How do we accumulate so much stuff, when, I swear, we never buy anything? We do our best to follow the one-in, one-out rule. My kids are actually pretty good about giving up their old toys (they have a knack for expressing contempt and disdain for most of the things in their lives). And yet, my closets look like booby traps for unsuspecting fools who might attempt to open them. They are so packed with...I don't know what.

Cleaning up, to us, means moving everything from the surface of the place we want to be clean to some other surface that is as far from that one as possible. I dream of making it my life's work to make our home a sanctuary where every place you rest your eyes is a perfect picture of tranquility and beauty. Hahahhaha. Well, maybe in another life, the one where I'm not scrambling from one thing to the next every waking minute of the day.

But wouldn't it be nice to have someone just come in and take care of these things. Even just a little facelift before our homes are over-run and picked over by relatives over the Holidays. A little nip here and a tuck here to get our apartments organized. I Thought so.