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.

Preventative Maintenance

Cuddles turned two on Monday.  It's been difficult for me to adjust; I've been identifying her age in months for...well...24 months now.  I can't believe I have a two-year-old!

On Monday, we celebrated ourselves; Mini-me and I sang her "Happy Birthday" in the morning, and I made brownie cupcakes for a special treat after dinner.  Her party, though, is today.  All grandparents, aunts, and uncles are invited, and that means I'll have about ten people in the house.  Time to clean!

Saturday morning, My Love took the girls to the park so that I could get some work done.  I started the washing machine, then got busy.  I assumed I had several hours' work ahead of me; that's been the description of most of my cleaning sprees thus far.  However (I timed it), I had the house shining in an hour and eight minutes.  Pretty impressive!  And I can identify exactly why the job was so quick and easy:  the house wasn't dirty...at least not dirty enough that I normally would have said it "needed" cleaning.  There was no visible dust and no debris on the carpet.  Still, I dusted all surfaces in all the common areas, swept the hallway and kitchen (I DID turn up a pretty respectable pile of crumbs there), and ran the vacuum.  By the time my family swept back into the house at 10:38, I was emptying the dust pan into the garbage can and looking with pride at a clean house! 

All members of our family have seen the home at its worst (specifically, when there was a newborn in the house), so there's no real need to impress them.  However, it does make me feel good to hone my hostessing abilities and set a nice backdrop for Cuddles's party.  She won't remember it, of course, and I hope that our guests will care more about the event itself than the clean carpets.  I guess, in the end, today' activities were mostly for my own satisfaction, and I'm proud to report that housekeeping is fast becoming a habit!

Lessons Learned: Kitchen

After I stepped back from the kitchen and sank onto the couch with a cold glass of sweet tea, I thought about the things that will be needed to simply maintain a clean-ish kitchen on a daily basis.  Obviously, for example, I'm not going to scrub the tops of my cabinets every day, or even every week.  If I can manage to do it every few months, though, the grime might not be as bad.  I think it also helps that I pared down the dust-catching items in an area that has the potential to be one of the grimiest in the house.

Again, I simply must sweep every day.  But now that I'm on Day 2, I think the best time to sweep might be just before dinner (so that My Love comes home to a clean house).  Sweeping after breakfast was a cause that was lost by snack time.

In general, though, I feel like keeping my kitchen counters wiped down daily and wiping the cabinets down when they are visibly dirty will keep the kitchen in shape. It also makes me feel better to get dirty dishes out of the sink as soon as possible.

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!