Catford Manor is Clean!

Aug 16, 2012 | 4 comments

Every time I walk into my mother’s house, it’s fresh. Revitalizing. Clean.

My mother doesn’t live on a dirt lot or have five cats. She doesn’t have any cats, but for the sake of drama in this post, I’m emphasizing the five cats she doesn’t have… and we do.

My mother’s house is the house my house aspires to be.

For the last ten days, I’ve been intensely deep cleaning Bedford Manor. And even the cats are sleeping better because of it.

I’m changing the name of my home to Catford Manor.

Two days ago, I received the best compliment ever. Dot and I went to lunch at my mother’s, and Dot said, “Our house feels this clean, too!”

It’s not that our house was dirty. But it certainly had plenty of hidden dust bunnies. I’d show you… but I chose to not document that portion of my efforts. Let’s just say I could build five new cats with the fur I’ve discovered recently.

It smells good. It looks good. It feels good. And because I’ve had several requests to show it off (and because I don’t want to be a fictitious magazine contributor like Elizabeth Lane in Christmas in Connecticut), here are just a few authentic reasons I love my Bedford Manor:

Welcome

Brownie Bear

Window Seats

Breakfast Nook Decor

My Old Dollhouse

Spar Oom

Narnia Room

Spar Oom Entrance

Hall Bath

Dot’s Room

Pinocchio’s Corner

Clean Floor

Clean Enough to Eat Off Of

Laundry Room Sign

And by the time you’re reading this, I’ll be watching this as my reward:

Lonesome Dove

Happy housing!

And Frankly, My Dear… that’s all she wrote!

Deep Cleaning

May 29, 2012 | 1 comment

On the heels of yesterday’s post How to Help a Mourner, I admit that I’ve had to unfriend a few people on Facebook. It makes me sad that it came to this. But it’s also a bit refreshing. It’s a bit like cleaning the dust bunnies out from under the bed. You know what I mean… those harmless, hidden bits of dirt and debris that after a while grow so big you have no choice but to bring out the Dyson and suck them out into daylight and the garbage can. Yeah. It’s been like that.

My Mom (and Olivia Walton) say there’s nothing like cleaning when you’re upset or waiting. And since this week has been a handful of both, two days ago I finally got a step-stool and a bottle of Pine-Sol, and today I attacked the laundry room. An hour of scrubbing, sweeping, wiping, and washing; a wire shelf installed in the cabinet… and I’m almost done.

And tomorrow I have a job interview. A big job interview. This could be the job. So along with cleaning the laundry room, I’ve been doing laundry.

What a great feeling. Fresh. Productivity. Cleanliness. Doing something. Anything.

The first step to getting back to the New Normal.

And I’m not really sure how I feel about that. Because I wasn’t ready to feel good this soon. But feeling good right now, smiling and finding something to be happy about… is a good feeling.

It’s like a cleansing breath of fresh air after being closed up for a while.

A deep, cleansing breath.

And Frankly, My Dear… that’s all she wrote!