Now or Never

Yesterday the latest issue of Real Simple (one of my favorite magazines) arrived in the mail and I took its cover (to the left) as a sign: I must clean my condo this weekend.

How bad is the situation? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, I'd say it's about a 9. Since the fall of 2009 when I learned that my book was going to be published (but I'd have to write it first), I have pretty much only tended to urgent or otherwise in-your-face household duties. The trash gets taken out once it's starting to overflow. I keep up with the laundry because I have no choice. The bills get paid. When I'm on the phone I'll multitask by Swiffering up the dog hair that seems to constantly cover our hardwood floors. Everything else has been neglected for over 1.5 years. But today is the day. TODAY IS THE DAY. I'm going to clean this freakin' place if it kills me.

OK, perhaps "clean" is the wrong word. A more appropriate description of what I intend to do this weekend is "straighten up all visible areas on the main floor." In fact, I actually got kind of depressed after reading Real Simple cover-to-cover last night, because even their "quick cleaning guidelines" were waaaaaayyyy more intense than anything I plan to do. There will be no rug beating or curtain vacuuming or under-the-fridge coil-sweeping. There will be no disinfecting or scrubbing down of anything. I basically just need to toss out/organize/file/find another place for about 5,000 random papers/Post-Its/knickknacks that have piled up on my long kitchen table/writing desk, as well as on my kitchen counter and bedroom chest of drawers, over the course of about nineteen months.

I figure once the main areas I spend 99% of my time in look tidy, then I can actually clean surfaces and whatnot in the near future (and I'll be motivated not to let things accumulate again). But first things first. Wish me luck -- I'm not sure a task 1.5 years in the making can be accomplished in a weekend!