Clean

We walked in to the empty house and dust danced in the sunshine pouring in through the dirty windows.



It was beautiful, at first. All those twinkling particles, all that emtpy space just waiting to be conquered, to be scrubbed until shiny, new... ours.



I bought a mop. I bought some sponges and some spray cleaners with a fresh lemony scent and I got to work. Wetting, scrubbing, rubbing, and vacuuming. And then I did it some more.



Then the furniture arrived, and I did it all over again. More vacuuming, dusting, mopping, and scrubbing. As soon as I finished, I began again, vacuuming after the litttle trails of dried out pasta, cookie bits, and mushy half-eaten grapes the kids left in their wake. Scrub, vacuum, mop. Scrub, vacuum, mop.



The novelty wore off quickly. The dust piled up on top of the newly hung picture frames. The soap scum caked the sinks. And the toilets... oh, the toilets, well let's just say that they made porta-potties look clean.



Then they arrived. Four determined Polish angels. After a quick tour, they got down to work, ripping old sheets and towels into cleaning rags. They scoured the house for hours, climbing on chairs to dust up high, replacing chaos with order, and sticky dust with shine.



When there was nothing left to clean, I handed them a wad of bills and set a date for their next visit, but I really wanted to hug them. Then I lay down on the kitchen floor and closed my eyes, breathing in the fresh clean smell and falling in love with the house all over again. The sun felt warm on my face, and it was beautiful, especially without dancing silvery dust.



Haven't done Sunday Scribblings for a while, but this week's prompt: CLEAN, inspired me. Head on over to see how it inspired others.