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?