I Lost a Day (Saturday)

I was just so focused yesterday. I had a goal for House things…I wanted to do a deep clean of my bedroom….I mean DEEP…ceiling fan to baseboards…somehow I got sucked into the vortex.

In the past I would drift through the school year, giving cleaning (apart from the kitchen & bathroom) a” lick and a promise” cleaning…more of a TIDYING, really, and then I would spend the whole first week of summer vacation deep cleaning everything. The older I’ve become, the less willing I am to spend the first week of summer doing drudge work. I end up rushing to be done with it.

For the last two years I decided to try something else. I pick one room per month to work on. This month is my bedroom….I put my hands on every piece of the room…cleaned off the ceiling fan blades, changed light bulbs, washed the window dressings, sorted through various books and collections of debris that I seem to collect. I rearranged the furniture…mostly. I started to just rotate everything a quarter turn, but Luna did not appreciate her bed being moved…so really, only MY bed moved. It’s not a major change (although I did flip the mattress and wash all the bedding, including the bed skirt and shams. Oh, and I ran to Home Depot to get a new AC vent for the ceiling…I tried to clean the other one, but it was original to the house and REALLY nasty.

I think one of the things I enjoyed most about being a Brat was the actual moving process. Not the moves, mind you…those “ruined my life” every time, but the packing up of some things, discarding others…finding places in the new room for the old things was somehow exciting and maybe a little bit comforting.

Sometimes when I feel restless, the best cure is to rearrange something. It is mind-consuming and mostly mechanical, which is sometimes a blessing…especially when there are big things on my mind. This room was on my calendar, but it did give me some time to contemplate some of the big things ahead of me. More on that later.

For now, my bedroom is a clean little haven…my sanctuary…