I know I’ve written about my housekeeping woes here on more than one occasion, but this past several months — with Olof working full-time and me all but consumed by my thesis — the situation has reached near-disastrous proportions. Even at our very best, the house is never what one could call spic-and-span, but now the mess is at a whole new level. After my studies are wrapped up next week, I’ve vowed to devote myself to an intense and thorough regimen of housecleaning. Getting the others who live here on board will, of course, be the greatest part of the challenge. I’m feeling uncommonly determined, however, so they’d better watch out.

After I get home next Wednesday evening, the kids will still have two weeks left of school before their summer break, so I’ll have a number of days to get things organized without a bunch of mess-makers underfoot. Even as I type this, I know that I won’t get nearly so much done as I’d like, but at this stage, just about anything has got to be an improvement. If there’s one thing I sorely regret about the way I’ve raised my kids, it’s that I haven’t been more insistent on them cleaning up after themselves. It’s just so much easier, sometimes, to do things myself, but I know that in the long run I haven’t done any of us any favors by letting them off the hook so much.