If Donna Reed were to read this, she'd confiscate my pearls....

I am a major procrastinator. Sometimes it makes me a little frustrated with myself, but I've learned to be a little patient.

For example, there are usually a few dishes in my sink. Some stuff that you just can't put in the dishwasher have been known to sort of accumulate in my sink for a day or two, while I systematically ignore them until guilt reminds me of their presence, and I dig into them with a scrubby sponge and a sink full of suds. It's not that I don't like to have a clean house, it's just that I like to do fun things, like bake, and make messes.

Every once in a while, I'll be seized by a temporary fit of cleaning, and I'll spend an hour or two going from room to room sweeping and dusting and rearranging, and I ususally manange to use the wrong type of cleaner on everything. But it gets clean. I fish all the scrunched up socks from under the bed. I find all the shoes that are hiding in the proximity of the front door, and return them to the closet to commune with their friends. I sort through the pantry and realize that I have two separate boxes of baking soda that I thought were a single box that kept migrating around on its own.

But if being a neat freak, constantly polishing the hardwood floors, and Windex-ing the windows, and fluffing the couch pillows means that I don't get to spend a little time in the kitchen making a nice cozy dinner for me and Kev, or that I don't have the time to make a batch of Mexican hot chocolate cookies (thinking about making those with the maple spritz cookies tonight...yum...) then so be it. Hopefully the people who love me best will thoughtfully ignore the very friendly dust-bunnies under my couch while they nom on a cookie or two.