Okay, the rice that is dug into the grooves between the planks of my hardwood floor? It’s there because I was on an important phone call to the bank the other day, and felt that the relative silence that ensued while my toddler happily filled my running shoes with rice was worth the clean up. And yes, my shoes were in the hallway, and yes, my dried food storage rice was in the pantry. In the kitchen. Around the corner. In doing a massive sweep/vacuum of my hallway and kitchen, clearly I missed a few grains.

And the huge pile of papers on my dining room table? That’s there because I was sorting through 2 weeks worth of junk mail we got while on vacation, and I haven’t had a chance to recycle all of it, and I feel too environmentally guilty to just chuck it all.

Oh, and you HAD to bring up the big pile of boxes in my living room. Those are food storage orders from the cannery I am keeping for some other sisters who were out of town for the trip. Only three of those bozes actually belong to me. Sheesh, what to you think I am, a pack rat?

Okay, yes, there are some MORE boxes in my bedroom, but that’s just because we just got the order of fire ladders I put in so we don’t all die in an inferno, and I haven’t organized the FHE that we are going to have we learn how to use them and how to get out of our house in case our dryer suddenly bursts into flames.

What, that little empty yogurt container on the playroom floor? That’s there because it was J’s after school snack, and Maggie the dog likes to pilfer things from the kitchen table and hide them in the playroom after she licks them clean. I’ll get to it, after I clean up the cheese wrappers and granola bars and goldfish that Little Sister dumped all over the floor while my back was turned doing laundry, and after I throw away the diapers she spreads around the house, after I wipe down the window she slimed after she ate some applesauce, after I pick up all the band-aids she emptied, after I put away the newspapers she shredded, after I put away all of the dishes she pulled out of my cupboards that I have been kicking around my kitchen floor. Along with a few grains of rice.

But seriously? Other than that, my house is TOTALLY clean.