Dustbunnies and green mossy spaghetti

Let's just say our approach to keeping our house clean is "casual"- we are not burdened with the desire for things to be superclean, or even moderately clean. Once our house reaches the level at which we may face some consequences from the State Health Board, or if we have someone coming over for a visit, we will clean.

This past weekend, however, we had our annual "spring cleaning"- where we deep clean. Meaning we move the furniture and vacuum, we give the shower more than a light swipe with a sponge. We use heavy duty chemicals and wear those yellow rubber cleaning gloves. We actually look at what is in the closets and cupboards. We clean all day.

Friday night I reminded my husband J. and Allie that Saturday was cleaning day. There was much moaning and gnashing of teeth.

Saturday morning we awoke and procrastinated until about 10:30 am and then the cleaning commenced. We shreded old mail- why we felt the need to hold on to a pizza coupon mailer from June of 2005 is a mystery, yet we managed to save all of our useless mail in piles from 18 months ago strategically perched on shelves, counter tops, on the desk and entry way table. Other key finds in the bathroom cupboard revealed about 16 bottles of bubble bath we will never use, expired drugs, empty medicine boxes, and my inspired Costco buys- we have a pallete of Dove shower gel and shaving gel. I may need to buy more when Allie leaves for college.

The area of cleaning that was most shameful, and actually provided Allie with a feeling of vindication is the cleaning underneath J's and my bed. There we huge dustbunnies, the size of a fist and a layer of dust about an inch thick. Additionally, we found 4 sticks of J's deordorant- I was always wondering why he was asking me to buy more, a little perplexed about how much of the stuff he used, when in actuality they had fallen under the bed. I was not spared shame. I sometimes stack clean, folded clothes on the dresser. Apparently these had fallen under the bed. Joyfully, I found my silky, yet dust infused underwear- three pair! And a little bounty of dusty socks. Weeee!

As usual though, the refridgerator provided the most interesting and "mad science" finds of the day. I was wrap and refridgerate our leftovers- even though we never, ever eat leftovers...its a little ritual of mine. Stow the leftovers in those plastic Glad containers and shove them to the back of the fridge on the bottom shelf. Three months later unearth said leftovers. Pop open the lids to exciting new smells and thrilling new visual discoveries. See the green moss growing on the spaghetti from February? Wow, that's exciting...our spaghetti is growing its own little bacteria colony. Its kind of like when you order Sea Monkeys off the back of the Archie comic book, and you add water and watch it grow, except in this case you cook up some food and refridgerate it for a couple of months and let rotting food and moisture do it's thing....

Now that I'm reading the Bryson book about science I realize that Saturday represented a massive holocaust of sorts to the millions of bacteria in our home. I'm sure our place was like a resort to them- resting undisturbed- we lulled them into a false sense of security.

Sunday morning we actually rented a steamvac from Fredy Meyer and steamvac'd all of our carpets. We then went out to lunch and bowling. Over lunch we vowed to keep the house clean and not have to endure hard core cleaning day at this level again! We make this pledge every year, only to have our vow fade by the end of May and the dust regenerate, and the penicillin grow anew in the refridgerator.

However, we did have one unforseen bonus- in the deep, deep reaches of our cupboard we found a brand new food processor! A wedding gift from '02.

I'm very anixous to use the processor to chop up food for a meal, then take the leftovers and pop it in the fridge....and you get the idea.

P.S. I may post a before/after picture. I'm still debating, my shame may be too great to allow this.