Sunday afternoon cleaning

My kids are good about doing their chores, but their standards are different than mine. Very different. So every once in a while, I like to go through and clean the downstairs of the house myself. Just to keep the health inspectors away. What is frustrating is that after several hours of cleaning, the living area still looks kind of messy. That is because it's filled with strange items that don't really belong anywhere else.

Not much fits in our bedrooms because they are small. We do not own even one chest of drawers. So the bedroom closets are needed for clothes. We already have a computer in the boys' bedroom -- and the television set - because there is no other place to put things that I don't want in the living area. And we don't have a family room or den or dining room or basement or attic or any of those extra rooms other people use to store miscellaneous items.

One main room is pretty much what we've got. And the room, with a brick fireplace and lots of windows, would look lovely if we didn't have so much stuff strewn about. Today, I did take newspapers out to the garage, and I piled books and games on the staircase with the theory that they should go up to the bedrooms. I tossed dozens of white socks and crumpled t-shirts into the laundry hamper. I piled all the sneakers in the hall closet. But odd items still remain:

One electric guitar
One bass guitar
Two amps
Microphone and stand
A balance board
About twenty drum sticks
Sound Off pads for the drums
Two rolls of duct tape
A flood light balance precariously on the front window sill
Piles of music books and loose sheet music
Three school backpacks filled with books
A saxophone
Tins of Yu-Gi-0h cards
Four decks of cards, two tins of poker chips
Hacky sacks piled onto the top of the piano
Various black cords
Sixteen frisbees
Three broom handles, not used for cleaning
Ten light sabers, battle ready
An orange tree tall enough to touch the ceiling
A full set of drums

So after an afternoon of cleaning, my living room still looks - well, lived in, I guess. But I did get all those crumbs off the carpeting. Sigh. Maybe I should have gone for a walk instead.