Cleanliness is next to...

I'll be honest.  I'm a slob.   I've always been a slob.   My house usually looks like a disaster area.    Sometimes (like in this post) this causes problems.   

However, this week, my parents are coming to visit --- all the way from the U. S. of A --- and I promised them a clean place to stay.   So, although it took a lot out of me --- I vacuumed, I dusted, I organized (gasp) I cleaned!  (... as if this were something to report to the media).

On the left is a view of the sofa in the living room.  It is a nice piece of furniture when it is not covered in the usual mess.   Now I can actually sit on it without causing a landslide (this makes me the sofa king?)  Notice that you can actually see the floor through the glass coffee table.  For me, this is unusual.

I suppose I don't have to post pictures of every single room in the house, but it suffices to say that all of them have been made similarly tidy.  Even the garden has been ... well... improved at least.

For any of my friends who want to come visit, now would be a very good time to do so.  Presumably, the house will decay slowly back to its natural state of being a complete dump.   So if you want to come and stay in anything other than a dump, I recommend you do so now.

Having a clean apartment has resulted in some unexpected benefits.  On the right is a picture of my "office" (also known as "the other side of the living room").    Notice that you can actually see the surface of the desk.  That makes the desk functional.  Once I got everything functional again I decided it might be kind of cool to try working there instead of at the university -- and actually I kind of like it.  I wake up in the morning, I can go right to work, and I can stop to take a nap when I feel like it. In the last few days, I've been working here a lot, and actually I've been pretty efficient.

Maybe I'll turn over a new leaf and become a cleaner person.

Maybe.