Life is messy.  I don’t care how many times you clean the kitchen or how well.  It just gets messy.  Maybe it’s bread crumbs or a smear of jelly.  Maybe it’s grease and pasta splattered across the stove.  Maybe you made a smoothie and forgot to put the top on tight.  But face it:  mess happens.  It happens in our kitchens and it happens in our lives. 

 It’s how we deal with them that matters.  I shared an apartment once with a gal whose idea of cleaning was to sweep stuff into a corner of the room and leave it.  Never mind that opening a door blew it all back again.  She felt she had done her part.  Funny thing is some people don’t even SEE the mess.  Others run around plucking imaginary hairs from the sofa cushions.  The rest of us are somewhere in between.

 When I was a teenager, my grandma used to say that she could always tell when I was getting sick by the way my room looked.  “If your clothes start piling up on the chair, I know you’re coming down with something.”  At the time I really thought she had a screw loose but boy was I wrong.  Even today, I can tell when I’m coming down with something simply by looking at the kitchen:  If the dog food isn’t quite rolled shut or the dishes start piling up or the counters aren’t wiped down after dinner—I’m likely coming down with something.  Guess you could say you know how I’m doing with one, quick glance at my kitchen.

 Lately, I’ve decided to put a new ‘twist’ to this.  Figuring there’s no time like the present, I am making myself ‘go forward’ instead of just ‘staying even.’  That means today I am going to pay ALL the bills and file ALL that paperwork.  I figure that way, tomorrow I’ll be even healthier!!  Oh, and in case you get the bug, too, remember:  if your oven has baked on grease, don’t reach for the Windex!

P. S.  I am posting this blog as a not so gentle reminder, just in case I decide to deviate from the above intentions.