What I did on my day off

Ordinarily, days off from work are spent lounging around, soaking up the do-nothing attitude of holiday. Ahhhhhhhh........ so refreshing, so lazy, so lovely.

That was NOT the case on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday. Oh no no, little ol' me created a massive Honey-Do List.

Happy Husband was off at work, slaving away on all sorts of engineering feats and conquering mind-boggling blueprinty marvels. It was just little baby dog and me against the dust I felt had taken over my home. This dust may have been imaginary (reading the monster sized book on Victorian domestic life may have corrupted my malleable mind into believing that cleanliness was next to godliness and my home is closer to a demon sanctuary than a gateway to the pearly gates). My day began at dawn. The sun crested the horizon as I laid my eyes upon the pyramids of white and darks on my bedroom floor. Job Numero Uno: Vanquish laundry. Reward: eat breakfast. I washed, folded, iron, hung hubby's clothes and mine. I undid the bed and laundered the sheets, only to replace them after they dried. I admit I really, really, really wanted to jump back into the bed. Is there anything more inviting than warm, fresh from the dryer, comfort-smelling sheets? Nine o'clock and my booty scrambled downstairs. This task was completed before my morning coffee, y'all!

Next up on the agenda: Vacuum and mop downstairs. This is no little undertaking. We have a lot of tile and a dog, who I feel sheds with the intent of creating little hairy clones of himself. I pulled the oven out of its little kitchen niche and dove headfirst into the greasy yuckfest. I used a lot of cleanser, kids. That place has been sterilized, fo' sho.' As son as the incredible baking-machine was back in it's place, I hit the "Self Clean" button and crossed that off my list too. (Crossing things off lists is how I measure my day's successes.)

Forever and a year later, I wiped down baseboards. This is a particular nemesis to me. I just stare at dirty baseboards, cringing at the thought of the germs just waiting to infect me with their contagions. ** I know I am neurotic, but I prefer to call myself "quirky". Soon after, I became famished. I ate my lil sandwich in the living room, upon glancing upward I saw, THE HORROR!!, dust bunnies clinging to my fan blades just waiting to drop into my cherry pomegranate Crystal Light. Lunch was over. Ten minutes and a slightly renewed fear of falling on my head with no one to call an ambulance later. Added to the list, scratched off the list. The living room was purified.

I shredded documents, I filed files, I checked facebook, I watched sixteen minutes of the "Bad Girls Club" marathon on O. At 2 p.m. Puppy-Love and I were at the vet getting his boosters and heart worm test. As soon as me and my magically well behaved pooch came home we vacuumed the bedrooms upstais, dusted the blinds, fan blades and vacuumed out the beds (a tactic I picked up from watching "How Clean is Your House?" on the BBC. You have no clue how nasty your bed is until you've seen that show). At 3:15 p.m., I created a manzanita branch masterpiece for my bedroom using the branches left over from the wedding in May 2010. One bandaid and seven rubber bands later I began cleaning out the "second room."

This room is empty. It has no purpose except to store wedding related items, crafty related items, an old dresser from before our new bedroom set, boxes of boxes, boxes of engineering notebooks, boxes of engineering binders, and very neat stacks of really old papers (my biggest pet peeve is papers- receipts, recipes, coupons, printouts, scratch papers - they haunt my dreams, seriously). Now we are down one box of boxes and all that paper and the crafty supplies are are neatly tucked away where I cannot see them, but will think about them.

When the Happiest of Hubbies came home, the house did not necessarily look any different, as I tend to be pretty neat, but he said it smelled "amazing," before asking "What's for dinner" with a wink and a smile. I melted (one part exhaustion, one part lovey-dovey feeling).

Good CLEAN fun!