Come here for a second. Let me take you for a little tour of our itty bitty townhouse.

Here is the kitchen:

Look closely. Do you see all that molding? I LOOOOOVE that molding. So much. I love it so much I would make out with it, if only I thought it might slip me some tongue. We remodeled that entire kitchen about five years ago. It was a nightmare of funtacular proportions, but it was totally worth it for all that molding. Well, that and the rest of the kitchen. I ain't gonna lie, I know it's a freakin' gorgeous kitchen.

Here's the dining room:

Obviously, I'm not afraid of a little color. I'm not sure that we'll go that bold again, but I do still like that red.

This is our living room:

It's not big, but it still kicks ass. It took years to get it all put together just right. There are the curtains that I made (and that my friend Barbara then remade because I did a craptacular job of sewing them). There's the furniture that we spent years finding. There's the perfect shade of yellow that took me three attempts to get just right.

I'm going to miss this place.

OK, now go back and look at the photos again. Humor me. Do it.

See how CLEAN it is?

That never happens. Seriously, never. Keeping it clean for the whole three days that it was on the market was a nightmare of epic proportions. I nearly died from the bed making, vacuuming, dusting, and general putting away of crap.

I don't clean. It's true, I don't. Ask Mr. Husband and I am quite sure he will nod yes so hard his head will fly off his neck.

Here's the thing, I work full time at an office. I like to spend time with my kid. I believe sleep is important. Put those three things together and you pretty much have to eliminate something else in life. I choose to eliminate cleaning. Some day I will figure out a way to manipulate our budget so that we can have someone come suck the tumbleweeds of fur up off the floor and wipe off the layers of grime all around, but right now that just isn't possible.

My mom was a fantastic housekeeper. She kept the trailer spotless. I can list memory after memory of getting nagged for dragging in dirt. I can perfectly picture her vacuuming because I saw her do it all the time. Our floors were so clean you could eat off of them. I don't remember ever seeing a pile of junk mail on the counters.

You know what else I don't remember ever seeing? My mother sitting down at the table with me or my brother and coloring. She never threw a ball with us in the yard. She didn't drop everything to go ride bikes around the block.

She chose keeping a clean house over spending time with her kids.

I choose spending time with my kid over having a clean house.

But, I'm keeping those pics of a perfectly clean house just so I can prove I do know how to clean, I just don't do it.

Psst . . . go vote.