Ordinarily, I'd have posted a "pre-holiday whole house cleanup" thread because both DH and DD would be out of the house and I could make as much of a mess as I needed to deep-clean, straighten, or reorganize the house in preparation for decorating and hosting.

Because *waves hands helplessly in true NYC-suburban understatement fashion* 2020, that didn't happen, although DH and I worked on transforming the 3rd floor loft area into usable space last March - it's been his office since then and there's very little chance that this will end any time soon, since his company doesn't have a clear return-to-in-person strategy yet.

Yes, some minor tidying did happen, and some "public" closet reorganizing also happened, but not the way I usually do it.

Now that DD has returned to partial in-person school (4 days per week, 4 hours per day in person plus the expectation of 2 hours virtually at home and 100% virtual on Wednesdays) we've accomplished the following:

  • Put last random Christmas decorations (plus stuff from AZ) away under the stairs
  • Scrubbed 13 years' worth of gunk from the kitchen
  • Laundered cleanup tools (mop heads, old towels, dust cloths, etc.)
  • Regular laundry schedule to account for masks and socks


There are some tidy-up tasks for the dining room/5th grade classroom that I'll deal with on Monday, but it's been a pretty good week.