Mrs. Clean

We have a rental inspection tomorrow. Which means I have spent this week in a cleaning frenzy! You know, doing those things that don't get done as often as they should, like organizing and storing all the random bins and boxes we seem to have accumulated during our last year here, cleaning the fridge thoroughly, moving furniture to vacuum, discovering the origin and means of getting out that strange stain that materialized on the carpet one day, the usual. And, of course, it's a Sisyphean task, with little boys following around behind me, messing up every space I clean because, look here, it's a new clean place for us to dump our toys. Huzzah! As per usual, I have grossly underestimated the time it will take me to do all of this, so things keep getting pushed off the list as the time winds down. But the major spaces will be presentable, at least, and we should "pass" our inspection. Our lease is now month-to-month here anyway, and we are really just biding our time until we can move out of this apartment and into a rental house, but the renter's market here doesn't really start to heat up for another month or so, once med student matches occur and people know they are moving on or moving in.

We need the time, actually, while our house in SC lingers still in short sale limbo. "Short sale." If ever a term were more in appropriate! I was lamenting the sheer idiocy and extreme duration of this process while waiting with some parents at preschool one day last week and one of the dads there said, "Well, it shouldn't be an easy process, because all those people should have known better and made better choices and shouldn't be trying to pull one over on the banks." I almost decked him. Even for the people who willfully got adjustable rate mortgages and overbought and had no intention of ever paying anyone back for anything, this process seems unnecessarily punitive. And I really doubt there actually are too many of those sorts of folks out there. Instead, for many of the rest of us, who did everything right but were victims of time and markets and, in our case, a lack of job prospects that forced us to move on, this process is downright mean. One day, our house will sell. Or not. But it will all be over, one way or the other. And we will be cautious about our next house purchase and happy to rent in the meantime. Or we will save our money and go on a year long trip around the world instead and rent for the rest of our days and be happy as clams about it!

In the meantime, I have a kitchen to clean. Nothing like a little all purpose cleanser to bring you back to earth!