Fall Housecleaning Survey

Which you're welcome to take even if you don't get inspired to clean house in the fall. Right now, it's anything to help me pretend cooler weather is coming even though it's supposed to hit 102 today.

Rate your house's current cleanliness on a scale of 1-10.
5. It can look decent with a little bit of work, but there's always a lot of stuff piled around the edges.

Rate how clean you would like the house to be on a scale of 1-10.
7. I don't expect a house with children to be toy and fingerprint-free, but I would like to know everything had a place and it was reasonably easy to get it there. I would also like the ducklings to be more frequent at picking up their own toys, but we are making good progress.

Homemaking means balancing a lot of different priorities. What are your top three?
Enjoyment~that we all enjoy living here together
Frugality~that we spend no more than is needed
Simplicity~that we spend our time and space and money on things we really care about

Biggest mental block to better organization?
Feeling guilty over getting rid of anything that was a gift or handmade. I don't feel *quite* as guilty if I can trade it in for money or re-gift it, as I figure at least I got some good out of it. But that 18" stained-glass fruit basket sun catcher is still waiting to be broken in the attic, since I can't figure out who on earth would want it. Or how to get it to them.

Biggest logistical block to better organization?
It's just hard to move things up and down stairs to wherever they go, because something with lungs usually wants to be carried instead. It's getting easier though. Progress is being made. Someday those little lungs will be attached to legs that can navigate stairs while carrying things and then watch how we go!

Biggest weakness in stuff-accumulating department?
Books, of course. Plus anything else with remotely educational/artistic value.

Deep cleaning job you most anticipate?
Washing windows. Maybe it's just the prospect of opening the windows again.

Deep cleaning job you most dread?
Files. The files. Office files. (There's a poem that starts that way. By Kipling, I think. Mocking Poe. Very funny.)