Stop Telling Me the Cleaning and Scrubbing Can Wait Till Tomorrow Or How to Keep a Clean-ish Home.

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread. 

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue, Lullaby, rockabye, lullaby loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peek-a-boo
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo 

But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullaby, rockaby lullaby loo. 

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep! I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
– Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Did you know that this is the longer version of that famous poem?

I didn't know there was any more to it other than the last verse until recently.

I like the longer version better, although I'm not a huge fan of the poem, overall. 

Oh sure...I think it has a good message for some people.  I think it is geared towards Type A housekeepers. 

I am NOT a Type A housekeeper. I'm not even a Type B housekeeper. I might be a Type C housekeeper. That might be overly generous though. 

I don't like cleaning.  I don't like organizing.  I enjoy absolutely NOTHING about cleaning.

That said...I DO enjoy being in a clean house. But, I don't like cleaning. 

So, I really do NOT need any encouragement NOT to clean. 

Yes, I get that babies need care and that caring for our children is important.  I get that we will never have perfectly clean homes while we have kids around. However, I've used my kids as an excuse to avoid housework for far too long.

We just moved two weeks ago and since getting everything put away and unpacked, we've been working together as a family at keeping the house clean.

This means stopping really bad habits that contributed to mess and starting newer, better habits.

You see...previously, I viewed cleaning as an "event."  It was something you did.  You were either cleaning or you weren't cleaning.  The kids would make messes all over the place all day...and then spend 2 hours cleaning them up each night. We never cleaned anything, unless it was specified cleaning time at the end of the day...and then it was a big event.

It was pretty much super stressful for everyone and no one was happy. 

I would occasionally get around to scrubbing the toilets or vacuuming the bedrooms but it was an event.  Something I did on a certain day, as in tomorrow, I'm going to clean the bathroom.

The problem is that, more often than not, tomorrow didn't come. I didn't get around to cleaning the bathroom or dusting anything.

Sure, I could keep up with the laundry and the dishes, but everything else, I just let go....because I viewed cleaning as something you do at a specific time, and that specific time just never came around. 

I've recently changed my mindset about cleaning.  We've implemented the following house rules, and they are actually working wonderfully at keeping the house reasonably clean at all times.  It's not perfect, but it's clean enough.

1) Keep stuff to a minimum and have a place for everything.  We moved from an 864 square foot house to a 3000 square food house. And oddly enough, our house is not that empty.  In fact, it is nicely full, without being overly crowded.  Which just goes to show you, how crowded our smaller house was.  And we really didn't have that much stuff. It's just that when you have 6 people in 860 square feet, it's going to be tight. 

The second part is having a place for everything.  We didn't used to have that. We used to keep our books just in bins and clothes in laundry baskets and you can imagine what a mess that was.  We didn't have the space for dressers or bookshelves.  We didn't have enough closets.  And now we do, so everything is put away and it makes a HUGE difference. HUGE.  So minimize your stuff and make sure you have a place to keep everything.  If you don't have a place to keep something...get rid of it.  Or get a bigger house. You decide. 

Plus, I don't know about you, but I don't see things out of place when a house is cluttered. I just don't. My eyes skim right over the paper on the floor or the pencil in the corner.  But when a house is less cluttered and more empty-ish, I do notice those things.  And, I do something about them. 

2) Not eating away from the kitchen.  Never, Ever.  We have a nice, big kitchen table, and I have no problem if the kids take their books or laptop or whatever over there so they can continue doing what they are doing, while eating.  But we always eat or drink in the kitchen.  NO EXCEPTIONS.  Because I know myself..as soon as I start making exceptions, there is another exception and another one and another one and soon there is food and dishes all over the house and it's a huge mess.  Eating away from the table contributes to mess in a major way, so now I'm super strict that all food and drink is consumed in the kitchen and that is IT.

3) When you are done with something, put it away.  Immediately.  Right away.  Put the pencil back, put the crayons away, put the book away, put the toy away, pick up the towel. Put the dish in the sink. It takes awhile to form this habit, but it is SO worth doing. 

4) Shoes off in the house and on outside.  This is big.  Wearing shoes outside, but not inside significantly cuts down on the amount of dirt in the house.  But this only works if kids put shoes on to go outside.  For my typical barefoot children, this has been an adjustment. A major one.  But they are learning. 

This rule has another big advantage.  We keep all our shoes in the mudroom, right off the back door.  Which means they are always there.  We know right where they are.  NO MORE LOST SHOES. Shoes don't go into the bedrooms or family room or basement or any other room.  They stay in the mudroom when not being worn out of the house. 

5) If you see something out of place..put it away, right away...when you see it.  It really doesn't take that much time and does make a HUGE difference. 

4) If you see something is dirty..clean it..right away.  A quick swipe of the mirror or swipe of the toilet or wiping down of the counter or sweeping of the floor or mopping up of a spot or dusting a windowsill makes a huge difference.  You don't have to make a big deal out of dusting on Monday and mopping on Tuesday and cleaning the bathroom on Wednesday.  Although you can do that if you want to. But that doesn't work for me. What works for me, is cleaning something when I notice it is dusty or dirty or messy.  It honestly doesn't take much time to wipe down a bathroom mirror while brushing my teeth, or swipe the toilet real quick after using it or wipe down the dryer if I notice it has a lot of lint on it or wipe the fridge if I notice dirty fingerprints. It helps immensely to keep cleaning cloths and other supplies handy in each room...so these things can be done quickly without having to gather supplies.

I don't notice the time it takes to do those things if I just do them as I am going along.  Using the carpet sweeper really quickly on a rug when I notice dirt takes less emotional strain on me than thinking oh no, Monday is vacuuming day.  I have to fit vacuuming in tomorrow.  And I have so much stuff to do. Aaargh.  I'll do it Tuesday.  Then it never happens of course. 

This is another reason to keep everything picked up.  If everything is picked up, it's easier to notice dirt and clean real quick. 

I personally do not do well with the whole, do housebreak on specified days thing.  I do much better if I just clean as I notice something is dirty. 

I don't like cleaning, so if I have to think about it too much, I'm not going to do it.  But I can do a quick swipe here, a quick dust there.  I'm much better at cleaning on the fly than planning out a cleaning schedule.  

And this is how I'm managed to somewhat reform my former, messy, slovenly ways. 

Do you have any tips for keeping a clean-ish house without actually cleaning?  Because I still hate cleaning, especially when it becomes an event.

7 Housekeeping Things I Didn't Learn from My Mother and One Thing I did

Soon we will  be moving into our own house.  We did get the house we liked and put an offer on...so as long as everything goes well with the inspection, we will be moving in about a month. 

Which sorta scares me.

I'm not a good housekeeper.  And, I don't come from a line of good housekeepers.  As far as I know, no one in my family has ever uttered the following...

I love to clean. 

No one.  To be fair. My mother is a half-way decent housekeeper.  And, it's not that she didn't try to teach me.  I just was never interested in learning.   Truthfully, I'm still not.  I don't get giddy over the thought of a trip to Ikea. Organizing does nothing for me.  And, I find cleaning to be exceptionally boring and not very satisfying.  My spice rack will never be organized alphabetically and my shirts will never be arranged by color. 

Nonetheless,  I have found that I do have to clean and organize stuff. It's a sad, sad fact of life.

When I first got married,  I was an absolutely terrible housekeeper.  I've since graduated to mediocre status.

I would love to move up to half-way decent status.  

I know I'll never be house beautiful status.  But, I'll settle for half-way decent, can have people over anytime status. 

Here are some of the things I've learned that helped me move from terrible to mediocre status.

1. Soaking clothes in oxy powder gets out tough stains, and brightens whites and colors.

I don't know that oxy powder was as popular when I was a kid.  I tend to think not.  However, I have learned that a good soak in oxy-powder can do wonders for removing stains and brightening colors and making clothes last longer.  Or at least making them look nicer longer.

2. You have to clean out your vacuum cleaner.

When I was growing up, we never had wall to wall carpet.  So, I never learned how to properly vacuum.  Which means I never learned that if you don't regularly clean our your vacuum cleaner, it gets all clogged up and loses suction and isn't efficient.  Sadly, it took me YEARS to figure this out.  I could never figure out why our vacuum cleaners would lose suction and stop working well.  

I'm not smart when it comes to housekeeping stuff. 

3.  Sometimes chemicals are needed. 

Normally, I hate chemicals.  I'm all about the crunchy, natural stuff.  But sometimes, you just need chemicals.

When we lived in Virginia, we were constantly getting mold in the bathroom. Humid climate with no bathroom fan was a disaster.  And that utterly toxic, horrid stuff was the only thing that got rid of it.

Now, we live in a house with well water...which means that the tub and toilet and sink turns a horrible yellow and you have to use that super strong lime remover on it. Nothing else works. 

4. Corners and edges get dirty, so once in awhile you have to crawl on the floor with the vacuum.

Sad to say, it actually took me years to figure out that vacuum and brooms don't really get edges and corners well, so sometimes you have to take the hose on the vacuum and crawl on your hands and knees and do them.  Ugh.  Did I mention that I hate cleaning?

5.  You are supposed to vacuum your floors instead of sweeping them. 

I actually just learned this one recently.  Apparently vacuuming hard floors removes the dirt better than sweeping (which just throws the dirt around).  Who knew?  And why did it never occur to me to vacuum hard floors before?

6. Less stuff is better.

The easier it is for me to keep a house clean is inversely proportional to the amount of stuff it has in it in relation to its size.  The emptier a house is, the easier it is to clean.  When we move, we will be going from about 860 square feet to about 2800 square feet.  That will be a lot of empty space.  I'm hoping to keep it that way.   

7. You are supposed to dust your blinds and ceiling fans and baseboards and clean the grout in your tiles. 

Again, these are things which would NOT occur to me to do.  I can do major stuff.  Sweep up crumbs.  Wash dishes.  Do laundry. Vacuum. Wash windows. But this little detail stuff...would not occur to me.  Never in a million years.  It's not until I heard someone talking about it and I was all... People do that?? Really? People clean the grout in their tiles? Dusting baseboards? Is that a thing? I didn't know you were supposed to do that?  No wonder my baseboards are so dusty. 

Now, the one trick I did learn from my mother. 

1. It's easier to hide dirt than to constantly clean it up.  

My mother picked out her kitchen floor and paint design and cabinets to hide dirt the best.  

That woman is a genius.  

I have a vivid memory of her throwing cheerio crumbs on vinyl tile samples to see which ones hid the the crumbs the best when they were building the house I grew up in.  Genius.

I've lived in a lot of different houses, because we've moved so much, and some houses are much easier to clean than others, because some floors and walls hide the dirt so much better. 

Right now we have white vinyl on our kitchen.  That is bad. I have to mop constantly and the floor never looks clean because it is stained (was stained before we moved here). 

In Virginia, we had this tan, marbled vinyl on the kitchen.  That was good.  It hid dirt fantastically and I only had to mop like once a week. 

However in Virginia we had white walls.  White walls are bad, bad, bad things. 

Here, we have these ugly, orange walls.  But they do hide the dirt, super well. 

We were recently at a chess tournament that had glass tables.  And I was remarking how they showed every.single.fingerprint.  I mean, you touch the thing, and it looks dirty. That would drive me crazy.  Another women there overheard and was all 

"Yes, but that's great, because then you know when it is really clean and it makes you wonder if those wood tables are ever really clean. ."

See..this demonstrates a fundamental difference in philosophy between me and other people.  I just want something to look clean. I don't care if it actually is clean, as long as it looks clean.  It's all about the appearance, people.

On the bright side though....my kids are all fairly healthy and don't suffer from any known allergies (not even seasonal allergies) or asthma or breathing difficulties or eczema and they all
 have strong immune systems. I attribute that to my poor housekeeping skills. 
 Apparently dirt is good for you.  

Still, I don't like to be a total slob.  So, I'm trying to get a handle on this housekeeping thing.  It's a slow, slow process.

Do you have any housekeeping things you recently or not so recently learned.  Any tips or tricks??

(See Kelly for more Quick Takes).

The Cheerio on the Bathroom Floor

A few weeks back I attended a mother's group/night from our parish.  It was basically just a bunch of moms that got together one Friday night for rosary, conversation and wine.  It was absolutely wonderful...a much needed time of prayer, adult conversation, fellowship, chocolate and wine.  What more could a girl ask for?

Yet, the next morning when I woke up, I felt discontented and out of sorts.  The hostess (a mom of several young children) had a gorgeous house.   There was beautiful furniture, marble counter tops, a gorgeous Christmas tree and organic milk to go with the fair-trade organic coffee.    I looked around at my small house, dusty baseboards, yard sale furniture and non-organic milk and just felt the ugly green sting of envy.  I spent the next day cleaning like a madwomen, all while realizing that all the cleaning in the word isn't going to make my house look like hers. 

A few days later, I attended a Christmas Party at a friend's house...another mom's night out...at another much nicer/bigger/better house than mine.  They had a beautiful Christmas tree, cute decorations, nice pictures and nicer furniture.   It was a great time with friends, but that sting of jealousy started to creep in. 

Until I went into the bathroom, and what to my wandering eyes should I see, but a tiny cheerio on the bathroom floor right next to the pink singing potty.  A cheerio....on the bathroom floor!! And, my heart sang because someone else has cheerios on their floors too.  They aren't a perfect housekeeper...must have missed sweeping up that cheerio.  I have missed MANY a cheerio when I was sweeping my floors.   I was so relieved to know that I wasn't the only one with dropped cheerios on the floor. 

Over the years, we've been over many friend's houses.  And, I am always grateful to be invited anywhere...I love the friendship, I love hanging out, I love talking while our kids are playing...I love all of it...sharing friendship and fellowship.  But, I especially love it when people invite us over even though their house isn't "perfect".  They may have some clutter (who doesn't?) or a few piles of books lying around, or maybe a few stray cheerios on the floor, And, I love it. I really do.  I love it when people feel comfortable enough to invite us over, even if everything isn't perfect.  Likewise I know I feel most comfortable with a friend when I feel comfortable having them over, even when I haven't spent the day cleaning madly.  

I think most of us would be a lot happier if we were more social and spent less time worrying that our house is too small or too cluttered or not finished or the colors aren't right or whatever. I know this is a big thing for me.  I don't want to invite people over because we have a small house or I think our furniture is ugly.  But really...most people don't care about that.  And, if they do, I probably don't want to be friends with them anyway. 

 So, the next time you have a friend over, don't worry about the piles of books on the table or the toys in the corner or even the stray cheerio that got missed.  They probably have cheerios on their floor too. 

What I learned about housekeeping from watching Downton Abbey

I'm always late to the game. So, while everyone else was watching Downton Abbey when it first came out on Masterpiece Theatre, I didn't start watching it until recently.  I will admit it took me awhile to get into the first episode.  I kept trying to watch it on our Amazon Prime account and falling asleep midway through.  

I have this annoying habit of falling asleep while watching movies (or TV shows, or basically anything after 9:00 PM...except for Dr. Who.  Not even I can fall asleep during Dr. Who.)

But, everyone kept raving about Downton...so I persevered and persevered (oh the struggle) and finally one day while sick in bed, I watched several episodes in a row and discovered that I liked it.  I really, really liked it.

I've been doing some blog-reading on housekeeping lately (mostly on Like Mother, Like Daughter about how to have a reasonably clean home).  I'd actually settle for a somewhat clean home.  I have low expectations.  Anyway, the idea of housekeeping and cleaning has been on my mind, and I've actually been on a bit of cleaning streak today (try not to fall over and faint with shock, Mom).

Anyway, for anyone who might be unfamiliar with the show, Downton Abbey is basically a soap opera that takes place in England spanning the time from 1912-1921.  Actual historical events (the sinking of the Titanic, WWI and the Spanish Flu) play a significant role in the plot.

While watching last night, it occurred to me that the servants in Downton Abbey do less work than I do.   Oh, don't get me wrong..they work hard.  But they each have their own job and that is it.  There are the maids and the butler and the footmen and the cook and the kitchen maid and the chauffeur and the valet and they each do their own job.  The maids aren't expected to cook and the footmen aren't expected to also chauffeur.  If I recall correctly, there was even some scandal about maids having to serve in the dining room, which apparently was unheard of, but the household was short-staffed due to the war. 

While nowadays, everyone is basically expected to do/be all those things.  And, not only to do them all, but to do them well.   We're expected to cook and clean and chauffeur and child raise  (no doubt the daughters in Downton Abbey would have had nannies and tutors when they were young) and garden and even teach (for those who homeschool).  Granted, our home is much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much smaller and we have the advantage of modern conveniences they didn't have back then (like washing machines and electric stoves).

But, I still find it interesting, that not only is the modern parent expected to do all those things, but to do them well.  Not only do we have to cook, but we have to grow our own organic vegetables, cook everything from scratch using organic, free-range, cruelty-free ingredients and avoid anything processed or convenient or easy.   Not only are we supposed to bake our own bread, but we're supposed to grind our own grains and then soak them as well.   Not only are we expected to clean, but we're expected to keep our house, company-ready at all times.   And for those families that homeschool..you can add teaching/tutoring on top of that.

Now that any of those things are bad, or that we shouldn't be doing all those things.  Just pointing out that in times past...no ONE or TWO people were expected to both do and excel at ALL those things.   Even going further back in time and looking to a poor family, we see that most people didn't have all these multiple hats to wear.  Ma Ingalls certainly worked hard..no doubt about that.   And, way harder than we do nowadays...but she didn't have to wear all the different hats we do. She wasn't spending time driving Laura and Mary around to piano lessons and practices.  She didn't spend time scrubbing toilets..since they didn't even have toilets..just an outhouse.  While doing laundry was much, much harder back then, there was also much, much less of it, because they didn't have nearly as many clothes.   Cleaning a one-room log cabin was likely much simpler than cleaning a multi-room, larger home with A TON more stuff in it.

So, maybe it's time to cut ourselves some slack, if we can't do everything..  if we can't have a perfectly clean home and cook perfectly tasty, healthy meals, and grow our own organic food, while perfectly driving kids to a billion different activities and teaching them ourselves (or just helping with homework)...not to mention those parents who have significant commitments outside the home or at home (work or school or volunteering or ministry)..which is another added pressure and demand.  People in times past didn't do EVERYTHING, so how can we?