Yesterday, the 3rd Sunday of Advent, is the day we usually put up the Christmas tree.  We don’t put up the ornaments, just the tree and lights.  That didn’t end up happening, but that’s not the point of the post.

Because the intent was to put up the tree, and because I’ve done absolutely nothing to ready the house for Christmas, getting the room ready for the tree involved quite a bit of dusting, vacuuming and moving of furniture.  This, of course, highlighted spots and stains in the beige wall-to-wall carpeting that one might not normally notice.

So I hauled out the Bissel rug steam cleaner (an investment that has paid for itself many times over), and I set to work removing evidence of sloppy, dirty children who are not allowed to bring food into the living room but who do so anyway.

It’s my fault that I have not removed at least one child’s left ear to show the others the punishment for eating in the forbidden zone.

Since the cleaner was already out, I continued to the space between the living room and dining room which is high traffic and a magnet for spilled food.  Then I shuffled the dining room table around the lifted the rug there to clean all the spots that landed just off the area rug and onto the beige wall-to-wall carpeting.

People who put beige wall-to-wall carpeting in a dining area obviously do not have children.

I shudder to think how bad the carpeting would be without the area rugs.

I plan to take all my pretty area rugs to a professional cleaner in 10 years or so to remove all evidence of urine, juice, spaghetti sauce, etc.  For now, the busy patterns hide the mess. 

We had other things yesterday (Mass, children’s party at church, flag ceremony for Scouts), so my cleaning took most of the day, and I finished up just before dinner.  I was almost done when one child decided that she desired some purple grape juice (a rare treat, and the only kind of juice she really likes).  A crowd gathered and suddenly everybody under the age of ten was indulging in a cup of dark purple liquid.  One child (not the 3 year old and not the 5 year old) immediately walked into the living room to see what was on TV and promptly spilled her drink.

My freaking out less than saintly display of emotion was quickly tempered when I saw she was in tears.  She had seen me working all day long, and knew the rules, and was very very sorry.

This is why my children have all their ears. 

Fortunately, I was still finishing the dining room, so clean up was easy.  I am once again happy to walk into that part of the house.  A clean house fills me with joy, and no matter how vacuumed the rug is, stains and the dinge of traffic are not “clean.”

I pulled another rug from the garage and put it in the awkward spot between the dining room and the living room.  It looks stupid, since it is unanchored by furniture, but it looks better than plastic.  Anybody’s grandma have plastic on the carpeting?  I used to think it was odd or tacky. 

Now I just think it clever.

Because I’ve been making stockings, my real job (wife, mother, cook, housekeeper, teacher) has been somewhat neglected.  It happens.  It’s part of our family plan: things run smoothly 11 months out of the year.  December, everybody fends for himself/herself.  This is why my 5 year old is able to help his 3 year old sister make a turkey on a bagel sandwich snack.  Waiting for mom, you’d starve.  It’s a mini-boot camp for independence.

Guilty mother confession: my children had cereal for dinner last night.  Yes, I hang my head in shame. 

I’ll give them veggies in January.

However, inspired by this challenge, I decided that I would do my usual Friday clean-the-house routine, at least as far as the kitchen counters go, and also tidy that space above the sink.  The floor will not be getting mopped today, but the sink looks great.

Here are some before pictures:

After taking everything off the sill and cleaning it and the window, I put the money, matches, gum and cleaner back where they belonged.  The oils went back on the counter nearer the stove, where they used to live.  Most of the drugs were from a recent sinus infection that my husband had and were disposed of.  I did keep the one he takes daily out, but I slightly hid it behind some cheery ribbon.  I removed the sticks that rotate the blinds and tucked them in the top pane behind the blinds where they can’t be seen (from the kitchen – they can be from the playroom, but the kids don’t care).  And I secured the strings that raise and lower the blinds mostly out of sight behind the curtains.  Since the window looks out on the playroom/sunroom, the blinds are never adjusted.  And now my Kitchen Madonna does not have a stick dangling in front of her.

Check out other kitchen sinks here.

My neighbors are decluttering and cleaning and moving on to a new stage in their life.  They have generously thought of us, and have been bringing over bags of things they no longer need but which we, a younger family, may find useful.  The books, especially, the kids have enjoyed: plenty of novels for the younger set and even some books for the little ones.

Yesterday, their daughter was home from college.  She came over while I was out shopping.  Bill said she was much too young to be living out on her own.  I reminded him that we stopped living full time with our parents while we were still teenagers.  We’ve reached the age where anyone without a few gray hairs is “too young” for anything, I think.

Anyway, neighbor daughter must have been told by her parents to start clearing out the things of her childhood.  She brought over some Barbies (and lots of teeny tiny accessories) and three Scooby-Doos that sing songs.  Bill said she had collected them way back when.

Three Scooby-Doos that sing/bark Jingles Bells or whatever.  I’m not sure what they sing because I have banished them from my presence.  I hear them rolfing in the next room and I try hard not to listen.  I suggested that at least two be gifted to friends who might enjoy their annoying cheerful noise, but then I think that their mothers might not like me much any more.  Should I share the misery or just offer it up?  Maybe Scooby-Doo will find his way to the nearest thrift store.  Soon.

The other day, I turned the heat on…for about an hour.  Once my downstairs temperature got above 70, I turned it off.  Yesterday, it was quite warm, and the house was a sweltering 79 without any help from the furnace.  It was a rainy day which is why the windows stayed closed.

Autumn begins today, though.  The 10 day forecast is only showing temps below 70.  It is extremely easy to forebear Christmas decorating when you’ve been keeping the kids’ shorts and t-shirts handy and walking around barefoot most of the time.  The kids have been watching too much TV, apparently, since they have been lamenting a winter with no snow.  All the commercials show white Christmas scenes.  I, for one, will not miss snow this year.  Perhaps this mild weather will get old in 4 or 5 or 6 years.  For now, I will enjoy it, since I doubt I will be here in even 2 years.

I was thinking about a blog post written at the beginning of summer about air conditioning.  At the time, I was wilting in my home.  We have upstairs and downstairs heating and cooling systems.  The upstairs one was set to 85 to keep it from running all the time.  At night, I would turn it down to 80 and it would sometimes kick off before we got up in the morning.  The downstairs system was set to 78-80 and it ran most of the time.  We had a party in July and I set both systems to 70 the day before the party.  By the afternoon of the party, with the A/C running constantly, the downstairs was over 75 and the upstairs was over 80.  They just couldn’t handle the heat.  Nighttime temperatures rarely got below 75 so offered no help if we opened windows.

Not running the A/C was not an option.  Not if I wanted to remain sane.  Many of the commenters on that blog post expressed deep dislike over artificial cooling and waxed sentimental over the slamming of the screen door and the sounds of children playing in the yard filtering through the open windows.

I have a feeling these same people have been running their heaters for a month – maybe more.

A few weeks ago, Bill asked if I’d like to live in Savannah, some day – not suburbia where we are – but in the city itself with the old homes and the dripping Spanish moss in quaint and quiet squares.  That gorgeous November day, with the sun hot but not unbearable, and the shade lovely and the walk downtown quite enjoyable, I said yes.  And then I laughed and thought about June and July and August and even September and said that we’d have to have another home – perhaps in Maine.

Some place with screen doors and no air conditioning.