“Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues,” writes F. Scott Fitzgerald in his book “The Great Gatsby.”

I’d say mine is hope. I’m always hoping the sick lamb will pull through the night. I hope the fuel tank has just a little bit more than the gauge says. I hope there will be no problems during calving. I hope the market stays up and that the yield is good.

I also hope that someday, someone besides me will see the toothpaste globs in the sink.

Cleanliness, even though it’s next to godliness, doesn’t seem to be a virtue my family thinks much about — until Thursdays. That’s when our housekeeper arrives. And we go into what we call “pre-cleaning” mode.

I’m not really sure why we are OK letting our spouse and kids (supposedly the people we care about most in the world) live in a mess, but go into a cleaning frenzy when a non-family member is coming over. A non-family member who is coming over specifically to clean.

Suddenly, laundry is scooped up into baskets and the boys are fighting over who gets to use the washing machine first. The garbage is bagged and dumped without asking. My husband even made his first attempt at scrubbing the toilet. I started to tell him where the brush and cleanser were, but he interrupted, “What? Do you think I’ve never scrubbed a toilet before?”

I bit my tongue and continued the frantic “pre-clean” scurry of getting the last of the utensils into the dishwasher before the housekeeper arrived. Two minutes later, my husband comes out of the bathroom holding the bottle of toilet bowl cleanser.

“How do you open this knob?” he asks, holding out the bottle of cleanser.

“The same way you opened it last time you scrubbed the toilet,” I tease, taking the bottle and squeezing the cap to twist it open.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a clean and tidy house — but when it’s very small and was built without closets, it’s very hard to live by the maxim of “a place for everything and everything in its place.” That’s where the beauty of junk drawers comes in!

And those lovely floors that some people have that are so shiny you could eat off them? Well, who eats off floors anyway? But I’ll never have them. Every time I sweep, I’m surprised we have any topsoil left in the fields. There is a line of dirt from the door to the bathroom. I’m sure the kids carry home large percentages of it and deposit it in the shower each evening.

During harvest it seems that a shower signifies the end of the day. The moment you step out squeaky clean, your eyelids start to close. There’s no washing the dishes or starting a load of laundry.

A few times after a “harvest shower,” I have even fallen asleep reading. To the kids. Out loud. Wow, I have suddenly turned into my grandmother!

Sometimes my husband will have enough energy to check his email before bed, but that’s not helpful in the cleaning department. Especially when there are emails for cheap airfare for another part of the world you haven’t explored.

So what does one do? Keep cleaning? Or go traveling in your spare time? I guess I’ll keep collecting scrapbooks, and hope that someday, someone will take the time to dust the shelf they’re on.

It’s not “Hoarders”-level bad, but I did pause for just a moment last week, during our Constitution class for school. While my older son and I were discussing the right to vote and the amendments addressing it, my youngest was coloring pictures of the Constitution.

“Can you hand me the skin-colored pencil?” he asked, reaching his hand across the table.

“What color of skin?” my oldest asked. “Before or after you take a shower?”

I’d like to think that all of us have at least one of the cardinal virtues, and while it may not be cleanliness right now, I can still hope that someday our “tans” will stick around after the shower — and not just create a ring around the bathtub.