I've been in a house-cleaning rut. In our old house I'd clean once every two weeks and the house looked good all the time. But in this house the carpet is white, the baseboards are white, and the kitchen counters are (you guessed it) white. So it requires a lot more upkeep. When Annie started school in September I got into the habit of cleaning every Tuesday. I can usually do the whole house in less than two hours if I don't let myself get distracted.
I just hate to do it. I find it frustrating that no one notices when the house is clean-- only when it's dirty.It's annoying to clean with little children underfoot because no sooner is one room clean than it's dirty again.
But this morining I actually felt energized while cleaning the house. If you follow these steps, you might get your cleaning groove back too:
1. Clean the house.
2. Make nine kinds of Christmas cookies.
3. Host five extra people in the house for a week.
4. Open lots of presents, watch the kids throw the paper around the room.
5. Get rid of your company and immediately go on vacation for a week.
6. Return home, put away all of the Christmas stuff, including dragging the tree up the stairs.
7. Get sick. Spend two days in bed wishing you could end it all.
8. Go on vacation again.
9. Clean the house.
So instead of a week of grime, this week I cleaned three and a half weeks of grime. And you know what? It felt awesome! Insted of wiping down already clean sinks, vacuuming already clean carpets, and dusting furniture that really isn't dusty, I scrubbed away actual dirt and felt like I was making a difference. I'm sure that I'll go back to cleaning once a week, but I think that sometimes you need to take a break from cleaning in order to be able to enjoy (tolerate) it again.
--originally published 1/10/06
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