I wish I was better at keeping my apartment clean. The thing is, and I will freely admit it, I am lazy. Now it's not like I am living in complete filth. Just... with some dust bunnies. And a kitchen floor that hasn't been cleaned in, well, a couple of months. (Don't worry, I don't eat anything I drop on the floor, and I keep the counters clean. Usually.) And two half-unpacked suitcases from trips made in February (hey, it's not like I need bathing suits and swim towels yet here) and this past weekend. And my bathroom probably could use a vacuuming to pick up all the hair I shed when I brush it. But I'm lazy. Unless I have a completely free weekend, I don't usually set aside time to clean. And my completely free weekends are usually when TS is out of town, which was last in January. Which is the last time my apartment got a good scrub down.**

I don't think it's gross. Well, sometimes, if I look too closely, it's a little gross. But I don't think someone who came in would think it was disgusting and uninhabitable. Mostly, I just need to put things away and then give everything a once-over with some soap and water. And I want to... I think all the time, "Ugh, I really need to clean," and then I crash on the couch and turn on the Food Network or something. Pure laziness.

It bugs me though, because I feel like I'm "not a grown-up." Oddly, my friend said the same thing last weekend. I was up visiting her and her husband, in their very clean and very adult (not in a porn way, just put-together and all) apartment, and she was commenting about how all her co-workers had a cleaning service, but she just can't justify getting one. I looked around her apartment and said I thought they were doing a pretty good job on their own, but she informed me that it only looked like that because I was coming, and guests are pretty much the only incentive to clean. Pretty much my exact philosophy. But then she uttered the same words I do at least once a week -- "I wish I lived like a grown up." We both have parents who, despite chasing after children and working or going to school, kept a very clean home. Why can't we do it? We don't even have kids to clean up after... it's us who are making the mess.

I keep telling myself that if I just do it once, then it'll be so much easier to stick to some sort of cleaning schedule and keep things looking nice. But it's getting around to actually doing it that one time that is complicating things.

** Think not cleaning my house since January is bad? I haven't gotten my car washed once, since I've owned it. Which has been, um, three years. Hey, it's silver, hides dirt well, and the rain seems to be doing a good enough job. And I think the time it got fixed after the tree fell on it, the shop washed it. But I've been having to park it under trees lately, so I might have to break my three-year streak. Probably wouldn't hurt to finally take out the orange fur trimmed witch's hat that's been sitting in my trunk for two years either.

Posted by: Carla | May 6, 2008 09:02 PM