I am the first one to laugh at the sad state of my domestic abilities, although my family is not far behind me. I am the one that gets to bring chips and napkins to all of the family functions because I can't be trusted with food people will actually have to consume. Wait, I take that back. I did bring the veggie for Christmas dinner this year. But in true anti martha fashion I forgot I was bringing it and the only think I had was a small head of broccoli to feed about 14. (honestly I was sure my mom had a back up... I mean really? Who would trust me to make "THE" veggie for christmas dinner... I'm sure Mrs. Bundy-Crocker won't make that mistake again:) 

Anyway, I thought it might be funny to start a new series called "Antics from the Anti-Martha" here at EMM, where I will actually try to do "Cleaveresk" stuff and document it for your amusement... and also to make other "domestically challenged" women feel better about themselves.

For my first project I wanted to do canning... but Mrs. Bundy-Crocker reminded me that canning is done in the fall... apparently you can after you grow your garden... Then I thought of setting a festive valentines table for my family... until I remembered that we own one dollar store wine glass, a mason jar and about 27,000 kids "black rock" plastic cups.... not real table setting material. 

So after about a week and a half of kids puking, coughing and snotting all over the place, a light went off and I knew I needed to start with the basics... Spring Cleaning 101... I was determined to de-germ, de-grime and de-yuckify every square inch of my house. How hard could it be?? Have you seen me? I'm built for hard labor.

The morning started by shampooing the carpets and even my son's mattress (yes, that's how bad it got). I felt empowered and ready to conquer more. I did my dishes and wiped my entire house down with hot bleach water. Ok, by this point, honestly I was over wanting a clean house. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that this was my blog post for the week and if I quit I had nothing. So I moved on to the bathrooms...wew I'm getting tired just typing this. After mopping the floors I was just about to throw this stupid "Antics" idea out the window, but a triple americano helped me pull up my big girl undies and start to tackle the three baskets of over flowing laundry.



By 3:00 that afternoon I had decided I really needed to pace myself so I sat down for some quality facebook time until my kids started climbing up my legs 30 seconds later and I realized I had kinda neglected them all day... I resigned myself to putting off the window and wall washing until the next day... I mean really what kind of mother would I be if I let a "clean" house get in the way of me being a caring, nurturing mother... can I get an AMEN... Someone?? Anyone?? Yeah, the laundry still isn't finished and the windows and walls will probably get washed next time we have someone over for dinner.

In my pre-kid days I always bragged that I might be messy but underneath it all was clean... but 3 kids and a hundred pound dog later I am seriously thinking of revoking the 3 second rule (the 10 second rule was revoked years ago)... my house is grimy  and gooky and I really don't think my dog should even eat off my floor most days. Challenging myself to  deep clean for really no reason at all gave me a sense of satisfaction and a kind of motherly superiority about providing a sterilized germ free(ish) home for my kids to play in. Those 5 minutes my house was actually clean almost makes me want to try this experiment again... almost...