funny, him thinking coconut stinks. Coconut is one of the ingredients in his favorite kind of cookies, Farm Cookies. Steve goes ga-ga over Farm Cookies. I mean, cripes, he gets all misty-eyed when I drag the coconut out of the baking cupboard to throw together a batch. “You’re making Farm Cookies” he shrills, giddy as a school girl. “I love Farm Cookies.”

What a goon.

So, anyway, Steve can’t stand my Coconut Lemongrass Scentsy scent, and, so far, I’ve had to hear two times about how much he hates it. Wait, three times.

Yesterday, the first day I fired up the Scentsy warmer with Coconut Lemongrass scent, he complained that when he got home (before me) the whole house “reeked” of coconut, so he unplugged the warmer. That was time number one.

Today, he’s come into the house twice from the Man Shed complaining of the smell. “God, it stinks in here!” he whines. “How can you stand it?”

Well, I can stand it just fine, I thought to myself. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of adding more scent to the warmer to jack up the aroma of Coconut Lemongrass just to piss him off.

I didn’t do that though. I chose instead to mess with his head enough to make him go back out to the Man Shed and shut up about coconut. Sometimes, winning is just that easy.

“So, you’re telling me the house still looks dirty?”

“What? I never said anything about the house.”

“Same difference, Steve. Same difference.”

“What?”

“Go back out to the Man Shed, Steve.”

“Fine, I will.”

And then he was gone.

It’s interesting to me that the aroma of Coconut Lemongrass should bother him. I mean, I was out in the Man Shed earlier today for a cold Dew when my nose caught a whiff of a most vile stench.

“What is that smell? My god, it stinks in here!”

“Oh, Spot took a dump in the corner. I just cleaned it up.”

“God, can’t you still smell it? It’s awful!”

“Nope, I don’t smell anything anymore.”

Funny thing. Steve was eating a Farm Cookie when he told me this. That’s right, a Farm Cookie, the kind of cookie Steve loves, the cookie made with coconut – coconut, as in Coconut Lemongrass, the odor Steve can’t stand.

Oh, the irony.

Lew Wallace was a great man, a Union general, a leader, an author, an inventor, an all-around good guy.

Why, if it hadn’t been for Lew Wallace, Washington D.C. might have fallen to the Confederates. If it hadn’t been for Lew Wallace, Ben Hur would never have been written and Charlton Heston would have never become a household name.

But most importantly, if it hadn’t been for Lew Wallace, my mornings would start out a whole lot different.

You see, Lew Wallace – champion of D.C. and Charlton Heston’s career – invented the snooze alarm, the greatest innovation of Lew Wallace’s time, of our time, of all time. For Lew Wallace’s genius, I shall be forever grateful. But my husband? Hmm, uh, well, he shall forever curse Lew Wallace’s name.

For the past 28 years, the snooze alarm has been a bone of contention between Steve and me. I love the snooze alarm and, whenever possible, I use it at nine-minute intervals. On the other hand, Steve hates the snooze alarm and complains about it regularly – usually at nine-minute intervals.

“You didn’t set the snooze alarm again, did you?” he grumbles every morning the alarm goes off.

“Hmmphffzzzzmmm,” I answer,  drifting back to slumber for nine minutes more. And nine minutes more. And, possibly, depending upon the day, nine minutes more. Yes, I’ve been known to hit the snooze three or more times before finally dragging my ragged body out of bed.

And even though I hit the snooze alarm time after time, it doesn’t hurt my schedule one bit. I’m very rarely ever late. Why not? Because I have a system, an ingenious system, one that quite possibly irritates Steve more than the snooze alarm – I set the bedroom clock 12 minutes ahead of the real time.

Here’s how that works:

Because I set the clock 12 minutes ahead, when the time reads 6 a.m., it’s really only 5:48 a.m in real time. So if I set the alarm for 5:51 a.m., it’s really going off at 5:39 a.m. If I hit the snooze, which I will inevitably do, the alarm will re-sound at 6 a.m. which is really only 5:48 a.m. If I’m still not ready to get up, I’m not really going to be late because when the alarm sounds again at 6:09 a.m., it’s still only 5:57 a.m.

It’s a teeny bit complicated and I can understand Steve’s irritation. But, hey, I’ve got to have my system. Besides, the nightstand and alarm clock have been on MY side of the bed for 28 years. My side, my system, my snooze alarm. Ahhhh…

So, thank you, Lew Wallace, for inventing the snooze alarm. For your genius, I shall be forever grateful. But Steve? Hmm, uh, well, he shall forever curse your name - at nine minute intervals.

Steve calls it my “cleaning kick,” the day when I go crazy cleaning every nook and cranny of the house and then threaten his life if he dares mess it up. The latest cleaning kick happened on Monday, and I’m proud to say nothing much has been messed up yet. The house is still clean. Cripes, it feels good.

I like a clean house. Not meticulously clean, not an uber-shiny, over-the-top kind of clean, not a cold, sterile kind of clean. Basically, I like it when stuff is picked up, not piled up, and put in its place.

I like clutter-free countertops, dirt-free floors, and dust-free flat surfaces. I like decorative pillows, one at each end of the couch. I like magazines piled one on top of the other. I like old mail sorted and tossed out. I like clothes washed, dried, folded, and put away. I like vacuum lines.

No wait. I LOVE vacuum lines. What can I say? Vacuum lines calm me – Ohmmm…

While all of my “likes” and that one “love” might sound a little OCD to some people, really, they are not. Most of the time I don’t mind a little household chaos. It happens, you know? Who has time to keep a house meticulously clean? OK, someone with OCD has time, but that someone is not me.

Still, I have my days, days that usually happen after being away from home for a bit, or after being uber-busy with school and such, or after deciding my psyche would be much calmer if the house was really, really clean. That day was Monday.

Short of giving all the menial details of my cleaning kick, here is how the day unfolded:

I started in the back entry, which is basically nothing more than a giant waste of space. The back entry is the roughly the size of my bedroom. It’s big. It’s a big waste of space, a space where extra junk gets dumped.

I cleaned up the extra junk.

Then it was on to my bedroom where all the dirty clothes I could find were tossed down the basement for cleaning. I made the bed; I dusted the furniture; I vacuumed the floor; I admired the vacuum lines. Ohmmm…

Then it was on to the bathroom.

Nothing much to report by way of bathroom cleaning. There isn’t much to clean since my family adheres so well to the Squeegee Rule. Oh sure, there’s the toilet to mess with, and that’s not always fun. I cleaned the toilet anyway. Not fun.

On to the living room!

We have a big living room and I was a flurry of motion picking stuff up and putting stuff away, dusting stuff and fluffing stuff. I put decorative pillows at each end of the couch. I piled up magazines. I vacuumed the floor. I admired the vacuum lines. Ohmmm…

The kitchen is usually the first room I clean on my cleaning kick, but not on Monday. It was the last room I cleaned. No particular reason here. It’s just the way things work out sometimes.

When Steve got home, I wasn’t there, but he knew better than to mess anything up. He knows how I get when I get on my cleaning kick. His life has been threatened enough.

The thing is, Steve knows what I’m like on my cleaning kick, but he also knows what I’m like when I’m off of it. And, although he’s liking our really, really clean house,  I think he’s biding his time until that day when I’m off my cleaning kick, when it doesn’t matter where he leaves a dirty glass, or where he tosses his dirty underwear, or, where, God forbid, he walks over the vacuum lines.

Ah, vacuum lines…Ohmmm….