Musical motivation, or blogging about cleaning when I actually should be cleaning

Special people are coming to town next weekend, and the weekend after that.  So that means Operation Deep Clean of the Pine Cone Inn (aka my house) must begin.

I've gotta hand it to Mrs.
Meyers; they have some
pretty packaging.

Thanks to my attendance at the Arkansas Women Bloggers Unplugged conference last month, I have coupons for some Mrs. Meyers cleaning products, which twitter tells me might actually make cleaning fun, or at least aroma-therapeutically soothing.  For the record, I'm skeptical, but I will dutifully use my coupons tomorrow to give it a try.

Before I clean, though, I have to fulfill a facebook promise.

Back in the spring, I participated in a 24-hour play festival produced by TheatreSquared and Ceramic Cow Productions, which my fabulous team didn't win (we're not bitter).  We did, however, walk away with a consolatory bag of crap, which included a CD complilation entitled:

Party Fun-Fun CD of Music So There
"get your dance on..."

I forgot about it in a pile somewhere, until I found it a few weeks back when, coincidentally, I was cleaning.  Intrigued by the title, I popped it in.

Disclaimer:  For the rest of this post to make sense, I'd recommend you visit this post about my musical idiocy.  

The first song was Adele, whom I've heard of, and even have on my IPod/Phone.   Thumbs up so far.

Next up was that song about "running faster than my bullet."  That's a song I've heard of...enough to know that I should know it.

The fifth song was Katy Perry's Carlie Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe."  It was then I knew that this CD was made to educate me on the songs I should know, either because they are awesome or because I need to summon the proper cultural disdain for them while secretly grooving like hell to their beats.

Obviously, the songs were all danceable, thus making them prime cleaning song candidates.  A new world of cleaning productivity opened up to me that day, and the Pine Cone Inn sparkled. 

Inspired, I turned to facebook to find out what you all out there in my little circle like to listen to when you clean.  I got some great answers, several of which were "when I what?"  Love you, ladies!

First off, since this is my field, let's discuss the Broadway show tunes. Soundtracks from Dreamgirls, Mamma Mia, Leap of Faith (the movie, not the show, but hey, I need to categorize for the sake of your time) and Hairspray were thrown out there.  Personally, I've done laundry with the support of "Supertrooper" in the background to great success, but for me, there's nothing like cleaning the kitchen while belting a little "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.

Apparently some of you like to be mellow while cleaning (Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday or even classical music/NPR).   I respect that.

However, it's in the more energetic songs of Motown, selections from Reservoir Dogs and a new love for the Foo Fighters that I've found some cleaning mojo.

So over the next two days, I'll be testing out some new tuneage while I divest the house of dog hair, clean the baseboards, scrub some grout and generally make my house tolerable for honored guests.  Not that all of y'all who visit regularly aren't honored, but let's face it; you're not my mom, nor are you my former college roommate who probably remembers what a slob I can be and is crossing her fingers that I follow through on my cleaning plan.

It's gonna take some work.  So share your own cleaning (or other chore) inspirational music below!  Comments make me feel good, and I need all the inspiration I can get. There's a lot of dog hair in this house.