The never ending story

House work. Never ending. Not with kids.

I look at this picture, smile a little insanely and for just a moment contemplate blowing the house up instead of cleaning, follow with a little maniacal laughter, and then force myself out of a pleasant day dream and back to reality.

When I was a newly wed, I vacuumed once a week, did the dishes once a day *without* a dishwasher, and I dusted because I thought I aught to be doing *something* around the house. Oh and John and I both worked full time and still I was looking for things to do. I only wish that were the case now. Now it seems like there is never enough time to get all the house work done and things like dusting are so low on the list I have not made it there in a VERY long time.

The other day I spent all morning cleaning then left the kids with John during nap time. Glen had a few friends over and he was happy. So was I, I was going to the store without two kids in tow. This almost never happens. When I got back, I wished I had just stayed. The kitchen and living room I had just spent all morning cleaning looked like I hadn't cleaned in weeks. The floor was covered in crumbs from crackers and chips, the boys were playing while munching and I was down a whole bag of chips and package of crackers. "We're not hungry, we had lunch at home" the friends assured me.

They are still little kids, I tremble to think what the house and food will look like when the kids are teens bringing over friends that are not hungry, or worse, kids that are.

So here I sit in a house that *was* clean recently, but you can't tell. Even with kids that do chores I am still so outnumbered. "Why are you cleaning?" Glen often asks when he wants me to play with him instead of clean. I tell him because the house is dirty, I don't mention the fact that the house is ALWAYS dirty and that the laundry, dishes, crumbs, and toys never end. No, I just tell him the house is dirty then pretend to love cleaning. Then I go out to play with him as soon as I can.

If I could describe house work in one word I would use... endless. Is it any wonder I have little motivation to clean today?