Lessons

I cleaned my sister and brother in laws house for them the other day. They were on vacation in Florida and my sister asked if I would clean for her while she was gone. I agreed. And she of course agreed to provide me with compensation. Yes, folks, I love my sister...I love all of my siblings dearly, but, I also am not crazy enough to clean any of their houses for free. I will help them clean, but I won't clean them on my own while they are basking in the Florida sunshine.

While there cleaning, I was reminded of a few things:

I am thankful for my small house. Although, I often wish for a larger home, especially when I entertain, I was reminded that large homes take a long time to be cleaned.

Their house is significantly larger than mine...a bit more than double, if not triple the size. It's a gorgeous home that my brother in law completely renovated on his own.

The house took me 10 hours to clean folks. TEN HOURS...and I didn't clean nearly as well as I would have liked. Granted, she has five small children and works midnights as a nurse, but TEN hours.

I will be grateful for my 1100 square foot home that can be cleaned in no more than 4 hours top to bottom!

I had several reminders of why I am thankful to only have boys.

The first one being two words: POLLY POCKET
Have you seen Polly folks? She's a tiny little thing. She has lots of teeny tiny little accessories too. Teeny meeny little shoes, small little brushes, little handbags...it's all quite ridiculous. A few of those tiny little accessories, accidentally fell in the trash - per my sister's request.

The second one: NAIL POLISH
WOW! I have never seen so may nail polish spills in all my days. Blankets, their desk top, their table top in their room, a few stuffed animals and even several places on the dining room floor where a bottle fell and broke. I'm not sure how my parents survived with 4 daughters...maybe that 1 son gave them a small break from nail polish...although I think he went through a stage where he painted his nails black, but I digress.

The third: SHOES
Don't get me wrong...my children have plenty of shoes. More than most children need. Girls though, have LOTS of shoes. More than I could count. They had pink shoes, black shoes, shoes with sparkles, shoes with buttons, shoes with bows and shoes with straps...the list could go on forever.

I also learned the following:

If you wash two reg rugs that have NEVER been washed before, do not put them in the machine with ANY rug that might possibly have a light color in it. I already knew this, but seemed to have reached a mental block when it came to that moment.

Sometimes, if you take apart a ceiling fan to change light bulbs, you MAY not be able to get it put back together...your husband may not be able to either.

You can't vacuum blindly under furniture. If you do, you may suck things into the vacuum that you didn't intend to, like socks, plastic barrettes, puzzle pieces and toys.

These are just a few of the lessons I learned on Friday.