keep my home clean

Good thing we are having a party on Saturday! It will be cleaner by then, come hell or high water!

3 loads laundry
Declutter living room/dining room
Sweep living room/dining room
Kitchen deep clean!
Fridge inside
Microwave inside
Mop kitchen floor
Bathroom
Little bathroom
Declutter bedrooms
File office papers
Wash doors

All by Saturday morning!

I’ve been taking baby steps towards keeping my home cleaner.
The master bedroom is a wreck, as always, and the eventual child two’s room houses a plethora of clutter, but I’ve been trying to keep the living room reasonably clear, and the bathroom/kitchen sanitary.

It’s not great, but it’s better. Baby steps.

Mother in law is coming to pick up Emma from after-school care, and then bringing her back to the house to make her dinner until I come back home from my late meeting.

So of course, I had to pick up around the house last night as much as possible, sweep the living room floor, and wipe down the kitchen and bathroom before I went for work. God forbid that woman come into my house in it’s natural state, after she had the nerve to comment poorly on my housekeeping. (She’s right, admittedly, but who is she to complain about it?!?)

The one thing I really didn’t have time to do last night or before I went to work this morning was to empty the dishwasher and re-load it. So there is a sink full of dirty dishes. Bite it, woman.

Since we had friends over on Sunday, we did a great deal of cleaning on Saturday. Frogette helped me, and we thoroughly sanitized the kitchen and bathroom. I even cleaned the microwave and refridgerator insides! Of course, now it’s getting dirty again, but that’s the way it goes…

that really resonated with me. Keeping clean, the author said, is all a matter of “finishing the cycle”. For example, you make yourself a sandwich, you eat it, and then you must clean up the plate to finish the cycle.

I am trying to finish the cycle, rather than putting off cleaning for another day, as much as possible now.

I have not been keeping the house clean lately, but I have at least forced myself to do one quick but necessary thing in the morning before I leave for work for the last 3 days. Today it was wiping the area of the floor that had boot tracks on it, yesterday it was emptying and filling the dishwasher, and the day before that it was scrubbing the tub.

So the house is still a mess, but at least I am making some sort of effort.

I am very happy with my green cleaners. They make me feel better about not destroying the environment, and they make my hands feel better after I’ve cleaned.

I don’t use green for everything yet, but I’m getting there. Sometimes it is so much easier for me to get lazy with a clorox wipe to clean the kitchen counters than to use the simple green, but I’m at least three quarters of the way there: seventh generation toilet cleaner, seventh generation tub cleaner, simple green for the rest of the bathroom and kitchen, and the target green brand for mirrors and windows.

I definitely got a workout today with 2 loads of laundry, office decluttering, washing kitchen counters, sweeping the floors, unloading and loading the dishwasher, and taking out the garbage and recycling.

Between the parties I threw last week and last night, the house has has quite the clean treatment lately. Even the basement is better. I just need to keep it up now!

I had 17 family members over for Chanukah today. To prepare, I spent the last week doing some serious, deep cleaning. I dusted areas that I hadn’t dusted in months. I scrubbed window ledges and baseboards and all sorts of dirt collectors that I don’t usually think about. I did the inside of the fridge, the inside of the microwave, in between the slats on the heating vents, behind the appliances in the kitchen, everything.

I scrubbed all the closet and outer doors in the living room and kitchen- they were looking a bit grungy. Then I swept the living room/dining room floors.

I am going to have to try one of those magic erasers for the marks I couldn’t get off the doors, but I am afraid it will mar the paint job. Any suggestions?