This is the hopefully final clean-up revision, where I read through the whole story out loud, to catch verbal tics, excessive adverbs, clunky phrasings, etc. I rarely add anything at this stage, but I do delete a fair bit.
My house is a disaster,…
My house is a disaster, my ex-girlfriend is arriving from Australia this evening (yay!), and I would really like to clean it up, even though I know she won't really care. But instead, I am being a good writer and going to go edit the story that is now overdue to an editor. Sorry, messy house.
First things first. You can’t neglect writing. Don’t neglect children too much. (But remember they can take care of themselves more than most people think.) The house can go to hell until nobody can stand it anymore. Then hire help.