As I know I’ve mentioned before, housekeeping is an ongoing challenge for me. Our being a rather untidy lot, coupled with our living in a too-big house, has led to our living space being barely on the side of, well, livable a good deal of the time. Lately, though, I’ve been making more of an effort to keep up with the housework and with the exception of a few rooms for which I accept no responsibility, the place is largely presentable these days.

One of the more troublesome areas has long been the downstairs bathroom, and after spending months fruitlessly nagging Olof to clean it, I broke down this week and did the largest part of the work myself. Last night as we were in there brushing our teeth before bed, I called his attention to the relative state of order I had restored there, and he was duly impressed.

“I know,” he said, looking around. “It looks like a clean person’s bathroom.”

More accurately, it looks more like a clean person’s very dirty bathroom, but that’s high praise considering the way it looked not long ago.