One of the great things about having an outside job again is that there are weekends. When you work from your home, the weekend is nothing special. There's no sense of reaching the finish line on Friday, no anticipation of a different pace. One of the bad things about having an outside job is that the weekend is when everything I didn't get done at home during the week has to be completed.

My husband accuses me of being a neat freak. I frequently remind him that if that were true, we would either have been divorced a long time ago or I would be a widow on Death Row. His idea of organizing things is just to put everything where he can see it. Tax forms can mingle with the groceries and the laundry that has to go to the dry cleaners. This stuff can land anywhere, usually the first surface he sees where he can place something. His pockets are a dangerous mix of loose change, receipts, notes, mints, and hardware. I'm always finding nails, nuts, washers and the like. Since my husband pushes paper not hammers and he's really not one for household repairs, I still haven't figured out why they're there. I'm sure it has something to do with that delightful Y chromosome, and I just write it off to the mystery of being male.

The other two legged member of this household is a teenager. When she decides it's time to clean, watch out. The girl can work circles around her tired, old mother. The key factor in that though is teenager. That impulse strikes sporadically at best, but her nature divides itself evenly between my desire for neatness and her father's more laissez-faire attitude. That's one of those things I'm glad she'll have to work out for herself.

The rest of my family really can't help being more messy than I would like. The five dogs and twelve cats haven't quite figured out how to run the vacuum cleaner. The dogs with their scarily smart border collie/Labrador heritage though do try to contribute. Zorro thinks my bed should be his, and he will pull the cover smooth in the part where he likes to sleep. Dottie wants a pillow on either end of the couch and will arrange them to her satisfaction. Cocoa, to the cats' chagrin, uses the litter box. The other two are still pups and just so thrilled when they're allowed indoors that chaos ensues.

My cats, on the other hand, are in vengeance mode. They hate that we have taken down the Christmas tree. The would snag the ornaments on the lower branches and play hockey with them all over the house. Now, with their game tucked away, knocking things down and seeing my reaction is the new sport. A kitten is the master of the "Not Me" look. I'm down two ceramic bowls in one week, and the ever more frequent threats of cat stew for supper are still blithely ignored.

I could anticipate a weekend of removing paw prints from every horizontal surface and lots of scrubbing. At the same time time, I'm very aware that the temperature tomorrow is supposed to be close to 70. Hmmm, stay inside and clean or go outside and play? It shouldn't be a hard choice.