Sometime about a week or two ago, I woke up from NaNoWriMo and realized I was living in a truly terrifying state of disarray. There were malebolges in Hell more pleasant than my house. On top of that, a friend donated all sorts of stuff to me when she moved.

Something had to be done.

People, so foolish as to vist, disembowling themselves in their effort to escape the horror.

A number of things happened. I won't describe them all…but one was that I came up with a method to motivate some of my children to do chores. When Orville actually went and got the vaccuum to do a chore to earn points…I figures I should make an effort to make the room possible to vaccuum.

So…I set out to clean the house.

It took me two days to get the first room clean. It was a bathroom. A really small bathroom.

But at the end of two days, it was clean…the floor was scrubbed.

Then the hall…HUGE improvement.

Then, the kitchen. Not the counters, mind you, but the floor, the refrigerator, some cabinets. Nearly all of them by now.

Today, we tackled downstairs. There were back allys of Calcutta that were more welcoming. This is where the kids basically lived. If they could find their computers.

More pleasant than my basement was this morning

All that has changed.

The area is clean and neat. The rug has been washed. The computer tables are dusted. Everything extra has been moved away. The VHS tapes we don't use are gone and the room used for the Wii games and remotes…making a nice little video game center that is welcoming and easy to use.

The basement  looks…cheery and welcoming. I doubled to quadrippled the amount of room the kids have available.

Mind you, I've been moving major things and scrubbing the floor. I have not yet cleaned off the stuff I dumped on the train table (or the kitchen counter for that matter) but I hope to have all that done by Christmas.

As an added bonus, the spot we put the Christmas tree is now clear and ready!