Dancing at My Desk

Just a little over two years ago, my husband and I bought our first home. We had been renting from a family member ever since we moved back to NE Ohio from New York and we were searching for a home that was a good compromise between what we really wanted and what we could live with.

Mind you, we aren’t really all that picky. We had some basic criteria in all the houses that we looked at:

• At least three bedrooms
• A nice size of property (at least an acre)
• A house that was in move-in condition

Other than that, we were pretty flexible. Seriously. And I honestly thought that I would really enjoy house hunting.

Not so much.

It seemed like every time we found a house through our diligent searching, it was either a great house on an odd piece of property or amazing property with a house that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It was horribly frustrating. There was the house that was running fans in the basement to try and hide the mildew smell from the horrible leaks. There was the house that had (literally) a high school football stadium in the backyard. There was one house I couldn’t even walk through because I had the creeps the whole time. I fondly think of that place as the Boo Radley house of NE Ohio.

The worst part was when we found a house that was great (on paper). I was unbelievably excited to see the house and I genuinely thought it was “the one” for us. When we went to see it, the house had been trashed by the previous owners (it was bank owned). I walked through the entire house (that reeked) and said I hadn’t seen a kitchen. When my husband kindly pointed out that I was standing it, I was stunned. They (or someone) had ripped out everything. Plumbing, cabinets, appliances – it was a bare room. That smelled rancid.

I was heartbroken and was really ready to throw it all in and resign myself to a life of renting. Then we came across the house that we ended up buying. It was perfect in so many ways. Yes, it needed some updates but I was looking forward to the work. I wanted to paint every room (9 total), redo some of the floor plan, put in new windows, and in essence, make the home our own.

It’s been two years and we’ve painted two rooms. That’s right; two. And we did get several new windows. Hey, we’ve been busy. But now I’m getting the urge to make this house our own. I’m starting to buy little things for the house and plan color schemes (more on that nonsense later). And all of this planning and dreaming has told me one very crucial piece of truth for my life.

I am not an interior designer.

So, this is going to be an adventure to say the least. But, at least I’m not house hunting.

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Today, my husband and mom each took one of the kids and headed out for some shopping which left me home alone.

Home alone. All by myself. I couldn’t believe it either.

So I decided that I was going to clean up my poorly neglected house and get things in order. I would give myself two uninterrupted hours of hard cleaning and then call it a day. I was going along without a hitch and decided I’d finish by vacuuming real quick. Then I’d reward myself with a cup of coffee, college football and some blogging. Oh, and carrot cake. Which of course was the biggest motivation I had.

I’m doing my normal routine: dining room, living room, home office, hallways, kids’ rooms then my room. It was as I was heading into the final room, something hit me like a ton of bricks.

I’m adjusting my vacuum routine to pacify my cats. OMG indeed.

Here is what I realized: I start with the big room because I know that my cats instantly run under my bed because they are terrified of the vacuum. So much so that if I even just open the closet door that I keep the vacuum in they disappear. Even if I’m just getting a coat out.

So anyway, they run in there and hide under my bed. They know that as soon as I head into the kids rooms, they can dart out and run into my home office because I’ve already done that room and my room is next (and Lord knows they don’t want to be in there when I go in there).

So what, right? You always vacuum that way, so they know your routine.

Not so much.

I created this routine for them. I realized how neurotic this chore makes them, so I introduced this routine to them and since it worked, I kept doing it. But I didn’t consciously do this, it just sort of happened. But now I realize what the motivation is. Until today.

I’ve become a cat lady. How did this happen?

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