If I just keep telling myself I'm going to do it - maybe it will really happen

It's starting to get hot down here in South Florida. Like - really hot. I know, everyone up north is all "Wah wah wah, aren't you the same bitch who was posting pictures of your sandy feet at the beach while we were scraping ice off of our windshields? Suck it."

But until you've received a third degree burn from your steering wheel and had sweat form a stain on your backside that makes people think you've had an accident, you don't understand the hot that is a South Florida summer.

With the heat comes two other gems that I love - the end of the school year and Hurricane Season.

I used to think Hurricane Season wasn't so bad. I mean, yeah, we might get some rain and some wind. We might lose power for a couple of hours. But no big deal.  That is until we experienced what will forever be known as The Hurricane Season From Hell.  It was 2004 and we boarded up our house not once, not twice, but three times that summer. We learned what it was to not have air conditioning in Florida, we learned what it was to have to grill every bit of meat in your freezer because it had all defrosted, we learned what it was to not have water and how to ration gas and how to drive in a world with no traffic lights (it's actually kind of awesome).

The next year brought us another nasty bitch called Hurricane Wilma who ripped all of the shingles right off of our roof and left us living in a world of buckets in strange areas of the house until we could get it repaired. I got to view our neighborhood from the top of our house while I helped The Man cover our sad roof in big tarps.

So now, every year, we hold our breath from June 1st to November 30th. We check TWC on a regular basis and we cringe at every alert that interrupts our regularly scheduled viewing.

About this time every year I decide I want to get the house all clean. I'll tell you what, it's a lot nicer to be stuck in a clean house with no air conditioning than a messy one. So every summer I vow that I'll get the house all cleaned up so if we do have to endure another hurricane, at least we'll get to do it in relative cleanliness and organization.

Except my house hasn't been really clean since 2007. I'm not kidding.

I mean, it's been presentable a few times - but only because I shoved everything in the garage or my bedroom or my office and closed the pantry door. If you looked close you would have found the nasty.

I'm a terrible housekeeper and my kids suck at doing chores. Like - they really, really suck and I'm really really terrible.  I'll pretty much do anything except for clean if I can get away with it.  I have great intentions - I want my house to be clean - but when it boils down to it I can't seem to make myself just do it.

But I'm going to this summer. I am. I AM!

I found a blog I fell in love with. And I've read a lot of it and I'm encouraged. I totally think I can do it with Nony's help. I'm just going to start slow and get it done. I am.

I AM.