Vacation...

February break was all about cleaning.

We cleaned EVERYTHING in our house. Well, we never got around to wiping out the microwave, but Pax and Kylie actually gave us a new microwave, so we can just throw the old one out without wiping out the baked on food scuzz.

I decided that we were cleaning on Sunday afternoon. J's parents had just left to drive back to PA, and I informed J that tomorrow would be our spring cleaning day. She played along, and I made lists of projects to do for each room.

Monday came along, and I got up at 6 AM to get started. I put on some coffee, pulled on a grungy sweater, and began by sorting all of James' toys.

THINGS I FOUND IN JAMES' TOY BIN:
A racquetball, four measuring cups, a remote control, and fingernail clippers

James got up around 6:45 and promptly started pulling out and emptying all the bins and baggies of toys that I had neatly organized and put away. I have no idea how J even remotely keeps up with the house when I'm working a normal week.

We cleared counter space, threw away unused coffee mugs, cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, swept, dusted, emptied all the trash from the upstairs and the downstairs, ran five loads of laundry, folded five loads of laundry, put away five loads of laundry, took three bags of old clothes to the Goodwill, moved furniture from the downstairs to the upstairs, sorted books, moved furniture from the downstairs to the garage, moved furniture from the garage to the downstairs, put away towels and linens, cleaned under the beds, hung up dress clothes, sorted our storage boxes, sorted two filing cabinets worth of music, vacuumed the carpets, held James as he ran in terror from the vacuum, washed the dishes, broke a wine glass, cleaned up the wine glass, sorted tax information, paid old bills, organized the closet, cleaned out both cars, and even gave James a bath.

We slept well on Monday night.

The rest of the week was glorious in a less productive but much more restorative way. I got my suits dry cleaned for the first time in a month year several years, and I played a Gershwin show with Symphoria out in Syracuse. When I saw that there was a number on the program called "Slap That Bass" I told J "I guarantee you that whoever the trumpet player was before me has crossed out one letter of that title.

And just as surely as the title of "La Mer" is suffixed, the eraser marks were still visible.


I was bummed to go back to school today.

But it sure is nice to come back to a clean house.