Cleaning 101

The other day (no, a little while ago now -- this has been sitting in my drafts for some time!) I was inspired by Carrie to do some real cleaning.  You have to understand that when I clean, I only do the noticeable stuff:  clean the toilet, wipe off the counters, vacuum, pick up clutter, sweep the floor.  Done. I will wipe off the milk shelf in the fridge occasionally.  Once I even did windows, just the really dirty ones.  I just never learned how to clean, to do it right, to do it consistently, to do it cheerfully, to do it in some sort of routine, and to keep it that way. Except for maybe a swipe through the hall and kitchen with the dust mop, Mom cleaned while I was at school.  I was responsible for my own room (which never stayed picked up -- I could have gotten lost in there) and the bathroom.  I think I remember washing or drying dishes, too. 

Here I am, as I told Carrie, with a 44 year old bad habit that really needs to change before we marry our girls off to some poor guys who are going to expect their sweet wives to be better homemakers.  It would be embarrassing.  I can see it now.  Our son-in-law will come over and ask to speak with me privately.  He will say, "Mom, I was just wondering... didn't you teach my dear wife how to wash the dishes after each meal? Wash baseboards? Vacuum the dust out of the vents? Clean under the stove?" And I will hang my head with shame. Before I can even teach my future brides this stuff, I have to learn it myself!

So. I got out my handy spray bottle of  Awesome Cleaner ($1 for 32 oz at Family Dollar)  and used it full strength on the kitchen walls, and on my hands and lungs, too.  I un-gooped the dried glue on the wall where the door stopper had slid down.  I vacuumed out the ceiling vent and around the fridge, and cleaned the tile above the sink. I Awesomed the teeny little baseboard trim in our bathroom, scraping off twenty years' accumulation of dust and hairspray, and I wiped the walls (Did you know walls get really filthy? I never noticed until I looked at them on purpose! How does that happen?? ) I used a pumice stick and CLR on the hard water ring on the shower floor. And then I threw all the dirty clothes into the washer.  Furthermore, I washed the windows and sills (some of them), wiped out the fridge, mopped the kitchen and dining room floors, and did some other mundane tasks. 

You know what?  You can't even tell the difference! I am tempted to say it was all for nothing, but I know it wasn't.  The cleaning bug infected Booklover and Carrotlover, who traded a day of school work for cleaning the family room (!!? I'd rather do school work any day than tackle this crazy chaos.)  The two of them organized cabinets, sorted blocks and Legos and K'nex, threw away projects that are no longer "precious" to anyone, wiped inches of dust off of horizontal surfaces, striaightened books, and reduced a mile-high pile of stuff on Booklover's desk to a clean surface.   And then, out of the goodness of her little golden heart, Booklover made sense of the disaster area on my sewing table.  I haven't tried to find anything there yet, but it sure looks good!  Kind of makes me LIKE to come into this room now!

Now to  mark a day on my calendar to do it again, and in the meantime, try to keep it this way.  It's a start, and it wasn't for nothing after all....