A noble and completely attainable goal:

....
Five Minutes To Be Company-Ready
...
That's my goal, nay, my quest.  The Just Watchin' Casa has always been in company-ready mode.  You know, have the neighbors over for tea, or the kids & siblings for a lasagna dinner.

Then, a life event happened on Saturday, and Mrs. Just Watchin' offered to have Extended Family over for the post-funeral lunch on Wednesday.

This means the people who will notice the dust bunnies and the smudges on the door jambs.  And while it doesn't matter to me in the abstract ... it mattered in fact.

Careful dusting -- not just around the lampbase, but lifting the lamp and dusting under!!

Thorough vacuuming the aforementioned wabbits ....

Finally doing something about the nest of books and magazines that's been homesteading behind the La-Z-Boy ....

And the table-nests of stuff that just never got put away (looking at you, kids)...

Then the afore-mentioned door jambs ...

How it took the better part of two days to get those things accomplished in four lightly used room, I do not know.

I only know that henceforth, all things being equal and barring a life event of my own,

This house will remain ready-for-company-in-5-(five)-minutes

Which basically means that I'm gonna ... no, that I'm now one of those people who:

 really dusts once a week

damp-mops around doorknobs and lightswitches and like that there.

And you know, as I think about it, the most important part happens today.

I bring back inside from the garage (where I've boxed up the contents of the various nests) only one out of every 10 items.

That's right, ladies & germs.  It's the detritus, the jetsam and flotsam, the "I'll handle it later" and the "Not sure where to put it, but I want it" that really bollixes up the five-minute-to-company-ready plan.

I'm on that. As soon as one more post gets posted.