it's only 7:50 a.m.

It's not even eight o'clock yet, and I have been so productive, I feel the need to impress all four of my regular readers with my accomplishments thus far: Cleaning the floor! What fun! What fun? you may ask... and I guess the joy is to be found in the thought that right now: it is true "is the floor clean enough to eat off of, Mom?" is the question often asked twenty years ago. Sorry it took so long for the answer to be: "Yes!"  Thankfully there were any number of times two decades ago, that it was also (mostly) true. I never thought anyone would become terminally ill from eating dirt, partially due to the knowledge that I consumed a huge quantity as a kid.

From my experience of growing up in a house on a dirt road, constantly digging holes with a tablespoon in the driveway, fully expecting to eventually peer down and see: a wee little person dressed in a beautifully brocaded coat with a mandarin collar, tiny little shoes on tiny little feet, jet black hair, and beautifully slanted eyes. There was one day that I actually dig unearth the broken handle of a tea cup: so I knew I was getting close - what better proof than a  long buried remnant of an elegant civilization - I was nearly there!


So I felt like if I had survived all those ring worms in my feet and pin worms in my intestinal tract from years of gallivanting around in the woods, digging in the back yard, stomping around in the manure of a horse pen, and (insanely) barefoot grass mowing, I felt like eating a piece of toast off the floor was relatively harmless. Especially when you invoke the 'five second rule'. One of the rules of survival for parents of people under four feet tall.

I know imperfect housekeeping, and minor infractions of sanitation rules are not the death knell: one of the daughters was so swamped with an oral fixation, she would put anything in her mouth. I clearly remember my moms' horror when she saw the baby gnawing on one of my flip-flops. I told her I occasionally put them in the washer, so it was definitely not the dirtiest thing in the house. Another memorable event was when I noticed she was chewing on the wooden leg of a chair. I wish I had it still - just for the tooth marks.

I cleaned bathrooms yesterday, and have swept and mopped bathrooms and kitchen floor this morning. I'll get the living-dining floor done when I get off work this afternoon, and might even do something as extreme as a light dusting on the surfaces most crowed with newly hatched dust-bunnies. I look at how some other people have so much stuff they cannot use their carports for carports. So I rationalize: I am not such a terrrrrible, awwwwful hoarder, but I still have boxes of stuff (currently squirreled away in closets that have no clothes - just precariously piled stacks of 'stuff') I would love to sort/toss/get out of my life. Maybe next week....???? or year......