The more things change...the more you can find in the laundry room

This is how I feel when I'm in the laundry room

So, are you all ready for my unveiling? My new and improved laundry room, all neat and tidy and probably with a fresh coat of paint?

Too bad.

You know, I tried to get behind this challenge, I really did. Wait, that’s not really true. I wanted to try to get behind this challenge. Or maybe I wanted to get this challenge behind me. I could see where it would be good and helpful and shiny-bright to wrestle my house into some sort of order.

I just didn’t really have the heart to do it.

And it’s not because I’m too interesting or busy with all my professional success or too creative to be bothered with such mundane matters. My life is made up entirely of mundane matters, all cobbled together. I prepare food, I teach my sons, I carry my daughter around and agree with her that yes, the stove is hot, and yes that is the dog and yes, I am her mama and yes, that is her daddy, I change diapers, I intervene in arguments, I break up fights, I pick up the same toys seventeen zillion times a day, I pick up all the cloth napkins at least twice a day, I do dishes, I clean things, I talk, I listen, I read, I take a bath, I go to bed.

And I guess the problem with a spring cleaning challenge is that I just couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for it. I’m happy to jigger my schedule so I can short-change something boring (like sleep. Sleep is usually the first thing to go. Check the time this is posted) in favor of something I’m excited about. For instance, I go to the gym three times a week. This may not seem like much, but I shoehorn that puppy into afternoons that are so full of things to do that I literally have to walk away from bubbling pots on the stove and peel a squalling baby off my hip and hand her to my husband so I can walk out the door. Totally worth the effort.

But the LAUNDRY ROOM? Gawd. First of all, it’s in the basement. That’s the kids’ zone, where the boys stash all of the stuff they don’t want the baby to maul/choke on. So clearly I can’t take her down there. This leaves her (amazingly brief) nap time. And it is hard, oh it is hard, to convince myself to squander my precious period of serenity and hot drink safety to sorting through old bedsheets. (Seriously, where did all these fitted twin sheets come from? And why does looking at them and figuring out where they should go make me want to lie down on the floor and fake a psychotic break?)

Ah well. It’s all excuses, isn’t it? I wouldn’t accept that sort of justification from my kids if they’d bailed on a task. Fortunately for me, I’m a grown up and can’t be grounded.

So I failed this one. Technically, you could argue that I failed the last one too, but I’m still calling that one a win. I have a complicated rubric. But this time? FAIL. And I’ve decided not to feel bad about it either. Tonight, when I sat down to write this, Clay asked me how many weeks were left in this challenge. I told him this was the last one.

“Oh good,” he said, “so can I put more shelves up in the laundry room now?”

It just goes to show you, doesn’t it? Despite good intentions, some things just don’t change.