I’ve spent most of today cleaning.

Correction: I’ve spent most of today trying to clean.

It’s hard to clean, when there are boxes and bags of thises and thats all over the floor. I’d carry them out to the garage, but the garage is full of other peoples’ things. The garage is stuffed so full of other peoples’ things, that there’s no room for the cars. The cars sit out in the driveway in the rain, while our two-car garage is being used as storage for things that, most of them, aren’t even ours.

We are selfless with our storage space. Maybe that is why our own stuff is sitting in boxes and bags all over the floor, while closets and garages and all kinds of shelves are stuffed full of other peoples’ stuff.

It’s hard to vacuum around boxes and bags of stuff, sitting all over the floor. Ordinarily I solve that problem by simply not vacuumming. Who’s going to see all that dust, with all those boxes and bags all over the floor?

Well, this weekend, we’re having PEOPLE over, and I’ve found, over many years of being somewhat cluttery, that PEOPLE are not as lax about dust as I am.

I’m very dust-tolerant. I agree with Erma that dust is a protective covering for furniture.

But when there are PEOPLE in my house, I like to have things nicer. Besides, it’s embarassing when the children of these PEOPLE draw pictures in the dust. So I got out the Pledge and went all Heloise on my furniture. I even cleaned and waxed the stairs.

Watch your step on there, by the way. It’s slicker than snot. But oh baby, it’s clean and shiny. I hope nobody breaks a bone slipping on those waxed stairs. Fortunately, the bags and boxes of stuff would probably break their fall.

I picked all those bags and boxes up, one by one, carried them across the room, and stacked them all against one corner wall of the family room. I should have been able to scoot them across the floor easily; but I couldn’t because of the pile of leftover carpet that’s still piled there two years after we had it installed.

Well, what should we do with it? There’s too much to throw away, and not enough to do another room! Unless it was a really small room. And the garage is full of other peoples’ stuff.

Maybe someone’s bathroom? But then, carpet in a bathroom is so, well, how shall I phrase this. . . . filthy? I don’t care how often you spray the carpet cleaner on the carpet around the toilet bowl, it’s just not going to get all ‘that’ out of it. Especially if there are men in your home. Men with a poor aim. Does the word ‘absorption’ mean anything to you? No? How about the word ‘odiferous?’ Does that apply? Well, if it doesn’t now, eventually it will. Both words will.

So anyway, one corner of the family room has a mountain of boxes and bags, immediately behind a smaller mountain of carpet scraps. I’m going to call it “Art.” Because it’s my house and I can call it anything I want. “Art” sounds way better than “scrap heap.” Especially when applied to one’s family room.

Besides, it’s nowhere near the tv so who’s going to even notice? Especially with that burned-out bulb in the ceiling fixture in that corner. I’d replace the bulb, but it’s too high to reach, and I’m scared to balance a chair on that mountain of carpet scraps.

In the dark, you can’t even see the mountain of carpet scraps. I know, because I’ve fallen over it twice today.

Fortunately, I landed on a bag of soft stuff. Both times.

I am no domestic goddess. I hate cleaning. But somehow, for a holiday reunion, I’m finding great pleasure in preparing my house for a celebration. I love dressing it up, for PEOPLE to see. I like to think of PEOPLE having fun in my house. I’m adorning my house for PEOPLE.

I bet you are, too. Admit it. And I bet you love it.

I know I do.