TIDY-UPPING

I'm a clean up in the p.m. person

I need the morning to be bright and orderly, with things where they're supposed to be. During the day, if I need to find something and have to make a mess on top of yesterday's mess, I get distracted -- can't get organized -- can't find anything.

My mother taught me to make the bed a certain way, and do the daily dusting -- first this, then that -- she had all the household chores planned and organized.

Naturally, I rebelled. I do household chores haphazardly, the fastest way possible so that things look nice. Dorothy our maid goes for exactitude. (See my post "My Sister Doro," May 6). Starting in our bedroom, she proceeds room by room, cleaning everything in sight thoroughly.

For me, the reason for cleaning/tidying is to be able to think about my work and create. So I check my calendar for appointments -- check JCs two calendars -- the upstairs one often has appointments that he didn't put on the downstairs one, which he often misplaces. JC's office is always a mess.

But upstairs in our home, JC is a "Dorothy." Ask him to put a clean plate, cup, or bowl away, and it will be checked for debris, (sometimes re-washed and dried) and put where it belongs, and if the area isn't neat, he'll take out all the plates, check the shelf liner, make sure it's flat, wipe it down, before he puts the plate away.

And he's a stickler fixer when it comes to a carpentry, electricity, and plumbing. But it balances out -- I get wife points for my cooking.

Furthermore, I keep my office more than tidy -- I clean the computer screen, every day update my "blog idea" list, check and handle the incoming, the out-going mail, if necessary re- organize my three boxes -- Blog files, Office file, and The Readery. Also I'm a stickler and an expert when it comes to keeping my computer shipshape.

And now that JC has the new computer which I ordered for him, got loaded and everything installed for him -- I'm sticklering his office every night when I tidy mine -- positioning his pencils, erasers, highlighters, his correspondences, his books , even arranging his computer glasses and Windexing his new monitor . Got to confess -- I'm enjoying doing that for him, as well as earning myself wife points.