2 days of clean

The past week has been a little nuts. Husband is quite literally burning the midnight oil… he’s doing an experiment that runs 24 hours a day for 6 days. He brings the microscope home with him at night and sets it up in our bedroom, then has a timer set to wake him every 2 hours to attend to it. Thankfully this little experiment in misery should finish today. I am so tired, it’s like having a newborn all over again.

On top of the experiment from hell, we are also hosting our parenting group for dinner tonight, and tomorrow Husband’s mother arrives for a visit. And last but not least, my race is in 10 days, so I’m in the heaviest week of my training schedule. Phew.

Each night, after I get Bean fed, read and off to bed, I’ve been baking, cooking and scouring the house (with much help from Husband). I keep a pretty clean house in general, but whenever we have an out-of-town guest or host a dinner, I’m absolutely neurotic about getting the house clean. All the little things that you don’t clean every day (like, say, scouring the little grease pans on the stove) and all of the big cleaning chores (like, say, washing the curtains and bleaching the grout of the kitchen counters) are suddenly staring me in the face.

I have this very visceral memory that is always in the back of my mind whenever guests are coming over. One time, in grad school, I went to a Thursday night poker game at another students house. When I went to the bathroom, I was literally assaulted by the mounds of pubes covering the bathroom floor. It was kinda disgusting, just the sheer volume of pubes. So I perched rather gingerly and did my business.

I always have images of that bathroom in my head when guests are coming to my place. What mess have I become inured to that is screaming to my guests that I am actually a slob? And so I overcompensate. I clean like a deranged lunatic.

But, at least my house is spotless for once. That’ll last for about 2 days, I should think.