Chores

There is something rather soothing about cleaning on a Saturday morning. The weekend stretched out invitingly as I snuggled into the pillows to close my eyes just one last time. I finally said good morning to the dog when her head emerged from the covers on the other side of the bed and rolled, soon finding myself upright. Looking around the master suite as I moved toward my toothbrush, I frowned and debated hiring someone to clean.

I hung curtains in my bedroom several weeks ago – deep brown with a flowing pattern of flowers and vines in pale blue. The fabric is quite lovely, draping toward the floor while framing the sliding glass doors leading to my deck. I sometimes spend a few moments in the morning, supine, head propped up on a fluffy pillow, slowly thinking my thoughts and alternating admiring gazes toward my curtains and the sunrise. The plastic that encased the fabric upon its purchase continued to lay discarded on the floor.

While I don’t mind clutter – I rather enjoy the ebb and flow of items migrating from their assigned spots to being randomly strewn about and then back again to their happy homes – even I find it a bit disturbing that I leave trash on the floor for weeks.

Teeth clean, I began to put away the last of the clean laundry from last weekend – I’d been plucking items from the basket and wearing them all week – and filled the basket with dirty clothes that I’d tossed in all directions throughout the bedroom, bathroom and closet. I’m typically shedding clothes even as I climb the stairs after work, eager to rid myself of the professional outfits and snuggle into too-large t-shirts and soft, gray pants. I debated tossing the laundry over the railing and into the foyer, but decided against it, placing the full basket at the top of the stairs to be carted down manually. I then shuffled through the rooms again, picking up bits of trash – plastic from curtains, tags from a new top, tissues from Little One’s runny nose, cardboard which had surrounded newly-delivered books.

“Better,” I pronounced, taking one last look around the top floor of my house, and tucked the trash in the corner of the basket before carrying the whole lot downstairs. It waited again at the door to the basement while I went to the garage to throw things away and began to make coffee. I unloaded the dishwasher while I waited for the pot to finish brewing, then put a few scattered dishes in to wait their turn to get clean. I keep the door to the refrigerator open a touch longer than normal, debating between Coffeemate and actual cream, tasted my coffee to make sure it was correctly flavored and balanced the full mug carefully so that I could also carry laundry downstairs.

A couple hours later, laundry clean and folded and a novel mostly read, I emerged from the basement – now also clean – and rinsed my coffee cup before placing it in the dishwasher. I trudged upstairs to put laundry away, neatly stacking too-big t-shirts and soft, gray pants in fluffy piles that smelled perfectly of fabric softener (I use Bounce), hanging tops on the left side of the closet and skirts and pants on the right.

Back where I started, I can glance out the glass door to admire puffy, white clouds rather than a rising sun. I feel a ridiculous sense of accomplishment over my morning’s meager tasks. Given the pleasure I take in the transformation from cluttered to clean, it seems silly to hire someone to handle my treasured task.

But I’m still pondering someone about the lawn.

Note: We are on post 996, counting unpublished drafts. What does one do for post 1000? I was almost hoping it would coincide with my blogiversary, where I like to ask people to leave comments so I can feel all special and important. Maybe if I get rid of the all posts in draft form, I can push 1,000 posts until 11/13. Such things sometimes strike me as important. Not unlike how I feel about curtains and their packaging!