Tuesday slice: Summer cleaning

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Raise your hand if you're an educator who spends at least part of your summer "break" straightening up your house.

All teachers do this, right?  After a school year full of early mornings, late nights, our own children's extracurricular activities, hurried meals, drop-the-bag-and-collapse-workdays and laundry-filled weekends, we are left with a backlog of housecleaning tasks.

Well, that's the state of my house, anyway.  Bags of books and papers in the hall, sitting under a plethora of out-of-season jackets on the wall.  Piles of personal professional books that never made it to my library office shelves.  A paper blizzard on my desk (again).  Work clothes that got washed but not put away.  Work clothes that don't fit due to too many drive-thru meals this year (ugh).  A vanity full of makeup, skin care potions, nail polish, and hair ties in disarray, with a pile of shoes in front of it.

And on top of it all, a layer of dust.

So I'm dedicating most of my free time over these next two weeks to cleaning and decluttering.  I'll make the same vows again to establish a regular housekeeping schedule, even come up with a printed plan, I'm sure.  Fingers crossed it will work this time.

And if it doesn't get done over the next two weeks?  Well, there's always next summer.