The orange peelings lie thin and curly on the cutting board, ready to be discarded. My knife cuts through the thick carrots quickly, and I stow a few sticks in each lunchbox before I take the rest to the refrigerator. I rinse off the celery and place it on my board. I cut it and put it away. Next comes an apple, and then I make sandwiches, one salami and one cheese, and I cut the crusts off.

Clean.

The tables at preschool need to be sprayed with a bleach solution and wiped clean before snack time. Then sixteen little bodies walk in a line to wash hands. I help turn on the faucet, squirt soap on ten little fingers and help them make soap bubbles. Rinsed and dried, we traipse back to the classroom.

Clean.

Back home, I sweep cereal off of the floor and wipe off the table. Sometimes the breakfast dishes don’t make it into the dishwasher until lunchtime. Then I add the soap, press the start button, and listen to the swishing and swashing as I go about the house, doing other housewifely things.

Clean.

How do I spend the whole day cleaning, and yet my house is a cluttered mess?

Look, for example, at my dresser.

Just look at it! I have been meaning to clean it off for months. Today was the day I tackled it.

Ah. That’s so much better.

Except for one thing.

I moved most of the stuff over here.

Not clean.

I’m linking up at The Spin Cycle today! Why not try your own Spin?