I’m in the middle of my late-summer, post-kids cleaning ritual.

The kitchen is mostly done. I still need to scrub down the refrigerator shelves and toss some of the processed crap they had been eating. I tried to eat the yogurt. Really. But it had the consistency of glue, glistened like plastic, and contained four kinds of sweetener (sugar, fructose syrup, high fructose corn syrup AND corn syrup — what’s up with THAT?) and kosher gelatin. What the heck is kosher gelatin?! The rest of it is going in the trash.

So far on my first pass through the main living areas, I’ve swept up assorted dessicated food bits, nail clippings in a range of sizes, a brown game piece from one of my many Trivial Pursuit sets, a half dozen or so hair scrunchies and clips, a couple of spoons, and an empty DVD box. I’m still looking for the DVD. And I haven’t even started cleaning their rooms yet. They also had a habit of putting empty containers back in the pantry or fridge…

I did make an interesting find: a stash of lime green art supplies. I knew the girl was working on an art project, but apparently, she harvested every green stick of pigment from my various sets of markers, acquarelle pencils and crayons, oil pastels… I’m now curious to see what else she “borrowed” and what will have to be replaced.

Next up… sanitizing the bathroom and taming the bathroom cupboard…