it’s been a habit for one day

So my friend Kirsten was to spend the night Saturday night due to bad weather – so she could avoid an hour long drive turned into….three hours? if she drove on slick, icy roads. (umm..would slick and icy be the same thing?!) I was busy all day and got home an hour before Kirsten's arrival – to clean, put things away, take out the garbage, smooth it all over so that I could collapse on the couch and act all nonchalant, as if "Yes, I live with my apartment this clean and sparkling all the time!"

So we go out to dinner at an Irish pub then Kirsten decides to drive home before the bad weather starts. I wave goodbye and then turn around and am faced with such a clean apartment I don't know what to do with it! I decide to keep it that clean for one week.

success!! I have kept it clean for 48 hours now. CLAP CLAP CLAP Turns out it's a lot of little PUPA as a former Monica-on-Friends-Cleaning-Twin-Roommate liked to point out. (Pick Up & Put Away). Turns out she's right. I've been putting away things each night and cleaning the kitchen after every meal (vs. letting the breakfast dishes + dinner dishes sit there all not-pretty until bedtime at which time they might be put off until the next day).

Bathroom? Clean

Kitchen? Clean

Entryway/Dining Room? Clean

Bedroom? Spotless. (wait, ignore the half-made bed. I tried…like a six year old tries)

[I browsed Flickr for photos of clean apartments and got sucked into the vortex that is Flickr. I began a search for sparkle (photo 1), then tried "sparkling clean" (photo 2) and ended up with a photo of a clean hallway (photo 3).]