The way I clean bugs my husband. He knows that if I really want to clean then he should take the kids and save themselves. Get out of my way and let me work...unless of course we are working "as a family" and then my groove gets all thrown off. But that mostly just happens on Saturdays.
If you give a Mom a moment. I know a girl who has this as the title of her blog and I love it because it encapsulates how I work. Remember that book "If you give a mouse a cookie"? There are a million new versions of this story but if you are a parent chances are you've seen it. If you haven't, go get it. It's cute.
Anyway. This is the way I clean, in layers. It eventually comes full circle and everything gets done, eventually. So when I tidy up the house I am like an ADD cyclone on a cleaning spree. This is how a typical "session" might go.
I decide to organize the office because it is a mess. I start by picking up some books and taking them into my room to put on the bookshelf, which I do. Then I notice that my room is kind of messy so I pick up clothes and put them in the dirty clothes hamper. I fold a blanket and put it on the chair where I see a pair of little girl shoes. I take the shoes to their room and end up making a bed. While making the bed I find hair things underneath. I take the hair things to the bathroom where I notice that there is toothpaste all over the sink. So I yell to a daughter to come clean it up (I gotta teach them some time, right?). While she is cleaning it up I hang up towels and remember that they are out of shampoo. I run to the office to find my perpetual lists..."to do", "shopping", etc. I add shampoo to the list of things I need next time I go to the store. I remember that I was cleaning the office so I pick up a cup that needs to go to the kitchen. When I get down to the kitchen I can't just put the cup in the sink. I have to rinse dishes and load up the dishwasher really quick (so that I don't have to do it later.) After getting the dishes into the dishwasher, I mop up the extra water on the counter with a dishtowel. The dishtowel probably stinks and needs to be washed so I run up to my room, grab a basket of dirty laundry and take it all down (including the dishtowel) to the laundry room. I start a load of laundry. At this point one of my daughters might walk in and her hair will undoubtedly look like a bird has permanently moved in. I decide to "take a little break" from cleaning and we run upstairs to do a fun hairdo. Then she'll probably ask me to help her put on a dress up and find matching dancing shoes. After I'm done with that I will walk back into my room and remember the office. So I go into the office and sit at the desk to put papers away. While going through papers I'll see an e mail address I jotted down so I wouldn't forget it. I get on the computer to add it to my contact list. While I'm at it I have to check my e mail and my blog to see if there are any new comments. I now spend and hour and a half on the computer without meaning to. When I shake myself out of this blogging zombie state I remember that I was almost done cleaning the office. So I go back in there and decide that before I can put these photos away I have to replace them with new pictures from the computer. I have to print them out and put them in a frame. But the glass in the frame is dirty so I have to go get a cleaning wipe from the bathroom. When I get in there I notice that the toilet paper is all done and so I have to refill it. After refilling the toilet paper I grab three kids books from the floor (do I have children old enough to be reading in the bathroom?...or just bored enough?) and take them to the bookshelf in their room. I will notice clothes hanging out of the drawer so I'll go to stuff them in but stop myself and indulge my OCD tendencies and refold everything in the drawer so it fits. I find a box of raisins. So I have to run it down to the kitchen where the trash is overflowing. So I take the garbage out and pull a few weeds from the front walk on my way back in. I get back up to the office and finish going through a stack of papers from top to bottom, stopping to make phone calls and file things away so I can really get rid of the papers. This process continues for another frenzied 30 minutes of literally running around and trying to get everything put away in its respective room while trying to not wake up the baby...and stopping from time to time to clean up and prod the girls to clean up whatever activity they have left in their wake in the last 15 minutes before returning to my original cleaning plan.
Now you see? The office has gotten cleaned up along with every other room in the house, including dishes and laundry. I may be totally worn out but it means that tonight I can sit on the couch and watch TV and eat snacks without feeling lazy. I feel so much more capable and happy when my house is in order.
Ahh. Chaos into order by way of chaos.
19 comments:
OH MY GOODNESS!!! I've found someone else that is exactly like me when it comes to cleaning! So happy to know that I'm not alone. You are so creative...I would never have thought of the comparisons to If You Give a Mouse A Cookie (or If You Give a Moose a Muffin, etc.) but it fits exactly.
I LOVE,LOVE,LOVE your new look! How do you do it??
That is SO how I clean also. But I usually get really side-tracek somewhere, and never really finish what I started. So, I start there again the next day, and so on and so on.
Love the new blog...please help me. I have no idea how to do any of this.
You've just described my life so perfectly! Sometimes when I am absolutely determined to accomplish a job without getting sidetracked and I find that I have to go to another room for a moment to put something away, I put "blinders" up (my hands) and repeat over and over to myself (out loud, mind you) what job I am going back to finish as soon as I put that object where it belongs. (Think: "I cannot touch that object...") Now tell me... Who is more crazy?
Love the polka-dots. :)
my head is spinning... i need to relax. By the way, all you've done is put a list of things to clean in my wife's head... thanks. because I can't sit while she cleans. If I don't help I fee like I am waiting time or something.
Come down soon.
I think any mom would agree to you way of cleaning, even if I try to stay on task there will always be interruptions.
I can't believe so many of us do cleaning just the same way!!! I was going to say that you must have inherited that tendancy from me then I read all your comments and everyone does it! It must be a female thing. That is so funny!
This is your wannabe blogfriend(friend of Amy's in cincy) Anyway, you nailed it girl, funny that I have even referred to it as ADD cleaning as well. Glad to hear I am not alone in my frenzied cleaning attempts and distractions that come with having four kids.
I just love your last sentence! Chaos into order by way of chaos. SO TRUE!
I just love your last sentence! Chaos into order by way of chaos. SO TRUE!
So glad I'm not the only one living my life this way. Ahhh, validation that I am not alone in my never ending quest for a clean house...my question is, will it ever happen?
Apparently I'm the only mom who doesn't clean that way. Throughout a normal day I try to pick up one thing out of place whenever I go through a room (5 items if I go to the basement because one item at a time wouldn't cut it).
When I am focused on cleaning I use the basket method. I throw everything that doesn't belong in that room in a basket. Then I have my kids distribute it to the right rooms and I move on to the next room.
Unfortunately, I can relate all too well to getting sucked into the computer for "2 minutes" that turns to longer than I'll admit.
This is why I choose not to clean anymore. ;)
I swear I almost wrote this exact post recently, but I got too confused in trying to write how my mind had been working and it never made sense out of my head. Ditto, ditto, ditto.
Our husbands can't stand it because their minds are a one way street and ours are information super-highways!
I do the exact same thing!! I am glad I am not the only one!!
I don't know how you even remembered how to write that, but I love it! I try to clean one room at a time too, but Josh and I joke that at the end of everyday it's like a quiz of where the things in our house are supposed to go. We run things back and forth from room to room putting them away, always leaving a big stack outside of the boys' bedroom door for when they wake up in the morning. The challenge is remembering to put those things away in their room before they disperse them again the next day!
How do you have time to do all of this, anyway, Supermom!
I totally relate and think that woud make a great book, "if you give a mom a moment"
Exactly. Though I'm not sure I ever get out of the chaos and into the order part. It's after 1 am, I just finished painting the bathroom, went downstairs to find some windex for the mirrors I noticed were dirty, passed the office and remembered I needed to print something out for my nursery lesson tomorrow, but of course I haven't done that yet because I got distracted reading blogs. One day I will master chaos and be able to sit on the couch and watch TV before 2 am.
This could also be my blog about cleaning. The exact thing happens in my house and I stop a million times a day and thank my lucky stars that we live in a "one-story". I try to focus on one room at a time but it is virtually impossible and I always give in to the ADD. But it does get clean...somehow.
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