Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. 🙂  and w00t

Did I mention w00t?  Even as we speak, Iman is at the park running wild and fancy-free, and I have managed to put an entire two hours of work in, which is, frankly speaking, two more hours than I had done all week.  And the house is clean.  And dinner is made.  And the laundry mountain has been conquered.  We did it.  We survived a month without Cindy, and even brought her home to a clean house with minimal dust-bunnies and a large slice of lemon-cream cake.  And we learned some things about ourselves in the process too.  Like how I’m not good at cleaning because I am just too good at it.  Case in point:

I went to clean my bathroom.

It looked like it could be better organized.

So Iman and I went to Ikea and bought a shelf, as well as some markers to entertain Iman.

In order to make space for the shelf, I had to hang the mirror in the bathroom that had been leaning against the wall for the last eight months.

I needed to drill holes in the tile first. So I went to the storage room to find the drill.

I found the drill, but I couldn’t find the size eight wall plugs.

The storage room was messy.  It looked like it could be better organized.

So I spent two hours cleaning out and reorganizing the storage room.

Then I drilled the holes in the bathroom tile and hung the mirror.

Then I assembled the shelf.

Then, as I was transferring the miscellany of toiletries onto it, I noticed that they looked a little messy.  They needed organized.

So I threw away anything expired, wiped off everything dusty, and made some tough executive decisions on whether or not to keep the tube of facial scrub that gave me an allergic reaction just because it was still full.

(It’s still here.  Apricot scrub, anyone?)

And by that point, five hours had passed since I first decided that I needed to clean my bathroom, and Iman and I were late to pick Khalid and Joy up from school.  And the bathroom was still dirty, but hey, at least it was organized!

I have discovered why Cindy can clean the whole house from top to bottom in four hours and still have time to browse facebook.  It’s because she doesn’t care if the tupperware is alphabetized.  This is a very important skill in a housekeeper, and rather than feel inadequate about not having it (crippling inadequacy about my level of huswifery is so last week) I prefer to see myself in light of other skillsets.  I may not be a very efficient housekeeper, but I’m a very good corporate communications monkey.  I can organize files and create style guides like nobody’s business!  Everything will be fine long as their design specs don’t look messy, lest I should try to organize them or something, in which case I get paid for my nit-picky, hair-splitting tendencies and lauded for my attention to detail.

Now there’s something that doesn’t happen when the tupperware is alphabetized but the sink is still full of dishes and dinner hasn’t progressed farther than the ‘thawing’ stage.

Oops, gtg!  It’s time to go pray and supervise the washing of the sandy savages.  (Translation: It’s Maghrib and the kids are back from the park).  The kids look messy.  Maybe they need organized.

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SCORE! :) Apples versus oranges, lady. intermission