If only it were THAT easy. Wow. Remember all the cleaning that, as a house owner, you are “supposed” to do on a regular basis? Blinds? Baseboards? Wiping cupboards inside and out? How many of you actually DO this? Don’t be shy. Raise your hands where I can see them! Hopefully most of you are better than me, as I seem to be very talented and putting this type of housework off until.. well… never.

In 3 weeks we’ll be house swapping with another family for a few months. Never just became tomorrow.

Out comes the dust mop, and the broom, and the insane long honey-do list of everything we ever meant to do with the house since we moved in.  Suddenly every speck of dirt laughs at me, and every smudge on the wall is mocking my efforts. I sat down with the kids and we made “The List”. Everything that needed to be cleaned, washed, wiped down, wiped out, or removed before we left. Its long. And scary. And daunting. Even more so when your cleaning help consists of a 7, 5, and 3 year old. I decided that we would pick 1 thing everyday and just do it. Little things like “wipe down all the doors in the hallway” or “wipe baseboards in 1 bedroom” or “wash walls in the kitchen”. It has definitely been more manageable in bite sized chunks, but after only 2 weeks of this we are completely and utterly slacking. Gone. Poof! It doesn’t help that we’ve been sick (cleaning up after my 5 year old at 1:00 am on my birthday is a total riot – let me tell you!) so I’m hoping that starting… umm.. next week, we can get back on track.

In the meantime, our house swapping partner and I have agreed to not judge.