Confession

I hate to clean my kitchen. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I want you to know this.

I cleaned my kitchen last night. It took about an hour and a half.

To be fair, it was my kitchen and the entry area, and the reason it takes so long is the stinkin' hand-laid tile floors. It's not just a quick sweep job, oh no. The broom cannot go in one direction and get all the dirt. I must sweep in multiple directions to get the dirt out of the grout. It's a constant source of frustration for me. It takes me about forty minutes to move all the furniture, sweep, shake the rugs, and move all the furniture back. And that's not even counting mopping, which I have done only twice in the past five months.

Normally I do a quick little jobby where I just sweep up the dirt my husband tracked in with his work boots. And I like to vacuum the rugs. It's easier than shaking them, although I think it's clogging my vacuum.

I don't like to wipe off the counters. I generally just clean up my messes as I go, but that doesn't help all the dust that settles behind my cookbooks. I usually avoid wiping them down by telling myself I will wait until after I sweep, because who wants to sweep up a bunch of dirt into the air so it can settle on the nicely-cleaned counters? Not me.

So last night, from 7:40 until 9:05, I moved furniture, swept up dead bugs, dusted ten thousand pounds of dust, scraped dried food from the bottom of the sink, and wiped many feet of counter top. And now my kitchen will be beautiful for approximately four days, at which point I will wonder why I even bothered in the first place.

I hate cleaning my kitchen.