Making the Most of my New Year Oomph

Ok. So maybe I was a little cynical back then. Back there in 2008. I'm only human. I made a mistake. But, I'm older now. And wiser. And I had a weirdly satisfying revelation today which I intend on sharing with you.

So there I was, getting high on Mr Muscle Multi-Purpose House Cleaner, scrubbing blisters onto my knuckles. My knees and elbows groaned under the strain of nitty gritty tile cleaning. I thought to myself that I am always a little slow on the uptake. Here I was undertaking a fairly monumental Spring Clean, and we're half way through summer. Geez, someone give the girl an espresso!

Anyway, inhaling detergent fumes might do that to me, I don't know, but I realised, amidst the scrubbing and dusting and disinfecting, that the last three days have been, well, awash with domestic activity of the cleansing kind. In fact, since the dawn of the new year, I have washed over 10 loads of washing, ironed 6 of those ten, composted the garden, raked all the leaves off the lawn, cleared out the guest room, vacuumed three carpets, exterminated 15 (plus) spider webs and ant colonies on my domiciliary boundary, and packed away all the Christmas decorations! (I know it was early, but I don't abide by the twelth night rule, ok?) And, on top of all of that, home life has been business as usual, if not a little more than usual, being holidays and all. We've hosted a braai, attended a braai, gone to a movie, watched at least 362 movies at home, played Balloon Lagoon more times than I care to remember, and Cranium Cadoo too few times, PLUS we've climbed a mountain. And that's all happened this year. In three days. What on earth has gotten into me? Me. Tired me. Exhausted me. Me who needs more sleep hours than awake hours in a day. Me who often lacks the necessary energy required to brush my own hair.

It's that New Year thing. That thing that I was all cocky about. That thing of how December 31 is just the day before January first, no big deal, no major change, just one day following the next. And yet, I think that there must be some magic to it after all. My Done List* would have been impossible without a little magic, a little fairytale sparkle, a little bit of impossible becoming possible.

(*The Done List is the To Do List as veiwed in the past tense. This is particularly helpful to individuals, like myself, who get more inspired by remembering the things they have already accomplished than by being reminded about the things they still need to do.)

And as I was musing about that 'je ne sais quoi' -kiness of the New Year, a little bit of a fairy tale played out right before my eyes.

AirBear had been watching me spray, scrub, rinse and mop for some time. I had suggested she go play with her My Little Ponies, but she stayed and watched. After a while she pronounced that she would help me clean the floors.

"Are you sure you'd like to help me?" I asked. She nodded and took the mop out of the bucket and poised herself for mop duty. I cringed at the muddy puddles she was dripping all over my already cleaned floor. But I acquiesced. Suprisingly, my little four year old took to mopping like a duck to water. I was fairly impressed, and relieved at how things sped up with her assistance.

After a while, she Sighed. With a capital "S". "Are we servants now?" she asked.

"No," I laughed. "We're cleaning our house. For us."

"But it feels like we're working for someone. Like we're servants. This is not a nice job."

I put my hand out for the mop. "You can go play if you want to," I said. She held tightly to her tool and shook her head.

"No," she said. "I'll stay. You need me to help you, because I'm really good at this. And anyway, my daddy will see me, and he'll say I'm his champion, and you'll say I'm your super star. I'll stay," she shrugged those amazing little shoulders and set back to work slopping bleach up against my couch covers.

I smiled and thought that we might just live happily ever after after all.