When It Rains, It Pours

What I want to know is, why doesn't the raining and pouring get my apartment clean?

Okay, I'll back up a step.  As you know, this week, my daughter starts rehearsal for her middle school play, I start a new gig, and oh, at the end of the week, both my husband and I go away--to different places--and my in-laws are babysitting.  When it rains, it pours.

I wish that the rain, real or figurative, would clean my apartment.  Alas, the task has fallen to us for much of the weekend.  For months, virtually no one other than us entered our humble home, and now there will be babysitters, and in-laws, and, well, maybe no one else, but still.  And no me to be here at least picking up dirty socks and coffee cups.  (I'm not saying I've been doing that much cleaning during my working/job hunting from home days, but I can take credit for those two things).

I wonder, will there ever come a day when we can just maintain the neatness that we've set up?  There are certainly obstacles--five people in a Manhattan apartment, children who just want to collapse after a long day at school, a dad who collects more books that he will ever be able to read, and a mom who has been neatness-challenged for most of her life.  I can still hear my own mother saying "at least put the stuff in piles!"

Despite the obstacles, I am happy to report we have done a bang-up job--from my son getting ruthless in the kitchen cabinets-"Mommy, we really don't need all these cups"-- to me being in overdrive about organizing food and babysitter schedules in order to avoid phone calls from crazed school bus drivers and hungry children.  

I would like to think we can (after the "do I have to clean?" grumblings are done) view this as a celebration--a celebration of new things starting, new chances for all of us.  Chances we won't have to trip over stuff to get to.

Oh, look, it's raining.  Too late, rain, we already cleaned the apartment.