With yesterday came the return of routine.
Since Thanksgiving, we had been pretty routine-free around here. Some of that was because of crazy heart/soul/mind/energy-consuming things like traveling and directing plays and writing e-books and such.
And then there were those little things called “Christmas” and “New Year.”
I mean, who cleans bathrooms on Christmas Eve??
Especially when the family members who were supposed to come over had to cancel because of sickness . . . .
So while the past several/who-knows-how-many Tuesdays have passed by without the words “Bathroom Day” ever entering my brain, last night it hit me.
Not the guilt, so much . . . as the smell.
Yes. As I answered a few emails after my kids went to bed . . . I caught a whiff.
A whiff wafting from the open door of my kids’ bathroom.
My boys‘ bathroom.
My boys’ bathroom that I’ve been pretending didn’t exist for, ahem, a while.
There was actually a moment over Christmas break when I needed to, well . . . go. My master bathroom was occupied as was the half bath in the gameroom. I panicked. It’s a rare thing, even with our family of five, to not have an available bathroom in this three-potty house.
Wait. Oh. That’s right. We do have three potties. And one was even available at that moment.
Technically.
It’s just that I never, and I do mean never ever, use that bathroom.
Ever.
And my self-diagnosed Time Passage Awareness Disorder (which worsens during periods of tunnel-vision) had flared up excessively of late.
Which meant that never-to-be-used-by-me bathroom was worse than usual.
Which meant I was more than willing to cross my legs and let my eyes water a little until one of the other two potties was free.
So this morning, even though I could think of a thousand-ba-jillion totally logical and legit reasons to pretend it wasn’t Bathroom Day, I got over it.
And cleaned them.
And lo and behold, they look and smell ever-so-much better. And it took me less than 40 minutes to clean all of them. Not “Who wants a tour of my entire house?” clean, but “Aaaahhhh, doesn’t it feel good to be home?” clean.
And that is why I have a Bathroom Day. To keep “Cleaning Bathrooms” from being a task that gets repeatedly pushed to the bottom of a never-ending To Do List. To combat my Time Passage Awareness Disorder and make me face the reality that it’s been more-than-two Tuesdays since I cleaned bathrooms and that another week of purposeful oblivion might require the use of special hazmat equipment in that particular bathroom.
Oh. And I even decluttered. See that humongous branch sticking out of the red vase? The branch-vase-combo has been there a long time and was officially getting on my nerves.
So I decluttered it.
Just like that. Stuck it in the Donate Box and smiled a little smile of victory.
Speaking of decluttering . . . .
For detailed guides, check out my books: How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind andDecluttering at the Speed of Life.
Tuesday is my bathroom day here, and with Christmas and New Year’s, mine were gross as well .The two week hiatus also caused me to have to spend much longer scrubbing something gunky off my countertop in the master bath. But, it feels great to have it done for another week now 🙂
Right there with you. I had to catch up on mine Saturday. I have to wipe down daily (there are 7 of us) or things get, ummm, unpleasant. If the pee doesn’t get to me (I think I have miraculously neat boys in that regard), the hair everywhere – ew. I will never understand how it spreads as far as it does … and it isn’t mine or my daughter’s. *shudder*
Today is bathroom day for me, and I have spent the morning ignoring it. We also have a “boy bathroom” and their aim is horrific. Maybe I should just get up and do it : )
I love how realistic you are. It encourages me to make changes, I like the idea of having a bathroom day! My bathroom is the last bathroom in the house to get any cleaning attention.
Congratulations on the removal of that vase with the branch. It looks annoying. 😉
I was thinking that I should have a bathroom cleaning day. Maybe I could set an alarm on my cell phone to remind me once a week. With only two of us in the house, it’s easy to let it go too long because it doesn’t actually get dirty that fast – or at least I try to pretend that it doesn’t! 😛 As they say, “Time flies like the wind….and fruit flies like peaches.” 🙂
Yep, if I keep up with bathroom cleaning day then I remember to wipe things down in between even, and it always feels fairly fresh. But let it slide due to..say…Christmas, and suddenly it keeps getting skipped and I even skip wiping it down and suddenly I go, eww.
The branch-in-a-vase thing is one of those magazine ideas that SEEMS like a good idea, but I know I would just let branches/flowers sit in that vase until they crumbled to dust at the slightest touch.
? Raading backwards, but I’m also loving the videos & have done a little project (danish oiling the new shelves we put up above my son’s bed – to replace the ones that FELL ON HIM during the night. Talk about parental guilt…) listening to podcasts, too. So anyway, now your writer’s voice in my head is your ACTUAL voice in my head as I read. So your posts are even more fun and theatrical to read now!