Be a better housekeeper

Well. something uncool happened in my life and it has kind of put me in a nose dive. I pretty much lapsed on all the progress so far, but at least I kindof know where I should be. It’s hard though, getting the motivation to do dishes when getting dressed in the morning seems so insurmountable. I will work hard to get a routine back. How does this even work though. I’m not really sure what muscles to be using to want to get stuff done when large parts of my brain couldn’t care less.

So, it seems like my basic routine is going well. I was frustrated by being interrupted all the thime for a while, but it seems like I get up before anyone else lately, which seems a bit odd, but I guess works for me. Even so, I seem to have stopped needing my ipod in order to do the dishes. That is kindof cool. I guess what that says to me is, I no longer require to be distracted by how demoralizing it all is. I guess that is a success. I remember when in order to go for a walk, I needed music, to distract myself from the reasons I would walk.

I never did get around to tackling a room a day or anything like that. I moved all the boxes from my stairs up to my room.. And I have vacuumed downstairs a few times, but there are surely other things that need doing and lots of them.

I feel like I have too many things on my plate a bit. Its hard to decide what to do. And then prioritize. I think I need to make more effective use of to do lists.

August and September were hard months, marked most indelibly by first my father’s illness and then, a month later, his death. Returning home in late August after a two-week stint in Arkansas overseeing what looked like his recovery, it was hard to settle back into our household routines – - the knowledge that I had left him in uncaring hands weighed especially heavy on my mind.

Earlier in August as Cracker Bearelle and I planned a couple of small dinner parties, we had decided that on these occasions she would run the dishwasher, bot loading and unloading it, tasks I loathed. And so as I struggled with resuming my daily routine, I left the dishes to her and the dreaded dishwasher more and more.

But it didn’t take long for me to realize that automatic dishwashing wasn’t the time- and labor-saving solution it was cracked up to be. For one thing, inevitably, all of the dishes wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher, so that even on those nights Cracker Bearelle took care of the dishwashing for me, there were still pots and pans for me to dread attending to. For another, the dishwasher routinely failed to dry certain items, so a dishwashing and putting away left a dish drainer full of Gladware and other oddments that I had to dread putting away. And lastly and perhaps worst of all, the dishwasher did not always clean the dishes properly, so that with disturbing frequency I would pull a dirty utensil out of the drawer or dish out of the cupboard and be thoroughly disgusted.

Fortunately, on the last Saturday my father was alive, Cracker Bearelle and I atended an all-day introductory workshop for a beginning meditation class, attending our first weekly Wednesday session just two days after his death. Meditation practice consists of sitting at least twenty minutes every day and in practicing awareness in routine daily activities like brushing one’s teeth or washing the dishes. I find myself in agreement with Thich Nhat Hanh

In his classic book The Miracle of Mindfulness Thich Nhat Hanh famously reminds us that one can wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes or one can wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes. I find myself in agreement with Thich Nhat Hanh when he says that he can understand why one might prefer to use an automatic washing machine, but is perplexed that anyone should need an automatic dishwasher. I also agree that of the two goals of washing dishes, the latter is the more felicitous and meaningful aim.

So at least for the nonce, I am washing the dishes in order to wash the dishes with as much awareness as my feeble mind can muster and, gratefully, without, as formerly, weeping and gnashing of teeth. Amen.

Well,
Housekeeping is a big job, there is a lot to it, and I am just obsessive enough, that I could get completely carried away and clean for 4 hours a day until I am fully burnt out.

So I have developed a mini routine that is going pretty well, and I am adding things as needed too.

So far my mini routine, which is the first thing I do in the day (while listening to my mp3player) is:
Dishes
Kitchen surfaces
Sweep kitchen floor and take out full trash or recycling
Tidy living room
Make bed and tidy bedroom
sweep bathroom floor
clean catbox

This has been working pretty well.

In addition, since there are many more things that could be done, I want to tackle a room each day, and work on some bigger jobs. For example, I took half the burgeoning free pile to goodwill last week, and a few days ago I cleaned out the fridge. I should keep track of this stuff so I don’t completely ignore it, or forget what I have done. I kind of want to make a planner with a section for housework each day. Although honestly, maybe it is doable, but I feel like every day is a little ambitious. Do I have 2 hours to wash the windows or whatnot every day? We will see. For now, I will insist on the mini routine and see how the rest of it goes.

I have spent years and years not cleaning things, some things not ever. I didn’t do dishes, I didn’t fix stuff, I let my stuff get ruined through inattention and I piled up clutter because I couldn’t find anything.

I would like to turn this around. I have been dating someone who is very organized and he makes it look so easy, while at the same time revealing the mysteries of the form. And I can understand through his perspective why it is worth it. Also feel like my surroundings affect my mental health, which is a concern for me. So it is my goal to get a handle on my housekeeping.

I have a beautiful home in the country… my husband built us this log house and I love it.
But I hate to clean. And I didn’t exactly grow up in a clean house, so the business of keeping the place clean is kind of like a quest for knowledge. I have no role models… but once I had a GREAT housekeeper who gave me a few good hints (i.e. clean even when the house looks clean.)
My house isn’t messy (today), but I wonder if there are little routines out there that “good housekeepers” do each day that would help me maintain the status quo.
Saturday is usually spent cleaning cleaning cleaning and doing laundry….. what a blah day!
Are there any hints folks can give me like “wash windows on Wednesday, iron on Thursday” etc. Is there a master housekeeper out there who can help? No completely uptight neat freaks please, I’m just a regular girl looking for some solid routines.
Thanks!

I’ve had this goal in my 43 Things for quite some time now, and as I survey my progress – - no more dishes moldering in the sink for days on end, weekly cleaning routines rather than frenzied cleaning motivated by impending guests – - I begin to wonder how will I know when I’ve completed this goal. On the one hand, I think I have become a better housekeeper; on the other hand, one can always be better.

What I think has improved most in the time since I’ve been homemaking with Cracker Bearelle is my attitude toward housekeeping tasks: I no longer make myself miserable dreading them, and I’ve begun to really incorporate them into my daily and weekly routine. Another difference is that now these tasks are a part of my chosen role, tasks I perform in order to keep things nice and running smoothly in or home, rather than, as before, senseless repetitive chores that take time away from my real work. And it seems a good thing to be more firmly tothered to the physical sensory world, a connection that anchors and nourishes my intercourse with abstraction and the life of the mind.

I have kept my house clean for about 3 weeks now. I started getting it clean for Superbowl (we were having a party) and I have kept it clean ever since. The only thing I don’t like is when something is out of place, I have to get up and put it away. All I ever think about is cleaning now.
I was trying to relax the other day (I had-had to deal with my Grandmother who doesn’t approve of how many kids I have and when I came home I just wanted to sit and do nothing) and all I could think about was stuff out of place and how I needed to put it away and clean dishes, and everything else.
But my house is clean…

What I know is that if I do a little bit of cleaning every day or even every other day, I can keep up with things, so that nothing gets in a state where it is really a chore to clean. A clean house is not a product that one accomplishes for once and for all or once a month or when someone’s coming over. Rather, housekeeping is a process, repetitive and ongoing. I also know that the best way to make ongoing repetitive task palatable is to turn them into rituals, to make them into a practice. Also I know that it helps to focus on one thing at a time and to set humane goals: for example, the kitchen floor does not need to be clean enough to eat off of; it just needs to be clean enough – - perhaps clean enough is I can walk there barefooted and not feel icky or step on grains of rice or kernels of popcorn.

Once I did one cleaning task every morning before breakfast. That worked really well, though I still feel loath to commit to that again right now.

For inspiration and, hopefully, motivation, I am finally reading Dwelling for the Spirit, a book about home-making I bought around the end of 2007.

For now I am just going to do the things that need to be done when they need to be done without procrastination and dread. For instance, I still have a few dishes to wash and may do a small load of laundry, so everything is ready to pack tomorrow.

I think this goal will be easier when I am sharing a home with M, but I think it is important that I work on making a comfortalbe home for myself and building those tasks into my daily routine.

i’ve moved to a much more compact, smaller space. i had to throw away a lot of the clutter and the papers and stuff i was holding onto and i gave away a shitload of clothes to charity. i feel much lighter now, even though i still admit that i hold onto wayyy to much. way to go me!