"Super" bowl weekend (sarcasm font)

I had a pretty open weekend with hardly no plans, so I developed a great plan of attack for my house. My house is a mess--a really and disgusting mess. I wrote down twelve things I needed to do to clean it up. Then I wrote the list by room and then by logical order of tasks. I thought about writing it in alphabetical order, but... That's right, I was procrastinating big time. I hate to clean. I keep buying those yellow gloves so that I can trick myself into thinking that I am not really cleaning, because my hands are not getting wet. But then I let Caitlyn play with the yellow gloves and she put dirt in them. That's right, she didn't wear the gloves, she used them as a pail to shovel dirt into. Those gloves are garbage.

Well I am nothing if not a slave to my lists. It took me an hour, but I finished the first thing on my list. It took me another hour, but I finished the second thing on my list. Then it took a looooong time to make myself do the third thing on my list. A long time. Late in the day as it was beginning to get dark (an event that would cut off some of the things near the end of my list) I finally got to and finished the third thing on my list. I spent another hour crossing these three things off my list and reviewing my list again and again for motivation. There was no getting around it. The next thing on my list required a broom. I don't have a broom handy. There are some muddy ones outside. I have my sweeper vacuum, but I don't think it will work. I should sweep under the sofa. I should vacuum the rug before I sweep, because I'm never going to finish this whole list and that's more important. I did nothing. It got later and later. Oh well there was always tomorrow.

On tomorrow, I got up late. I did not do what I wanted to do in the morning. I did not even look at my list. I looked at the area that needed to be swept. I knew that was next on my list and it loomed darkly preventing me from doing anything at all. I had to be somewhere in the afternoon and getting in the car and getting there took no effort. I was leaving my list and my chores behind me.

Still wishing to escape my awful house, I got take out for dinner and put my plate on top of my list, so that I would not see it. Then I had the babies. I pulled all the toys out from the carefully organized shelves (number three on my list), littered them out all over the carpet and then watched the babies like a hawk so that they would not pick some lint or dog hair up off the carpet that I hadn't vacuumed and eat it. Matthew was cranky and wanted to be held, but if Madilyn saw me holding Matthew then she wanted to be held. I spent about an hour picking one kid up to calm them down and then putting them down to be distracted by a toy and picking the other one up to calm them down and then putting them down to be distracted by a toy and then picking the other one up .... Anyway at some point Madilyn's sippy cup went under the chair. You know how you are always impressed by how smart babies can be? Well it is also sometimes surpising how stupid babies can be. The poor kid kept hitting her head on the bottem of the chair every time she went for her sippy cup. She'd start crying, Matthew was getting increasingly difficult to put down, so I was trying to hold both of them. Holding both of them, I could not reach the sippy cup. Madilyn would calm down, I'd put her down with a toy that I edged over with my foot and darn it if she didn't go right for the sippy cup and hit her head again. This happened three times. Finally I left them both crying and went for my phone to call in the cavalry.

When the room finally cleared and I put away my dishes, my list was intigrated into the mess that is my house, benign and invisible, yet lurking on the edge of my consciousness, nagging me. I failed to clean. I had a whole weekend with little or nothing to do and I failed.

The capper--the icing--the cherry on top is the ants. Oh yes, it rained on Friday night big time. On Saturday night I saw an ant on the bathroom floor. No worries I thought--cleaning the bathroom is on my list. Then I happened to glance inside the tub. It had lots and lots of dead ants in the bottem. No worries--cleaning the tub is on my list. Then I looked to the sides of the tub to find the source of the ants--YUCK. I got out the ant killer and did me a little big game ant hunting--well it was more of a global ant massacre. It was horrible. No worries I thought from the other room--cleaning the bathroom is on my list. Unfortuneatly it was way down the line from sweeping and vacuuming and I don't have any yellow gloves.

Now it is Monday. I did get up early this morning. I skipped the gym. My whole adgenda was to clean the tub--now at the top of the eternal list in my head. Failure. Gross and utter failure.

New list: Buy yellow gloves. And maybe a broom.

P.S. Happy Birthday Adrienne--sorry but you are probably NOT getting a clean kitchen for your birthday.