A Clean House!

Before I begin, let me just say that I do love our house and I'm so glad we have a house at all! So, that said, now, I'll describe it a little: Our house was built in the '70s ... certainly not old enough to have intricate woodwork or claw-foot tubs, yet, sadly old enough to have cracked porcelain tile and icky fiberglass flooring in the shower stall.
We need new carpeting, new faucets, new sinks, etc., but then, there's always something that needs fixing ... even in new houses. All in all, as houses go, it's a nice house. I mean, it keeps us almost warm in the winter (because we keep the thermostat low, not because our new furnace wouldn't heat it up in a second!) and it's almost cool in the summer (again, our air conditioning works fabulously, but we don't want to spend very much)! We have enough room (almost) and it can look pretty good when it's tidied up.
That's the biggest problem, you see. The tidying-up part. I hate to admit it, but the last time our house was really clean was way back in May when I was hosting the neighborhood bunco night ... and, at the same time, my daughter was hosting her high-school graduation party.
I've never been a particularly good housekeeper. I just have way too many other things to do. Keeping a house clean is really a full-time job. If you use something, you have to immediately put it away when you're finished. And, more often than not, I'm called away at that very instant when I should be putting away!
We all have hobbies that take up a lot of room, too. Guitars, guitar books, guitar cases, amplifiers and pedals fill the living room. Chess sets, clocks, and score pads are everywhere. My yarn and fiber and all the supplies for dyeing and spinning and knitting and weaving take up the entire spare bedroom! Because we homeschool, our shelves are loaded with books and papers ... art supplies, science-lab materials, tapes of lectures and computer programs! Maggie's tennis balls, stuffed animals and squeaky toys line the upstairs hallway like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs! Wow, the list goes on and on. It's difficult to keep a house clean if you simply don't have enough space to put everything ... or enough time to figure it out!
Once the school year begins, it keeps on ticking. We try not to take many holidays so that we can end our school year at the same time the college year ends. (There's nothing worse than moving your college kid(s) home, while you're still working on finishing up the last quarter with the one(s) still at home!) YIKES! So, if the house becomes cluttery and sloppy early on in the year, that's it until Christmas vacation. A sad, but true fact of life around here. There's simply no time to stop and clean it all up.
Well, this past week was a real blessing! Kent was enrolled in his driver's education class, which lasted 5 days, from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Every day! For a whole week! I didn't have to teach! It was like I had a week-long holiday!
Every day this week I've tackled another room until finally, today, Friday, I can proudly proclaim: This house is clean!
*sigh
What a wonderful feeling! Let me just say that, with all the stress I've been under lately regarding my elderly parents, my underlying fear has been that I was going to have a heart attack ... or maybe a stroke ... and the paramedics would come and everyone would gasp in horror and disbelief at the state of our house!
Now, I can confidently have that stroke or heart attack! Phew! What a relief!