ALL IN A DAYS WORK

THIS IS NOT ME, ALTHOUGH THE VODKA-WHILE-CLEANING IS NOT SUCH A BAD IDEA...

Cliché or not, I want to talk about resolutions for just a minute. And not because I ever bother with any; I don't. But because I know that there is at least one person around my house who wouldn’t mind if I resolved to try to clean my house occasionally this year.

The thing is, I don’t not clean my house. I just rarely undertake the rigorous all-day effort required to have the whole place clean all at once. Maybe it’s because it only builds up smoldering resentment in me when everyone then comes home and ravages our home in a matter of minutes; or perhaps my psyche can take it better one meager clean-then-trashed room at a time. Or I OCD clean, which takes ten times as long (no hired housecleaner will devote hours to baseboard cleaning, and if I do that, by the time I work my way up days will have passed!).

We do sometimes have folks come to clean, when things get desperate. I’d love to have a regular housecleaner, but I think I might be too populist to have someone doing my dirty work for me all the time, like I feel as if I need to pitch in. I'd be fixing meals for the maid, donning my own pair of rubber gloves when done with that to help scrub things.

THIS POOR MAID NEEDS A MAKEOVER


Don’t get me wrong, I adore having a sparkling home, but it’s a moot point, as it’s not in the budget for the next, oh, say, rest of my life, anyhow. So I’ve resigned myself to picking up the broom, and yes, even the toilet brush, all in the interest of avoiding COPD or whatever other breathing disorders my family might succumb to if I don’t clean the place.

In honor of my birthday a few days before Christmas, we had cleaners come in. More because we had 18 people coming for Christmas Eve dinner and there was no way I’d have time to cook and clean for that lot. In truth it wasn’t for my birthday, but ended up being an unexpected bonus. See, I cleverly tried to get them to come clean on my birthday as a self-gift, but they refused, saying they were too busy. I had to settle instead for two days earlier (meaning I'd have to re-clean again before company came, because my family would have dismantled the cleanliness by then). But then they forgot to come on their appointed day. Which is problematic, when you spend hours preparing for the cleaners.

OKAY, THIS IS NOT ME DOING THE LAUNDRY, EITHER

See, preparing for the cleaners is almost as hard as cleaning the place yourself. You have to pick up a houseful of stray mess, discard the piles of trash the kids have left lying around, clean up the clumps of dog hair in the corners (too embarrassing for them to witness), wash every dish, put away any hint of your slovenly self. For me, that takes about, oh, ten hours (I’ve been known to dump the motherload of extraneous mess into laundry baskets and hidden it in the garage; out of sight, out of mind).

So to my chagrin, the cleaners forgot me (which isn’t as bad as the time a surgeon forgot to release me and left me stranded in the recovery unit till he was tracked down by a nurse while mingling at a cocktail party that evening). But the upside was I got them as a booby prize for my birthday! Hurray! Which meant a completely clean home, which was indeed a lovely birthday gift.

NOW, IF I LOOKED THIS GOOD CLEANING, MAYBE I'D DO IT MORE OFTEN (or at least do it in sexy lingerie that I wouldn't mind bleach splattering)
Occasionally I’ve hired cleaners expecting to smell the heartwarming aroma of the freshly-cleaned, only to be accosted by the most offensive odors imaginable. Once, it was the unsavory fragrance of cat excrement permeating my entire home. The cleaner vacuumed our unfinished basement, the one piled high with boxes and only occupied by the cats, and sucked up the kitty goodies our antique feline failed to leave in the nearby litter box. This in turn clogged my new vacuum cleaner, and for some odd reason they continued to sweep the entire house despite the ghastly smell. Thank goodness I didn’t have to clean the house, because I then had to spend about four hours trying to de-cat poo the vacuum. It was not a pretty sight. Or scent, for that matter.

IF ONLY WE HAD THIS LITTER BOX, MY VACUUM WOULD'VE REMAINED INTACT

I blame powerful cleaning agents for them not smelling the stench. See, another time we went out of budget for a cleaners treat. These occasions usually occur before unexpected houseguests, so that we can delude these friends that we are not slobs. I left the cleaners to do their thing, then returned home to the noxious scent of a cheap hooker. One in dire need of an olfactory system transplant. Seems the cleaner had used a product called Fabuloso, something that is apparently very popular amongst Latinas who clean, but the aroma of which had me running for the gas masks, if only I’d stockpiled them post-911 and the anthrax-in-your-mailbox-scare. This confirmed my suspicions that cleaning a lot of houses with powerful toxins has rendered the noses of many cleaners basically dead zones. Because the smell of Fabuloso is so not fabuloso; rather it is so vile, toxic and lung-searing, that I had to fumigate my house when they left, re-cleaning with something more mainstream.

MY NOSE BURNS JUST LOOKING AT THIS BOTTLE

Back in the 80’s, when a flood of Salvadoran refugees fled to America, many of these immigrant women became housecleaners. We occasionally hired a cleaning company managed by a country gal from West Virginia who was under the impression that if you added enough vowels, very loudly, her Spanish-speaking Salvadoran workers would understand her implicitly. Her commands of “Moppo el flooro” usually fell on uncomprehending ears. And their use of a Chlorox-infused cleaner on my teak dining room table cemented the notion that I should’ve just done it myself.

THIS IS NOT ME CLEANING, THANK GOODNESS!
I suppose I could turn this clean-house resolution on its head by suggesting the one around here most desirous of the spic and span mode perhaps pony up as well. After all, we need a lot of painting on our aging house, and I’m way too short to reach all those high places. Plus, last time we had housepainters, you should’ve seen what those folks destroyed. It’s either that, or fire the maid, and I’m pretty sure I can’t fire myself.

NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE ME, HAPPILY POLISHING THE GOOD CHINA AFTER SPENDING HOURS FIXING A HEARTY MEAL...


be sure to stop by and visit my website (where I desperately need to do some housecleaning), blog (ditto), or over on Twitter and Facebook (here and here) where I try to stay on top of things in a more timely manner...

Oh, and I think we're still doing giveaways, right? I've got a copy of WINGING IT: A MEMOIR OF CARING FOR A VENGEFUL PARROT WHO'S DETERMINED TO KILL ME for someone leaving a comment today!

And now for something completely different...

Genies and magic and Mers, oh my!

Yes, amid all the wonderful women's fiction authors on this blog, you have moi - your resident whimsical paranormal author.

And stringing all those adjectives together makes for some very interesting descriptors.

For instance, am I a whimsical author? A whimsical person who just happens to be an author? Or, am I your resident? Or, what about, am I a paranormal being? A genie or mermaid, perhaps?

Interestingly, I am not your resident--but feel free to pay my mortgage it the mood strikes. I'm definitely NOT paranormal. Abnormal is arguable. Just ask my kids. You might have a leg to stand on with "abnormal," but definitely not "paranormal."

And as for whimsical, well, again, ask the kids. Especially Sunday nights when the weekend house party has finally ended and everyone's too tired to do anything, and the house looks like that television show, "Hoarders" but with no TV Host to come in and clean up, and school/work starts way too early Monday morning and I can't function in a house full of clothing strewn on the furniture, water bottles tossed about on the carpet (one of our cocker spaniels just LOVES opening bottles - click on picture to see YouTube video of her doing this), and plates and cups from assorted teenage gatherings are in many of the rooms: the living room, the family room, and, of course, the "man cave" in the basement that is so frightening I rarely venture down there... What was the question again?

Ah, yes, am I whimsical? I'd like to think that I am, but from the paragraph above, you can see that opinions will vary.

One thing I unequivocally am, however, and the kids (and pizza delivery guy) will attest to, is that I am an author. (Like my intro to the books?)

I write tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted paranormal romances. My first series is about Mers--men and women--and the humans they fall in love with. There's some lost treasure, a few bad guys, a couple of sea monsters, and a flock of (talking) seagulls. And talking fish. And talking sharks. And a lizard with a huge chip on his shoulder.

In Over Her Head, Wild Blue Under, and Catch of a Lifetime came out between June 2009 and February 2010. Recently, I was utterly flabbergasted and equally gobsmacked to learn that Wild Blue Under won a PRISM Award, which was just beyond thrilling for me.

The next series begins in January with I Dream of Genies, followed by Genie Knows Best and then Leave It To Genie, the last 2 of which I'm still working on. Le sigh... It's always so gratifying to hold the finished book in your hand, but putting it on the laptop? Bunches and bunches of long hours and hard work.

As you can probably guess, I'm a big fan of sixties' and seventies' sitcoms and could have a whole week's worth of blogs on the subject. (But I won't, never fear.)

As for what I've read this summer, I have to admit: not much. Deadline for a book was the end of June, and you know how crazy things get when deadlines are coming up (hence the homage to my pizza delivery guy), then came the RomCon Conference in Denver, upon which the familial unit piggy-backed an 11-day, fun-filled, but definitely not restful vacation driving through South Dakota, Wyoming and Colorado, taking in such sights as Mt. Rushmore, Mt. Crazy Horse, the Badlands, Devil's Tower, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and the Budweiser Factory near Ft. Collins, CO. (Hey, it was free beer and air conditioned; a no-lose situation!) Then, a week at home before heading off to RWA National Conference in Orlando, and I realized I spent less time at home in the month of July than I did travelling. Phew! Even writing about it now makes me tired.

And, of course, I ended up shipping two boxes of books home from National, not to mention the ones I got at RomCon, so now my TBR Bookcase (I've advanced beyond The Pile) is bursting at the seams with books that I have no time to read.

Just recently, I started a new job and am trying to get the kids ready for school. Very hectic.

One book I DID read and thoroughly enjoyed, was our own Jenny Gardiner's, Winging It. I've heard Graycie's stories before the book, so it was nice to have a collection of them at my fingertips. Just the right thing when I need a laugh.

Which, if you saw the state of the family room this morning, you'd be doing, too. It's Friday, which means, the house is in pretty good shape. But it's the beginning of the Weekend Chaos, and add in the fact that this is a looooooong holiday weekend, and, well, I just don't even want to imagine what this place is going to look like come Monday.

Maybe I will go grab one of those books and just park myself in a hammock for a few hours to escape.

Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone!