Come What May: Cleaning For Complete Strangers

Joe and I are getting ready for our second house exchange. Good Lord, there is no better motivation for getting one's house in order than to have complete strangers come and live in it for the summer!

Last year at this time we were madly preparing our house and garden for the lovely Brits, Jo and Alan. Just before we were to depart for their home in England, I was in my laundry room scouring grey soap scum off the washing machine agitator. I was horrified when I noticed it! It even had a high tide mark! And the next thing I knew, I was in our woodshed frantically raking wood chips from the dirt floor. Honestly, raking dirt may have been taking things a tad too far.

People have said to me, "Nancy, relax! Your house is fine! It is neat and tidy."

And I replied, "Yes, that is true. But what is neat and tidy is what everyone can see. Remember, this family is going to be fully living in my house. That means they will be opening my kitchen cupboards, bathroom drawers, linen closets; they will be sleeping in our beds; bathing in my tub. They will be seeing things that the general public do not normally see. And I have to make bloody sure things are up to snuff!"

My 'to do' list is still a mile long. And every time I cross a chore off the list, I seem to add another three. I am confident I will get everything done before we leave. But in the meantime, here is what I've been up to the past couple of days...

Vacuuming crumbs out of the cutlery drawer.

Washing all kitchen cupboards and drawers.

Crawling on my hands and knees around the house wiping down baseboards.

Mopping out the stinky garbage can.

Power-washing the driveway.

We are REALLY looking forward to spending the summer in Spain. And we hope our Spanish exchange family enjoys their time in our Squamish home.

Home Exchange = Clean House

I am happy.

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And in other breaking news....

UPDATE on the JOE-CAN'T-BUY-ANY-MORE-FOOD-UNTIL-WE-EAT-EVERYTHING-IN-THE HOUSE PROJECT:

Regular readers of this blog will remember Joe and I were involved in a project meant to rid our house of the mountains of food that resided within its walls. I told Joe he had F.B.A: Food Buying Addiction. He told me a couple of things that had Fs in them. (And the Fs sure as hell didn't stand for food.)

We started the project in January of this year and by March he wanted out. I was okay with that. I waved my white flag and surrendered. He had made a substantial dent in the quantity of food in the house and for that I was grateful.

Well, whaddaya know? Here it is the beginning of July, a good six months since the start of that ill-fated project. And guess what? Joe continues to systematically use up the food in the house and is showing great restraint in buying replacement food!

This is progress, people!

Please take a look: