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New digs, new plan of attack

Having lived in our current abode for nearly six months, my husband and I are trying to keep from making the same mistakes and perpetuating the same benign neglect that turned our two former dwellings into dumps.

The problems with our past pads weren't entirely the fault of the pads. Yes, they were in older buildings that let in a lot of dirt, bugs, pests and even rain. But we've also had to learn that it's hard to keep a home clean and clutter-free just in passing.

Although I have much enthusiasm for decorating a home, my enthusiasm for cleaning has traditionally fallen into the not-so-much department. Hubby and I are both writers, we both keep busy schedules and, well, the cliches about clutter play out.

So having started with another clean slate, we're trying to shed the creative mind-messiness connection, and quit blaming the apartment. I made a personal vow to clean a bit every day so small problems wouldn't end up as Ouachita-sized mountains. I have morphed into a superheroine: Anal-Retentive Woman!

One thing I've discovered in superheroine mode: Just as New York never sleeps, sweeping never stops. Two people living in the place can track a Duggar-size family's worth of dirt. My evening routine usually involves what I call the chase-one's-tail sweeping, in which I'm moving in circles trying to sweep the always plentiful dirt into the long-handled dustpan. Then I start back to the kitchen to put the broom and dustpan up. Then I spy dusty footprints on the runner rug in the front hall and repeat the routine. Then once in the kitchen I see all the stuff that has collected on the kitchen floor. The circle sweeping starts up once again. Then I realize with horror that I actually forgot about the bathroom floor.

Then there's the mopping thing. I thought keeping the kitchen floor spotless would be easier, having been liberated from linoleum to ceramic tile flooring ... especially since we owned one of the snazzy battery-operated floor cleaning gizmos! But it seems ceramic tile flooring likes to attract mysteriously stubborn stains that laugh at the gizmo, which requires the constant re-buying of cleaning pads and snap-on cleaning bottles.

And there's the dusting thing, for which I'm still struggling to summon those Anal-Retentive Woman powers. I'm currently shopping around for the perfect feather duster. I say that in the same tone as the folks who have been saying for several years now that they're trying to find "the perfect car," "the perfect house" or "the perfect Holy Grail."

How ironic that the easiest thing to keep clean these days is the commode. It helps when one no longer lives in a hard-water area and the toilet appears to have actually been manufactured in this millennium.

And there are the times some good, hard scrubbing can't be avoided. Cinderella, I feel your pain.

Meanwhile, I try to keep an eye on clutter creep, the biggest culprits being new books -- of which Dre and I both get a healthy and steady share of review copies -- and catalogs. Trying to keep the one-in, one-out rule of organizing can get to be rough when for every one thing disposed of, two or three more arrive in the mail, like diet-busting friends who insist on offering cake.

But I can happily say that the only spaces over which victory has not been at least somewhat maintained are the coat, linen and clothing closets as well as underneath the kitchen sink. Doors can mercifully be closed on these areas, but we hope to tame them soon with those decorative storage bins that have become the darlings of HGTV.

While I stand with arms akimbo, my Anal-Retentive Woman cape flapping in the wind, I try to keep from wondering how soon our labor-saving device inventors are going to get past those little round vacuum robots and come out with housecleaning, clutter-busting androids.

Where are you, Rosie from The Jetsons? Sonny from I, Robot? Uh, Terminator Dude?

Do keep your email clean:

hwilliams@arkansasonline.com

Style on 05/03/2015

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