It's Finally Done!

There was an old commercial that I remember seeing when I was little; I'm pretty sure it was for Rice Krispies.  It had a young girl showing her younger sister/brother how their mother made Rice Krispy Treats, and when the task was done, she wiped her brow in mock frustration and said, in the sweetest little high-pitched voice, "They're finally done!"

That's about how I felt today:  a scant (?) two months after starting this great project, I've finally finished...and it's a really fantastic feeling.  I think I've grown a great deal as a homemaker; I've learned a lot about how to clean, how often to clean, and when cleaning can wait.  Yes, I ended up with a cleaner house, but I also feel like I ended up stronger, wiser, and more patient.  I think that's a pretty good set of results, considering I was armed with cleaning supplies and a broom for the past eight weeks and I STILL managed to keep my family fed, clothed, and entertained.

I think my next step is to come up with some sort of schedule for consistent cleaning, so that I don't end up with this kind of overwhelming and drawn-out task before me again (or at least, not in the near future), so I guess that means one more post.  Otherwise, friends, thanks for your attention and support for the past few weeks; it's been really fun!

Baby Boy's Room

I put off cleaning Baby Boy's room until almost the very end of my great endeavor.  I really did have a logical reason:  it's easiest for me to clean while kids are sleeping, and he sleeps the most often, but I can't clean while he's asleep in his room.  Basically, today I took advantage of a rare opportunity:  he was awake, but content to play alone in his infant bouncer; the girls were both asleep.  Also, it was pretty incredible to see that, once I finally got started, this may have been the lightest cleaning job I've had yet!

Action Plan:
1.  Clean light fixture and fan
2.  Clean windows and blinds
3.  Clean door frames
4.  Dust furniture
5.  Clean baseboards
6.  Vacuum floor

As I started at the top, I realized that Baby Boy's room was probably the cleanest in the house.  Why?  We painted it right before we moved him in there, which was a short six months ago (only I would call six months "short" in regards to cleaning).  Before we painted, we cleaned the entire room, so it was in pretty good shape.  I started, as I always do, by washing the light fixture globes and wiping down the fan blades (which I cleaned with ACV).

I moved from there to Windexing the only window in the room and cleaning out the window tracks.  Again, it was reasonably clean, which surprised me; I'm not an expert here, but it seems to me that the east/west facing windows have been significantly less dirty than the north/south facing ones.  Also, the windows that face the neighbors' house are cleaner, and this particular window fit both criteria.  There were no dog nose-prints, no dead spiders or frogs in the tracks, and even minimal outside dirt.  Another happy surprise was that the blinds didn't need cleaning at all; Mini-me used to be in that room, and had pulled down her blinds a few months before.  We bought new ones (more specifically, she did), and they have been closed and hidden behind light-blocking curtains ever since then.

The dirtiest place in the room ended up being the outside lower surface of the bedroom door.  Years' worth of grimy fingerprints had definitely taken their toll, and it took a cloth with ACV, followed by a Lysol wipe, followed by a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, to clean the door to my satisfaction.  After that chore, the dust that I wiped off the surface of the frame seemed like nothing.

Again, the furniture was relatively dust-free, and I am seeing a pattern in Baby Boy's room and the girls' room:  they have less surface area and less clutter ON the surface area, so there's less dust.  It was really quick to clean all his furniture -- like, less than five minutes. Hmm...maybe I should reduce display items in other areas of the house as well, if it's this easy to clean.  On second thought, that would mean doing yet another purge of my books, and I don't think I've got the stomach for it...

I finished up by quickly wiping down the baseboards, which, again, were much cleaner than other baseboards in the house have been.  I moved all the furniture to do a thorough vacuuming, used the hose attachment to get a few stubborn bugs in a corner, and was done with the entire project in less than an hour (about the time, incidentally, that Baby Boy decided he was tired of being alone and was ready for dinner).

Our Nest

Weeks after I cleaned out my closet and scoured our bathroom, I was finally ready to return to finished cleaning the master bedroom.  I mentioned before that this would probably be the case; I was much more likely to make the rest of the house presentable.  After all, no one sees our little nest but My Love and I.

Action Plan:
1.  Clean light fixture and fan blades
2.  Clean doors and door frames
3.  Clean windows
4.  Dust furniture
5.  Wipe down baseboards
6.  Vacuum floor

I had been a bit reluctant to clean the fan blades because our fan is directly over the bed; I assumed that when I cleaned the blades, showers of dust were going to fall on our comforter and be impossible to remove.  When I finally started the job, however, I was again pleasantly surprised at how reasonable the accumulated dust was.  I certainly hadn't cleaned it in the past month, but definitely within the past year.  A quick wipe with ACV and a trip through some soapy water for the bulbs, and the fixture was done.

When I started to clean the high areas of the room, like the tops of the door frames, Mini-me wandered in and asked to help.  Since I was cleaning with ACV, I let her get a washcloth and start wiping down the baseboards for me.  It wasn't a very thorough job, but it was certainly a start, and I appreciated that she wanted to be involved!

The door frames were no more or less dusty than I expected, but I again encountered dirty door surfaces.  At toddler-level I found crayon marks, fingerprints, scuffs, and discolored flecks.  After scrubbing at the particularly stubborn spots for a while, I reached for my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  Apparently, though, part of the way it works is to actually remove a tiny layer of the paint...or something.  Because I stopped scrubbing to discover several places where the stain was gone, but where I could also see the raw wood of the door peeking through the white paint.  Oops.  I put the scrubber away and hoped for the best when My Love came home; repainting is his department.

There was nothing more shocking in the windows than I found in any other part of the house; it's a little sad that it no longer surprises me to find a dead frog trapped between the panes of glass.  The blinds were particularly dusty, but my current cleaning technique seems to be to buy a new set, so there was nothing to do about them at the moment.

Mini-me had done an admirable job with the baseboards, but her commitment to the job lasted about ten minutes (pretty good for a four-year-old), and I had to finish up for her.

Why is it that I vacuum the bedroom less than any other room in the house?  Again, I suppose it's that no one knows except My Love and I.  But every time I DO vacuum, I an so enamored of the results that I vow to do it more often.  Maybe this time it will stick!

This room also had a special project, which has been in the works for over a week.  I wanted to do a thorough cleaning of our queen-sized bed.  I removed all the sheets, turned the mattress, sprayed it with a disinfectant (I still haven't tried the baking soda idea I found), washed all the sheets and the dust ruffle, and re-assembled.  I was stumped on our down comforter, though.  Apparently, they can be washed, but my washing machine was too small, and it seems like an all-day job that would take lots of quarters at a laundry mat.  So I decided to splurge and have the thing professionally cleaned...until I discovered it would cost $40!  At that point My Love assured me that the comforter was clean enough for his taste, so (after having no blanket on the bed for a week) I caved in and put it back on the bed.  Today, my mother brought me a comforter that she and my dad no longer use, and I'm looking forward to updating our bedroom with it.

I'm really enjoying how pleasant it is to have a clean, sweet-smelling bedroom (not that it usually stinks; it just SMELLS clean now!); I wonder how I can make it a priority for the future?

Counting my Blessings

I found myself "laboring" over a lengthy series of chores this past weekend.  I'm still short of having the entire house cleaned through once, but I have a never-ending list of things that I need to take care of on a daily basis:  laundry, cooking, dishes, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, cleaning bathrooms...etc.  Don't get me wrong; I'm taking a great deal of pride in the way the house looks now, and I am experiencing a greater level of confidence in my homemaking abilities.  It's just that I felt a little overwhelmed by the fact that these tasks are never going to end.

Then I remembered something I read a few weeks ago, suggesting a technique that will help us homemakers avoid thinking about our daily work as drudgery.  We should think of it, instead, as a blessing.

I had to clean TWO toilets.  How incredibly blessed I am that I have TWO toilets in my house!  There are millions of people in the world who have none.  There are millions more who have one, but not two.  And look at the products I have at my fingertips to keep the toilets sanitary and shining; I have no worries that my children are going to come into contact with some terrible disease because they used an unsanitary toilet.

I had to wash an entire sink full of dishes.  Wow, we have dishes!  How many people out there don't?  How many people in the world only wish that they had enough food to cook and serve on dishes in the first place?  How many more don't have the water to clean themselves or their plates with -- or, if they do have water, had to walk three miles to get it in a bucket?

I had to clean out two bathtubs and a stand-up shower. Suddenly, that seems like an extraordinary privilege more than it does a chore.  I take a bath -- every single day -- in clean, hot, running water.  I don't have to share my tub with anyone except my own family.

When I ran the vacuum, I thought about the comfort our rug brought the family and the convenience of electricity that allowed me to do so in the first place.  When I folded my kids' clothes, I considered how fortunate they were to have beautiful, comfortable, serviceable clothes (more than they will ever need) provided by people who love them dearly.  When I swept Cheerios off the kitchen floor, I thanked God that I had two arms and two legs and the strength and health to keep my house tidy.  As I did each task, I earnestly considered the many ways in which I had been blessed.

Here's the thing:  I have heard "count your blessings" all my life, and I have done it so many times when it comes to the people and things in my life (husband, kids, friends, home, job, etc.).  But I don't think that I have ever once honestly considered how even that which I think of as hard work or an undesirable chore is still evidence of the many, many gifts in my life.  It was the strangest thing to find myself grinning and close to tears as I scrubbed toilets and floors and folded burp cloths, but it was also the most joy I've ever gotten from housework.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice...right?

In the old nursery rhyme, little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.  Well, today I deep-cleaned the girls' room, and let me tell you...there was not a bit of any of that in sight.  What DID I find?  Spiders, snails, and puppy dog [hair].  I think the writer of the nursery rhyme was confused.

Action Plan:
1.  Clean light fixture
2.  Dust all surfaces
3.  Clean window
4.  Wipe down doors
5.  Clean baseboards
6.  Vacuum

First of all:  the light fixture was done immediately, so I had no excuse to say later that I forgot about it.

I dusted the room, and it seemed like it was more dusty than other parts of the house.  It also seems to be the warmest room in the house because of a large window, so I wonder whether that has something to do with the air conditioning unit's attempt to work in overdrive.

The window took more scrubbing than the ones in other rooms have.  The Best likes (liked?) to sit with her head propped on the window sill and her nose pressed to the glass, which meant a lot of dirt and smudges to deal with.  It was when I opened the window to clean the tracks, though, that I got my biggest surprise.  The girls' window sits just over our "garden" -- a small patch of mulched dirt with a few sago palms and flowers growing in it.  My theory is that the bugs, frogs, and grime I found in the window originated in the garden.  The window track was coated with some sort of green slime that probably came from the sprinkler.  I know that we have lots of little frogs around, especially in the summer; several met their ends stuck between the window glass and the screen of the girls' bedroom.  And, yes, there were dead spiders and a snail.  (I have no idea how the snail got there; however, I have seen one in the garden before, so my theory is that s/he somehow climbed the brick and entered in at a crevice.)

I pulled out a new tool when wiping down the doors today:  my Up & Up "magic eraser" from Target.  Those things are fantastic for removing fingerprints, pencil and crayon marks, and muddy streaks from both doors and walls.

Cleaning the baseboards was uneventful, but things got interesting again when it was time to vacuum.  Cuddles and Mini-me entered the room, and they both wanted to help me vacuum the floor.  There was almost a fight over it.  This is the documentation:  when they are teenagers and try to shirk their chores, I will remind them that there once was a day when they fought for the privilege of doing them!

Kamikaze Bugs

This morning I made a to-do list, and on it was the following item:  clean all light fixtures in the house.

I started out so well with my cleaning spree, but it's been easy to skip over the things that no one will notice, and light fixtures have been a challenge for me.  I don't know why; it's like I forget they are even there until I'm done cleaning and have put away my supplies and am tired.  Theoretically, I should tackle them first, but that just hasn't been happening.  So I had ended up with multiple rooms that were clean but contained light fixtures that were not  (laundry room, hallway, dining room, office, master bath part b, kitchen, and master closet).

At first, if you remember, I had worried about climbing up to reach the lights.  As it turns out, the only one I had any trouble with ended up being the one in the vaulted ceiling in the office, which My Love will have to take care of.  The rest were pretty straightforward and involved standing on a dining chair.  The girls wandered over to see what I was doing at one point, but didn't seem to have any desire to replicate my actions.

I cleaned all the fixtures with apple cider vinegar, and the entire process was quick, painless, and entirely uneventful.  Except...

I was appalled at the number of bugs I found cooked to the bottom surfaces of the enclosed bulbs I cleaned today!  Everything from flies to spiders to moths had found their ways inside the glass covers, and every one of them met a dramatic end.  I understand that moths aren't examples of the most intelligent of God's creatures, but is it really worth it to them to actively struggle to get inside a burning glass ball that's going to roast them alive?  (I literally had to scrub some of the insects and spiders from the glass with a textured sponge; they had been seared on by the lights' heat.)

My Love used to tease me about my loathing of spiders.  "Oh, but they're good, Honey.  They kill all the bugs that come inside!"  I retort that I don't WANT bugs inside -- which is why we pay for pest control -- and that spiders relinquish all right to life when they come inside my home.  With that knowledge, these bugs literally seem suicidal.  Life is grand in the great outdoors, but they risk their lives just to chase a bright spot of light that ultimately leads to their demise.

It works!

I said earlier that I would experiment with alternative uses for dryer sheets, among them cleaning soap scum from a shower door.  The results are in:  it works beautifully!  It took two dryer sheets to clean our shower door.  It does take a bit of elbow grease, but no more than it would take to scrub it with a bathroom cleaner and sponge.  Also, the technique only works if the door is dry; otherwise, the dryer sheets just get soggy.  Supposedly, dryer sheets also sort of coat the door's surface with something that keeps them clean a bit longer, so my next task is to see whether that one's true as well.

My apologies

If anyone other than immediate family has used our "guest" (front) bathroom within the past month...I owe you a sincere apology.

I had no idea there was a spider living behind the door, subsisting quite comfortably on the fat crop of bugs in his web.  (We're working on getting Mini-me to close the door when she uses the bathroom, so he'd had complete privacy for a while.)

It's news to me that, if you don't wash the storage bag for the bath toys, it will leave a soap scum silhouette on the bathtub wall.  (Duly noted; this is a new monthly chore!)

Who'd have guessed that Cuddles enjoys chewing on toothbrushes, and that there were three half-digested toothbrushes stored under the sink on top of the stack of fresh towels?  (In the future, they will be stored in a secure location.)

In short...this bathroom needed a lot of attention, and it finally got it tonight after the kiddos went to sleep.

Action Plan:
1.  Clean light fixture
2.  Clean mirror
3.  Clean sink
4.  Clean toilet
5.  Clean tub
6.  Wash all bath toys, rugs, and towels
7.  Wipe down baseboards and mop floor

The light fixture was the same kind as the one in the master bath, but smaller, so I made short work of that.  After cleaning and re-installing the bulbs and shining the mirror behind them, the light in the bathroom was almost blinding.  The bathroom is painted bright orange -- the kids love it! -- and it was sort of like working in a giant highlighter.

Cleaning the sink was no special chore, but I did take a moment to marvel at the amount of pink toothpaste two small girls can manage to affix to a bathroom sink.

It was when I started tackling the toilet that I noticed the full extent of the bathroom's need for attention.  The toilet itself wasn't bad; I take pride in cleaning out the bowl and the surface about once a week.  However, the floor around it was in rough shape.  Here's the thing:  the wasted space in the master bath seems to have appeared at the cost of space in the front bath, and it's a tight little room.  There's not really room to mop or sweep, so...I just let it go.  I'll be brutally honest when I say I can't remember the last time I mopped this bathroom.  On the floor and in the corners around the toilet were dust, dog hair, toothpaste drops, dead bugs, tiny rubber bands, toddler hair, sand...the list goes on.  Honestly, I was so appalled at my lack of effort in keeping the floor at least moderately clean that I scrubbed it with renewed vigor on my hands and knees.  I made three passes:  once with ammonia while cleaning the toilet, once with apple cider vinegar, and once with a Lysol wipe for good measure.  By golly, that floor sparkled when I was done with it!

I took a break from the floor to address the bathtub.  It wasn't horrendously dirty, but it's easy to skip cleaning the tub:  if company's coming, I just pull the curtain and save it for later.  That said, the scrubbing bubbles did their job well, and after a quick wipe-down (and removal of all toys for a run through the dishwasher) I felt content with my results.

On that note, though, I have a verdict on the scrubbing bubbles:  they work, and I'll finish using the can, but I doubt I'll buy any more.  After yet another evening enduring a headache caused by the fumes from cleaning, I don't think it's worth it, and I do feel a bit "safer" breathing in vinegar rather than unidentified chemical fumes.

My last task was to wipe out the crevices above and on the door, just as I have in the rest of the house.  It was while I was doing that, though, that I happened to glance down and notice the fingerprints and smudges at the three-foot mark.  Thinking back to yesterday's experience in the laundry room, I guess I've learned yet another lesson:  to get the house really, really clean I need to examine it from the level of a four-year-old.  When I knelt down to clean the smudges, I noticed a pretty consistent ring of them around the hallway, which also happens to be one of very few unpainted areas in the house.  Another item to add to My Love's to-do list?  Or maybe a "vacation" while the kids stay with their grandparents and we spent the weekend painting.  It sounds romantic...

Master Bath: Part B

In addition to having a particularly large bathroom and being exposed to heavy chemical smells, I recognized another reason cleaning this room is taking so long:  since it's in a far-removed part of the house, I can't clean and watch/entertain my kids at the same time.  Yesterday (and today) I spent lots of time cleaning part of something, then checking on the kids, then running back to finish.  I also did the bulk of my cleaning while Baby Boy was sleeping, since I don't like to leave him in a room alone with his well-meaning but rough-loving sisters for more than a moment at a time.

Day 2 Action Plan:

1.  Clean shower

2.  Clean garden tub

3.  Clean door

4.  File loose papers 

5.  Sweep and mop and clean baseboards

Our shower has been a source of frustration for me ever since we moved into this house.  Seriously...when we first looked at it a few years ago, I told My Love that I hated the back yard (which has a steep incline and is therefore nearly unusable as a back yard) and that I hated the stand-up shower.  The price was right, though, so we figured that the two areas I disliked could be amended later.  As it turns out, those fixes are costly and time-consuming, and it's been much easier to simply live with things the way they are.  But I digress.

This shower...it's small.  It's not a luxury stand-up shower, with a seat.  It barely leaves room for me to shave my legs.  It's just the right size for ONE person.  There is no shelf space for shampoos, shaving creams, soaps, gels, and all the other things women store in their shower.  And on top of that, it's very difficult to clean.  You basically have to assume that you WILL get wet while leaning across the water stream to reach the far wall, so I've found that a sound technique is to clean the shower immediately before I plan to get in it.  Today, this meant cleaning it at 6:00 in the morning after returning from my a.m. run.  I doused it with the scrubbing bubble spray and left to have a glass of water.  When I returned ten minutes later, I was able to simply wipe down the majority of the unsightly gunk that had accumulated.  Really, I am consistently amazed by how dirty a shower can get when its entire purpose is to clean someone.  Between the dirt that washes off after My Love mows the lawn (which sticks to the floor), my hair clogging the drain (it's coming out in wads postpartum), soap scum (which is strange in and of itself), and dust along the top edges, our shower always seems dirty.  After I scrub it, I always want to scrub myself!  Today, though, the scrubbing bubbles did the job quickly, except that I had to go over some particularly tough soap scum a second time.  I also heard that you can use a dryer sheet to get soap scum off of shower doors, but I forgot to try it this time until after the cleaning was done.  Next time I'll give it a shot.

Next came the huge garden tub.  It's nice for a bubble bath, but I don't have the time for that very often.  I cleaned this with my scrubbing bubble cleaner too, and I learned a hard lesson:  it has bleach in it.  In order to reach the back side of the tub, I had to sit on the front side...and, apparently, the scrubbing bubbles hadn't been completely removed when I did.  I ended up with a few little white polka dots on my lavender (yep, you read that right) shorts.  (I think I can salvage them; apparently you can paint with bleach and make it look like you meant for that to happen.  I may try it in all my spare time.)  The biggest issue I had with cleaning the tub, though, is that when My Love painted the bathroom a few years ago, he left lots of tiny (pin-head-sized) flecks of paint on the tub.  It always looks dirty now, but I can't figure out a way to get them off.  Then again, I haven't tried mineral spirits...that is sort of out of my league, and we don't have any in the house.

We store our file cabinet in this random corner of our oversized bathroom that's not good for anything else.  It's a closet-sized nook in the bathroom behind the door, and it's got a small window in it.  Basically, that means that it's always either ten degrees hotter or colder than the rest of the room.  Because it's out of the way, it has been a convenient place to store my Sam's Club purchases (36-roll package of toilet paper, anyone?) and the file cabinet.  But...since no one sees the file cabinet, it's been easy to just pile papers on top of it until I feel like filing.  And the last time I felt like it was back before David was born.  So I took a break from the heady fragrance of the bathroom and sorted all my papers to file on the bed, then found them a permanent home.  Again, the visible lack of clutter and sense of order gave me a big boost that allowed me to keep on with my cleaning.

And finally...the floor.  One more set of baseboards gone over with a Lysol wipe; one more application of my fantastic Libman broom and mop, paired with ACV.  (I've got this down to an art.)  After two days of effort, the master bathroom smelled, looked, and felt cleaner than it has in months!

My Favorite Things

Remember when I said I was excited to go and buy a new broom?  I'm definitely one of those people who eagerly anticipates a change or upgrade to my daily routine, and a better broom fits into that category.  When I first started cleaning, I surveyed my cache of cleaning products with a bit of dissatisfaction.  I had a mop and broom that I had bought as cheaply as possible when we moved into the house, as well as a shelf full of mostly-empty bottles of cleaning products.  After a quick trip through Target, I am armed with an assortment of goodies that have helped me in my project these past few weeks.  Some of them are particularly great and warrant my valuable endorsement.

Libman Wonder Mop:  For years, I've used one of those large sponges on the end of a stick.  It didn't really fit into my mop bucket, was messy to wring, and always seemed to just smear the dirt around the floor.  My new version is fantastic; it has a handle that allows me to wring it without getting wet hands (and it was simple enough for Mini-me to use, actually).  It looks like an orange octopus that spreads out when it hits the floor, rather than simply rubbing in a single spot.  Also, the head is detachable and washable...genuis!  Cost:  about $10

Libman Large Precision Angle Broom:  My old broom was in sad shape and sported a family of dust bunnies living in its bent and stretched bristles.  The handle had also broken, and left me bending to reach the floor as I swept because I was too cheap to buy a new one.  Since I was buying a Libman mop, I figured I'd go all out and buy a Libman broom too.  I love it (as much as one can love a broom).  The bristles are stiff enough to sweep even tiny dirt particles off the floor, and the dust pan is angled so that they actually sweep into it, rather than getting trapped in a line as I sweep.  One side is angled, so I've been able to sweep easily under my cabinets and between the cabinets and refrigerator.  Cost:  about $10

Pledge:  I know that there are other dusting products, but this was a mainstay in my house when I was growing up, and I love the lemony scent and the way it makes my furniture shine.  Also, Pledge actually traps dust that I wipe, rather than simply allowing it to float around in the air.  Cost:  about $3

Lysol Wipes:  Is there anything that these wipes can't do?  I like that they are simple, portable, and not messy.  Since they are smaller than a cleaning cloth, they can also easily get into small nooks and crannies, like the corner of my vanity or the tiny ledges of cabinet doors.  Pair with a toothpick, and there's nowhere for dirt to hide!  Cost:  about $4

Apple cider vinegar:  I was iffy about using vinegar as a cleaning product, because I wasn't sure if it did any more than make surfaces look clean.  After some research, it appears that a 5% vinegar solution does, in fact, kill bacteria and mold.  That said, I prefer the smell of apple cider vinegar to basic white vinegar.  I have diluted it with water, then used it to clean anything that Pledge, Windex, or a Lysol wipe won't work for:  floors, door frames, window sills.  Cost:  about $3

Scott kitchen sponges:  My favorite sponges for washing dishes and cleaning countertops are the kind that are yellow and absorbent on one side and green and abrasive on the other.  They work well for caked-on food, and the same can be said for sticky spots on the floor or grime atop a kitchen cabinet.  Cost: about $3 for 2

Paper Towels:  I think I've used an entire roll since I started my endeavor on cleaning alone (not including standard kitchen messes).  Though I prefer to use a washable cloth when I can, these seem to work well for cleaning glass and windows.  That said, I have absolutely zero brand loyalty to paper towels.  Do some brands work better than other?  Absolutely; I especially like Bounty Select-a-Size.  However, paper towels are one of those items that can break a week's grocery budget, so I have set the rule that I will not pay more than $1 per roll for them.  There are times I can get Bounty for that much, with a sale and a coupon; if not, the Wal-Mart store brand is good enough for me.  Cost:  $1

Gerber flat cloth diapers:  I had several of these laying around from when Mini-me was an infant and I was experimenting with using them as burp cloths.  As it turns out, they are soft and absorbent and perfect for cleaning.  I've used them for even delicate surfaces, including our TV screen and the exposed light bulbs over our bathroom counter.  I have some old washcloths and towels too, but the diapers are hands-down my favorite cleaning rag.  Cost: about $8 for a dozen

I definitely have used an assortment of other products as well; however, they aren't as consistently used and don't exactly wow me.  I'd say that this is the list I can't live without!

Busy...busy...shockingly busy

It's now been 17 days -- over two weeks -- since I decided I'd start spring cleaning my home.  Just that statement alone really discourages me.  More than two weeks to clean a house?  What kind of person can't manage to clean a house in less than two weeks?  When I began, I envisioned one "quadrant" per day, resting on Sundays, which would mean that the entire house should take, tops, 14 days to complete.  I thought that was completely doable.

But it's obviously not.  I feel like I simply forgot a great many considerations.  Among them, that three kids aren't going to sit placidly around while I clean the house; I've been busy taking them to the park and to doctor and dentist appointments, fixing meals, grocery shopping, and changing diapers.  Add to that the fact that housekeeping isn't my only job; I work part-time in the evenings, and that means I'm gone after the kids are asleep (prime cleaning time).

And finally...I forgot household maintenance.  It was nice to clean my kitchen, step back, and smile happily at the pristine order I had created.  That cleanliness, though, lasted just over 24 hours, and that rule applies to every other room as well.  I find myself doing repetitive chores, like sweeping the floor, vacuuming, doing laundry, and wiping the table, on an almost daily basis.  The more of the house I GET clean, the more of the house I have to KEEP clean.  I have a choice; I can either maintain, or I can allow it to sink back into disarray and then start all over again.  I haven't yet decided which is the better option.  What I have realized is that it's completely impractical to assume that I can deep-clean one room in my house every day.  When I add maintenance to the mix, I think I can realistically plan on two to three rooms a week (and this week I didn't even get that).

The good news:  all you faithful readers (I think there are two of you) get to enjoy the exciting saga of my housekeeping failures and victories for at least two more weeks.  (Still to come:  the girls' room, Baby Boy's room, the front bathroom, the laundry room, the master bath, and the master bedroom.)

The bad news:  I don't think there's any point in getting a manicure anytime in the foreseeable future.

Mount Vernon

I would estimate that I have cleaned somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the house in the past two weeks.  I had thought that the methods and schedules I was implementing were designed especially by me, for me, but I discovered today that I'm not nearly as creative as I thought I was.

Basically, I started cleaning at the back of the house; specifically, next to our back door.  I have worked in a circle since then, tackling one "section" of the house each day. The sections have always been adjacent, with the exception of the detour to my closet, and they have me working consistently farther from the back door and closer to the front door.  Today, though, I found out that this particular style of cleaning has a name:  the Mount Vernon method.

In Lynn Bowen Walker's book, which I wrote about in my last post, she says that the Mount Vernon style of cleaning was so named because it is the way that George Washington's staff kept that enormous house clean.  To "Mount Vernon-ize" a house, you start cleaning on one side of the front door and you work around the perimeter of the house, cleaning and de-cluttering as you go, until you have been through every room and you arrive back at the front door.  (Then, you do it all over again...but more on that later.)

I'm going to assume that I'm doing a "reverse Mount Vernon".  I started by the back door, not the front, because the back of the house -- the kitchen, breakfast area, and living room -- seemed the dirtiest and were the most often used.  Otherwise, the practice is working well, and I can understand why it worked for a large house a long time ago (although I am a bit miffed that I'm not quite as creative in my methods as I thought I was).

The thing that most caught my attention, though, was the fact that the Mount Vernon method is repetitive. In other words, the trip throughout the house along the perimeter isn't going to be accomplished in one day, and, even if it was, it's never ending.  I think I got so caught up in the excitement of a sparkling-clean house that I viewed it as a project with a beginning and ending date.  As I work, I recognize that I should consider this more of a permanent change and ongoing effort.

Less clutter=less dust

Today I tackled the second half of our large, open "living room", the part which officially is the office/play room/dining room area.  I had a few things going for me:  first, since this part of the house is used consistently, it's also consistently cleaned.  Second, the girls are largely responsible for keeping their portion clean, so I had very little clutter to deal with.  Going into it, I assumed that this part of the house would be much cleaner than the rest has been so far.  At the very least, I assumed I wouldn't have any significantly dirty parts to deal with.

Action Plan:
1.  Clean light fixture
2.  Remove items from each shelf of eight-foot bookcase and dust
3.  Clean window, valance, and blinds
4.  Dust computer desk and office shelves
5.  Dust china cabinet and buffet server
6.  Wipe down floor boards and vacuum

Right away, I ran into a pretty major road block.  In every room I've approached so far, I've moved from the highest point down.  In this case, the highest point was a light fixture in our vaulted ceiling that I estimate to be about 12 feet off the ground.  We have a step ladder, but it's only eight feet tall, and I was (understandably) afraid to climb that high without another adult to spot me or call 911 if I fell and fractured something.  So I skipped the light fixture outright and moved on to the book case.

Our book shelf is one of my favorite pieces of furniture, largely because My Love built it himself.  It's eight feet tall and eight feet wide, and it's been crammed with books, Bibles, office supplies, and toys in alternating proportions for the duration of our residence in the house.  When I considered removing everything from it to dust, it was a daunting task, but I began it with my trusty can of Pledge and a cleaning rag.  The lower shelves, as it turned out, were the cleanest.  I suppose I'm more aware of dust and debris in the areas which the children can reach, though I did have to scrub away a few dingy fingerprints along the floor.  My surprise came as I dusted the top of the bookcase, which has not been cleaned or seen since I first arranged a row of knick-knacks up there the day the book case was finished.  Though nowhere as disgusting as the grime atop the kitchen cabinets, I was shocked at the amount of dust that could accumulate on a surface over time.  It took -- wait for it -- FOUR cleaning rags to remove all the dust; each of them turned grey with use before I pulled another from the closet.  Essentially, I notice that surfaces that no one sees on a daily basis are consistently the dirtiest.  Also, I revisited a lesson from my kitchen cleaning experience:  the fewer things there are to collect dust, the easier they are to clean.  However, the book case doesn't boast dusty wine bottles that I can nonchalantly toss into the garbage.  Instead, every whatchamacallit on the shelves has some sort of sentimental value:  the alpaca will teddy bear from Ecuador; the samurai swords my father bought on a trip to Japan; the Winnie the Pooh figurine hand-painted by an old friend.  I simply resigned myself to wipe down every surface more often and accept that it will repeatedly get dirty (kind of like my kitchen floor).

Cleaning the single window seemed like a breeze; I've done five now, and this one was small.  However, I still haven't figured out how to clean the blinds or remove the screens from outside.  I think I'm going to need to devote a Saturday afternoon to scrubbing windows and screens from the outside.  (Right now, the windows don't look clean because of the outdoor smudges.)

I have heard that you're supposed to use a particular kind of cleaning product and cleaning wipe for electronics, but I don't have one around the house, and I assumed that a tiny amount of water on a slightly-damp soft cloth couldn't hurt anything.  I wiped off our computer tower, monitor, and keyboard.  The dust between individual keys was giving me fits; I think I've seen some kind of telemarketing commercial for a product that blows dust off a keyboard, and it must be the only thing that works, because a cloth just didn't cut it.  I hated to do it, but I left the computer and computer desk only about 99% clean and added "computer keyboard" to my mental list of failed projects that I'll need to re-evaluate at a later date.

All the furniture in our dining room is wood, though it doesn't match; this is also the least-decorated room in the house.  There's one photo of the girls in a large frame, and we also have an antique plate from my grandfather on a stand atop the china cabinet.  That's literally it.  Any guesses on how long it took to clean this quadrant of the room?  Only about 15 minutes, but I do need to go back and clean the light fixture.  It's a hanging one, so I can reach it, but it had been on all morning and was too hot to touch.  I turned it off after dusting the rest of the room, assuming I'd let it cool and then come back to it, but it completely slipped my mind until I sat down to write this post.

I approached the base boards with Lysol wipes (I had to buy a new can over the weekend!), which seems to be the most effective way.  Unlike in the kitchen, I didn't go back over them with a dryer sheet.  I'm going to assume that there is less dust and dog hair blowing around the carpeted area than on the tile.  And...a quick run with the vacuum cleaner, and I was done!

This portion of the house seemed to go by really quickly.  Honestly, it was simple, to, but I didn't "feel" like it was clean when I was done.  I'm not sure whether it was because I skipped a few areas, such as the light fixtures, or because it wasn't as dirty in the first place (which means there wasn't a huge change to notice).  Regardless, I can now say that the common areas in the house are acceptably clean, and that makes me feel like I've accomplished a great deal.

Company's coming!

When I became a stay-at-home mom, I learned quickly that it can be a lonely and boring job.  Yes, I'm around my children all day, every day, but I was lacking adult conversation and encouragement that I was doing anything right.  Over the last few months, it's been a pleasure for me to build up acquaintances with my fellow local mothers, and these wonderful ladies have helped me fill the gaps in my sanity.

Today, our local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group had scheduled an outdoor play date at a local park.  The weather, however, was being completely uncooperative.  We had storms all night and morning, leaving the playground saturated and the equipment too slick for play.  On a whim, I offered to have all the moms and kids over to my house so that we wouldn't have to cancel the play date.

There was a flurry of text messages, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had a scant 30 minutes to make my house appear clean and inviting.  I felt a familiar panicked sensation, recognizing quickly that I wouldn't have time to clean everything before our company arrived, and I regretted having made the offer in the first place.

But then...I actually made a pass through my house.  And, wonder of wonders, it actually looked moderately clean!  The past week's work had paid off.  I quickly swept the kitchen and had the girls put away a few toys.  I put a new roll of toilet paper in the front bathroom and took out the garbage.  I turned on some music.  Suddenly, the house looked appealing and fresh, rather than dingy and cluttered.

I read somewhere, probably in this book, which I'm currently reading, that it's easier to keep the house moderately clean all the time so that you can be hospitable whenever the time comes than it is to have a cleaning frenzy before a big event.  I had initially scoffed at the idea; the author had obviously never had three children under the age of five and a large dog all at the same time.  I think, though, that today was proof of how well that advice really works.  When the house doesn't feel like a disaster, I'm much more likely to invite over company.  At the moment, that company might be for me just as easily as for my kids, but I want the kids to feel comfortable inviting their friends from school or soccer team over to the house for snacks or a study group when that time comes.  I want them to be proud of their home, not ashamed of it.  In that regard, I think a little vigorous spring cleaning once a year followed by consistent daily upkeep will be completely worth it.

Living room

Day 3:  The Living Room

Our house has what's called an open floor plan.  I'm not entirely sure what that means in architectural terms, but it appears to mean that the common areas -- living room, dining room, and kitchen -- are all basically segments of a single, large room.  It makes our house look bigger, but it also made decorating a bit of a pain.  It also means that my first few days' effort at cleaning the largest part of our house required me to tackle a different portion of the same room each day.

The living room is longer than it is wide, so we have partitioned it off with a couch and a book case.  One side is considered the actual living room, and the other side is our office/play area.  Today, I tackled the living room itself.

Here's the action plan:

1.  Take down and wash curtains

2.  Attempt to clean the blinds AGAIN

3.  Wash insides of windows and window tracks

4.  Clean fan and light fixture

5.  Clean fireplace

6.  Dust all furniture

7.  Vacuum floor

8.  Steam clean carpet

After cleaning the breakfast nook on my first day of work, I knew what to expect with the windows.  When I removed the curtains, I encountered dust and cobwebs.  That didn't particularly please me, but I also wasn't surprised.  A quick trip through the washing machine ended up taking care of the curtains, but I still have yet to find a successful way to clean the blinds.  I earnestly tried to wipe each individual blind piece down with a cloth, but they still didn't come clean.  My Love says that this size blinds cost $5.95 at Lowe's; there may be a few new sets in our future.

Cleaning the fan and lights was an uneventful task except that I was unable to hide the fact that I was climbing something from the kids.  Mini-me stood at the base of the chair and kept up a running dialogue: "Mama, what are you doing?"

"I'm cleaning, sweetie."

"What are you cleaning?"

"I'm cleaning the lights and the fan."

"Oh...how did they get dirty?"

"They just did.  They got dusty, and I need to get the dust off."

"Oh...can I help?"

"No, honey, you're too short."

"But I can climb up on a chair like you and reach them."

"Sweetie, you'd need a bigger chair than this one to be able to reach the lights."

"Well, you could go buy me one."

Eventually, I set she and Cuddles down at the dining room table with some play dough that they had found in an Easter egg hunt at their grandparents' house over the weekend.  They were content to make "crackers", "pancakes", and "pretzels" for the next half hour (at which point, obviously, it was time for lunch).

The "most dirty place in the room" award goes to our fireplace.  I found that incredibly interesting, since it hasn't been used since we moved into the house over four years ago.  It doesn't really get cold enough to need fires around here, and we also don't want to worry with cleaning up ashes or keeping little fingers out of the grate.  I figured I might find some dust in the fireplace, but no real dirt.  Oh, was I wrong!   To begin, I removed a decorative candle stand that we keep in there to keep it from looking stark.  The top few coils were laced with spider webs covered in dust.  As a side note, I abhor spiders.  They make me scream and run the other direction.  I almost stopped cleaning right then, but the fact that the webs were dusty led me to believe that the spider had likely already met his or her demise.  I was correct; I later discovered his/her body underneath a candle that had been lit at Valentine's Day.  As to the task at hand:  I wiped down the candle stand with ACV, which was equally effective at removing dust, spider webs, and ash.  I then wiped down the inside of the fireplace itself.  To my surprise, our flue was open (and I have no idea how it got that way).  I closed the flue, and when I did, a shower of ash fell into the fireplace.  It was actually quite a chore to wipe it all out; when ash gets wet, it simply makes gray and black streaks, so I went through multiple cleaning rags and bowls of ACV in order to get it clean.  My last fireplace task was to dust our screen.  This proved to be the most difficult thing I've done yet other than cleaning the blinds.  Dust particles clung to the mesh screen when I wiped them with the ACV.  I ended up brushing the screen vigorously ("Mama, why are you hitting that?") to dislodge the dust.  That just made the dust float in the air, but I was hoping that whatever surface it landed on would be easier to clean.

A quick pass over the furniture with Pledge and a rag, and I was ready to vacuum.  Yes, again...the Beast had left a trail of dog food crumbs from her bowl to the couch, and the floor looked just as dirty as it had before I vacuumed yesterday.  There was no help from the kids today, as they were busy with peanut-butter-and-local-honey sandwiches (which they would rather than than just about anything else I could make).  And then I paused; in a strange twist of events, steam cleaning the carpets has become My Love's job.  (The one time I tried I left puddles in the carpet.)

It was really pleasant for me to discover that most of the house isn't going to be as dirty as the kitchen was; dusting and vacuuming are chores I actually keep up with pretty consistently, and I'm hopping it will pay off as I work toward having the entire house cleaned at one time.

Epic Fail

I mentioned a few days ago that I was trying to clean my breakfast nook blinds and failed pretty badly.  Actually, since then I've tried to clean five different sets of blinds, and I have yet to find an effective method.  However, to paraphrase Thomas Edison, I haven't failed; I just discovered several different ways that are NOT useful for cleaning blinds.

Method A:  The Cheater
My first attempt involved as little work on my part as possible.  I was dusting every other surface in the house with a rag and some Pledge; why not the blinds?  This didn't work, though.  The dust clung stubbornly to the blinds, rather than wiping easily away like it does on a tabletop.  I couldn't effectively scrub, because the blinds moved back and forth.  I called it quits on this one after about five minutes of work.

Method B:  The Sock Puppet
The next thing I tried came from here.  It recommended using an old, large sock to cover my hand, then dunking the sock into a water and vinegar mixture.  Theoretically, I could run my hand over each individual blind and the dust would stick to it.  Apparently I have some particularly stubborn dust at my house, though, because all this effort did was create a muddy look on the blinds themselves.  When I tried to rinse the sock in the ACV, the dust just stuck to it, and I felt like I was simply putting dust back on the blinds.  I cleaned most of the blinds this way, but they looked so visibly dirty that I had to assume that this method was a failure.

Method C:  The Splish Splash
Further searching revealed a series of websites like this one that recommended placing the blinds in a bathtub with warm water and dish soap.  I tried the breakfast nook blinds in the tub, but they were too long to fit, so I can't, in good conscience, count that as an attempt.  However, I DID put our living room blinds in the tub to give the method an honest effort.  I let the blinds sit in the bathtub for about then minutes, then started separating the pieces and swishing them through the water with my hands.  The site above recommended wearing gloves, but I didn't have any, so I skipped it.  I now understand why they are essential.  The mini blinds' edges are just barely sharp enough to cut fingers.  It's only about as bad as a paper cut, but I do have about ten tiny cuts on both my hands.  Now, this technique did get more dust and dirt off the blinds than any of the others have so far; the tub had noticeable dirt in the bottom when I was done.  However, when I re-hung the blinds, they actually looked far worse than before.  The dirt that remained had just rearranged itself and caked together, making muddy-looking streaks.

Method D:  The Old School
At this point, I was starting to assume that it would be easier to throw the blinds away and buy new ones than to actually keep trying to clean them, but I wanted to at least try to finish the job I'd started.  I got a roll of paper towels and set about wiping away all the excess water from the still-damp blinds, hoping to get off the dirt as I went.  (And I got a lot of dirt.)  However, when I stepped away and looked at the big picture, the blinds were STILL dirty.  I then grabbed my handy-dandy Lysol wipes and started wiping each individual piece off with it.  This method might have been effective, if I hadn't spent 15 minutes cleaning one set and gotten discouraged at the lack of pay-off for the amount of labor.  (It would also be expensive; Lysol wipes are probably the most expensive cleaning item I'm using.)

Method E:  The Big Guns
By now I was really frustrated, to the point that I was seriously considering tearing down each set of mini blinds in the house and throwing them away.  Then I remembered that I had stumbled across another site that recommended what I thought at the time was an overly-involved and time-consuming method.  Basically, it suggests hanging a set of blinds outside between two ladders and cleaning them, by hand, a little at a time with a spray bottle of cleaning solution (or ACV?) and a hose.  We don't have two ladders, and I certainly don't have the time or space to take the blinds out in the driveway and clean them while corralling my kids, but it's starting to appear that this may be the only remaining option.  (Except that I have read on another website that there are professional blind-cleaning companies.  I wonder if they're worth it?)

The Meaning of "Grime"

Day 2:  The Kitchen

I was really inspired by how much better the house looked and I felt after Day 1, so I actually got up early this morning eager to clean.  (How long will THAT last?)  I attacked the kitchen with gusto.  Here was the kitchen action plan:

1.  Remove decor from above cabinets, purge as necessary, clean as needed, and wipe cabinet tops

2.  Wipe down all cabinet doors

3.  Go through cabinets for dishes that can be given to Goodwill

4.  Clean microwave

5.  Clean oven

6.  Clean kitchen counter and all appliances on it

7.  Clean refrigerator

8.  Scrub sink

9.  Clean garbage can

10.  Wipe down floorboards and mop

Some of the best advice I found on house cleaning during my "spring cleaning" run on Pinterest was to start from the top and work my way down.  That way, any dirt I remove from a high location doesn't muss an already-clean low location.  The highest point in our kitchen is the 12-inch gap between our top cabinets and the ceiling, so I started there.

The majority of the "decor" (another of those words that sounds much too glamorous for what we actually have) was empty wine bottles from years and years ago.  I thought they were sophisticated.  As it turns out, they were just dusty, as was everything else up there (a giraffe-shaped cookie jar, some bright red candles, and a decorative olive oil bottle).  I don't mean just "dust" either.  If you're imagining something that you could brush away with a feather duster, you're in the wrong time zone.  This stuff is now officially what I will think of when I hear the word "grime".  It's basically dust that was glued down to all available surfaces with the residue of everything I've cooked on the stovetop for the last four years.  I had to scrub so vigorously to get it off that I quickly decided that the effort was only worthwhile for the decorative items I really wanted to keep.  That means that all the old, empty wine bottles went into the garbage can, and we now have a much more streamlined look in our kitchen.

The grime was also caked on top of the cabinets themselves.  In theory, a little elbow grease would have been enough to remove the stuff, but in practice, it turns out that I'm a very awkward height.  Our stepladder put me too far away from the countertop to reach the cabinets.  I then tried a chair, but could barely see past the lip at the cabinets' edge.  Finally -- since the kids were entertained with "Jake and the Neverland Pirates", I just stood on top of the counter itself.  I could now reach, but I'm so tall that I couldn't stand upright.  I spent about thirty minutes with my head inclined about twenty degrees to the left and my arm lifted up just over shoulder level, scrubbing at this caked-on dust with all my might.  (On a side note, Lose It! says that an hour of housework burns 154 calories!)  I used a bowl of my trusty apple cider vinegar (ACV) mixed with water, then finished up with a Lysol wipe.  When I was done, I was sore and sweaty, but, by golly, my cabinet tops (which no one ever sees) were clean.

The rest of the morning was uneventful. I used ACV to wipe off every surface in the kitchen.  At one point, Mini-me announced that she wanted to help, and I discovered another advantage of the vinegar:  I could give her a rag dipped in the stuff and not worry about its toxicity.  I had her wipe down the lower cabinets and the dishwasher, and she did a good job, for a four-year-old.  I went behind her with a Lysol wipe on the end of a toothpick to get into the crevices where the cabinets jut out a bit to be decorative.  I think anybody would be surprised at how much dust collects on that tiny surface!

Cleaning the oven is likely going to be a future source of experimentation for me.  I have a self-cleaning oven, so last night I turned it on while we slept.  Apparently (after the fact), you're supposed to open windows and make sure children and small animals aren't around the oven while it's cleaning.  Oops.  Also, though the self-cleaning part cleaned the majority of the oven, there were caked-on bits on the oven door that didn't come off even after a vigorous scrubbing.  So I checked out this website, which recommended sprinkling the inside of the oven with baking soda and vinegar.  I tried that and found that the mixture made a satisfying sizzling noise and bubbled as though it was doing something; however, it didn't touch the gunk.  I got frustrated, closed the oven, and decided to come back to it later.  The next day, though, when I opened the oven to cook dinner, the gunk was completely gone, as if it had eroded away.  (Further examination of the website revealed that I was supposed to let the baking soda and vinegar sit overnight.)  I just wiped out a few little white streaks and was done.

In part two of my "nastiest place in the room" series, I'd like to call your attention to the area underneath the pull-out drawer beneath your oven.  I assumed that since it was under the oven, it couldn't be TOO dirty, but in that I was about as correct as assuming that the area under a booster seat couldn't get dirty. This place was filthy.  My one consolation was that it was an isolated area that no one sees or touches.  There was more of the grime down there, plus some dust bunnies, crumbs, dead bugs, and a few lost Goldfish and Cheerios (we eat a lot of those around here).  Again, I wiped and then scrubbed it with ACV, followed by a Lysol wipe.

The refrigerator took a surprisingly long time to clean because I removed every jar and bottle and wiped each of them down as well.  I also cleaned the shelves and drawers in the sink.  However, it was also one of the most satisfying things I've cleaned yet, because I saw immediate results.  It also seems to be lasting a bit longer than the other, more high-kid-traffic areas I've targeted.  My nice, clean floor, for example, is dirty already, and I'm about to head off to do my daily sweeping.

So far, I'm pretty happy with my apple cider vinegar, which is also cheaper than most cleaning products and seems safe to use on just about any surface; however, in really icky places, I've been chasing it with a Lysol wipe (which I need to buy more of).  The baking soda also worked so well on the oven that I may experiment with using household products to clean other areas of the house.

Lessons Learned: Breakfast Nook

I think the biggest lesson I learned from cleaning this particular portion of my house is that I DO, most likely, need to sweep every day.  I also need to clean up small messes -- table crumbs, for example -- immediately after they happen.  Very often I get busy and forget.  Other times (I'm almost ashamed to say), I intentionally leave the floor and table alone because I know they will just get dirtier, so I wait for an appropriate level of dirt before cleaning.  I don't want a clean floor to turn into an obsession; I honestly don't think I can keep it clean for more than a few hours (which is how long nap time lasts).  But I don't want to deal with "gross" again, either.

As far as windows, I probably need to clean the inside and outside once every two to three months.  I saw a recommendation for twice a year somewhere online, but the weather is pleasant for so long around here that we have them open often, and I don't want dirt, bugs, and dead frogs working their way onto my floors.  

Now I just need to figure out the screens and blinds and add them to some sort of rotating schedule as well.

Can you get carpal tunnel syndrome from overuse of a sponge?

Day 1: Eat-in kitchen

To say that our house has a "breakfast nook" makes it seem much larger and more sophisticated than it really is. When I think of a breakfast nook, I imagine a gazebo-like outcropping of a fifty-year-old home, likely with a window seat, looking out into an immaculate backyard flower garden. Our home is not fifty years old and has no gazebo, window seat, or flower garden. What we DO have is a large kitchen with a bar across the middle of it. On the far side of the bar we have our everyday table and chairs (for my husband, my girls, and myself) and a well-used high chair (for Baby Boy).

I hope I'm not alone in saying that this particular portion of our home is always dirty. Always. Almost without exception. I could sweep it every day (at times I have, actually) and still find unidentifiable crumbs on the floor a short hour later. The sides of the table where the girls sit are sort of permanently encrusted with a combination of peanut butter, pancake syrup, and goldfish crumbs. The Beast does her part at cleaning up large table scraps, but her attentions can't begin to make up for a thorough cleaning.

The Action Plan:

1. Take down and wash curtains.
2. Clean blinds.
3. Wash windows.
4. Remove and wash window screens.
5. Dust wall art and wine rack.
6. Scour clean booster seat and high chair (washing covers as appropriate).
7. Clean chairs and table, then polish.
8. Empty baker's rack, thoroughly wipe surfaces and drawers, and reorganize contents.
9. Wipe floorboards.
10. Sweep and mop.

That process took about five hours, with appropriate breaks in the middle for feeding the baby, changing diapers (on Cuddles AND Baby Boy), and fixing snacks and lunches. It wasn't as easy as I expected, and I was unpleasantly surprised at the amount of dirt I removed.

I performed the bulk of my cleaning with apple cider vinegar. A friend had told me that it was a good cleaning agent without the toxicity of ammonia, so I went with it.  I had an enormous bottle that would have been appropriate for doing bicep curls; by the end of the morning, it was empty.  As I wiped down an area and the water got too dirty, which was often, I'd dump it out and start fresh.

The tracks of the windows may have been the nastiest part of the entire room. Granted, they are sort of on the outside of the house, so what I was wiping up was literally dirt blown in from the back yard.  Oh, and a few dead spiders and a small, desiccated frog.  I was able to clean the window tracks easily enough, but I ran into a snag when I couldn't figure out how to remove the window screens.  This site explained how to clean them, and it sounded pretty straightforward, but I will need to wait until I can get My Love to remove them later.  I also cleaned the windows themselves the "traditional" way, with Windex (the generic brand, anyway).  I found some advice about cleaning windows with a squeegee here.  It sounded smart, but like a lot of work, so I skipped it.  As it turns out, Windex really just seems to rearrange the streaks, so I may have to return to the squeegee method anyway.

I washed the curtains, and was appalled at the dust that came off.  We hung the curtains (homemade by my mother-in-law) when we moved into the house four years ago.  And they haven't come down since.  Though they were dusty, it came off easily in the wash.

I also removed the window blinds and tried to give them a good cleaning, using several different methods which I'll detail in another post.  Let's just say that it was a complete and utter failure.

Dusting of the light fixtures, wall art, and baker's rack were uneventful, quick, and easy.  It's really amazing how much cleaner the room looked after cleaning just those items!

Cuddles's booster seat is perpetually dirty, and I had resigned myself to the face that it would always be that way.  However, with diligent effort (and no instruction manual) I figured out how to remove and machine-wash the straps, then scrub the surface with apple cider vinegar followed by a Lysol wipe.  It now looks brand-new!

The breakfast room table is significantly older than I am.  We got the table when my grandfather passed away, and he's had it as long as I can remember.  It's solid wood, but a bit rickety, and the stain has definitely seen better days.  One of the most difficult aspects of the table is the drop leafs on each end.  Unbeknownst to me, every spill and crumb that could manage it had worked its way into the crevices.  When I dropped the leaves, I encountered "gunk" that I had to scrub off with the textured side of my well-used kitchen sponge.

Sweeping the floor didn't turn up anything more interesting than what a mom would find on her kitchen floor on a daily basis.  After the sweeping, though, I bit the bullet.  After hearing a friend tell me that she used to scrub her kitchen floor on her hands and knees every day (before she had kids, she admitted), I decided I needed to try it at least once in my life.  I wiped down the baseboards with my trusty apple cider vinegar; according to this website it's something that should be done weekly.  I'm not sure it's every been done.  I understandably came up with a lot of dirt.  Afterwards I scrubbed the floor with a sponge, hitting the sticky spots that I would normally miss with a mop.  And I have to say, the kitchen floor almost sparkled.

I moved all the furniture and curtains back into their places and was proud.  The house had that "clean" smell that I craved, and one room was as spic-and-span as I could hope to make it. Today went so well that I have the motivation to continue!

Off to great places

I started off my career as a homemaker innocently enough. Until this year, I worked full-time while I sent my two girls to daycare. I kept my house clean enough to avoid embarrassment, but I was certainly never going to be featured in Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I always assumed that stay-at-home moms must have plenty of time on their hands to be able to keep their houses really clean; since I wasn't one of them, I would be content with so-so cleanliness.

This year, we were blessed with a third child, a boy this time. The cost of daycare didn't make it worthwhile for me to continue working, so I took the road of a full-time mom and stayed home with my children.

On the first day of stay-at-home-mommy-hood, I made myself a sweet little schedule: on Mondays I would run the vacuum; on Tuesdays I would sweep and mop; on Wednesdays I would clean the bathrooms; on Thursdays I would balance the checkbook; on Fridays I would grocery shop; on Saturdays I would do laundry. On Sundays I would rest. Simple and straightforward, I thought. My home enjoyed a full two weeks of something resembling a glossy sheen.

Then my pregnancy advanced, and I realized that I had neither the energy nor the unlimited time to keep my home clean that I had at one time imagined. (The blog detailing the busyness of being a mother to two energetic girls is a different tale, but, suffice it to say, I was unprepared for the commitment I encountered.) Chores began to slip. Gradually I turned to a once-a-month bathroom cleaning and only sweeping when there were visible Cheerios on the kitchen floor.

The thing is, I made excuses for a home that I can simply describe as "dirty" for months. First I was pregnant, then I had a newborn...but now my son is a chubby, happy five-month-old who sleeps 18 hours a day (thank you, God!), and I am out of reasons why I shouldn't make more of a go at this thing. After all, caring for my children and my home is now my career.

In the next few weeks, I'm undertaking a deep, deep cleaning of the house. I have "spring cleaned" before, but never to anything like the magnitude I'm planning. I'll be scouring, purging, and waxing every corner and crevice of the house, and I want it to be something I'm proud of when I'm done. I've found some great online resources to utilize, and I am almost ashamed to say that I'm excited to go buy a new broom. Since I'm devoting so much of myself here for the next few weeks, I'm recording it, if nothing else in order to keep myself motivated. And who knows? Maybe I'll stumble across something that can be useful to someone else as well.