2012 July

She Won’t Look in Here . . .

July 31, 2012 By Nony 9 Comments

I promise, it’s not Mother In Law Week around here.

But really, a visit from an MIL is pretty much guaranteed to inspire a few posts for a Slob Blogger.

As I was frantically getting my house cleaned up for her visit last Friday, I stopped for a moment to . . . well . . . you know.

Anyway, as I was sitting there for a moment, I looked down and saw a small pile of clothes at my feet. (Picture above is a re-enactment staged for the sake of appropriateness of the clothing items.)

Perhaps it was because I was in Cleaning Mode that I even registered this pile of clothes.

Registered that they were there, and that they needed to be moved. But then my natural slob instinct kicked in and I REASONED that there was no need to move them.

Y’know, since no one would be using that bathroom.

The fact that maybe they should be moved JUST BECAUSE they’re dirty and don’t actually go there . . . didn’t count as a reason.

Thankfully, I went against my ever-so-persuasive Slob Logic and moved the small pile to the big pile where the dirty laundry is actually supposed to go.

Filed Under: My great excuses | 9 Comments

Making It Look Like I Haven’t Cleaned

July 30, 2012 By Nony 15 Comments

We all know I have issues, right?

Good.

On Friday . . . when I should have been basking in a kid-free morning while the kids were at my mom’s house, I was cleaning.

I’d been putting off any and all cleaning tasks all week under the assumption that I was going to start feeling better the next day.

Except that I felt worse each day than I had the day before.

And the house looked worse each day than it had the day before.

When Friday arrived, I had no choice but to get to work. My in-laws were scheduled to “drop by” to bring their dog here for us to watch while they went to a family reunion. If the MIL is coming, you can’t put off cleaning any longer.

Sick or not.

I was extra-irritated with myself because I hate needing to spend two hours just to get ready for a Friday morning visit when no one is expecting perfection anyway. I love it when my in-laws drop by and I’m grateful for the chance to pay back a little bit for all the times they’ve kept our dog while we go on vacation.

The stress over making the house look presentable? I only have myself to blame for that.

So I dragged my achy and miserable body around the house for two hours . . . picking up, dusting, vacuuming, and swishing out toilets. Amazingly, the house looked pretty good after those two hours, with minimal master-bedroom shoving. (An impossibility pre-blog.)

But I still tried this old technique. It’s a safety net I give myself.

Create a scene that shows I’m in the middle of a project.

I have my reasons.

If someone walks in and sees this project in progress, they assume:

1. That I didn’t do any special cleaning for their Friday morning drop by visit.

2. That if I didn’t do any special cleaning, this must be what my house looks like at any random moment in time.

3. That a missed Nerf dart or dirty sock or dust ball is totally understandable in a house that looks this decent on a day when, obviously, no one did any special cleaning.

I’m pretty sure no one realized that an hour and a half earlier . . . I couldn’t use this table for a project because it was completely covered in junk.

Filed Under: My Survival Techniques | 15 Comments

Dusting with Kids

July 26, 2012 By Nony 6 Comments

Last week I shared this picture on Instagram and Facebook. It was Dusting, Vacuuming and Mopping Day around here. This kid (who claimed complete exhaustion and likely-devastating-disease in an attempt to get out of participating in DVM Day) changed his tune when he remembered these dusting slippers.

So he called dusting. First . . . and loudly.

Before anyone else remembered how fun these things are to wear.

In the end, he had miraculously regained all of his energy and made it known that his chosen task of dusting was far more fun than anyone else’s task that day.

Competitive streak? Ummmm . . . perhaps.

Anyway, several people on FB asked about the slippers, so I thought I’d share a few Amazon links to some I found. (Though I’m pretty sure my mother bought these at WalMart).

Do they work? Wellll, maybe I’m missing something . . . but “dusting the floor” isn’t something that made it onto my Weekly Task List. Perhaps that’s because I also vacuum on the day that I dust.

But whatever. If they motivate my 8yo to do housework, they’re awesome.

Here’s an entire page of options on Amazon. There are ones for kids, ones with bows, ones for men, and more. Just be sure to read the reviews, because I noticed a comment on the one for kids that the buyer thought they ordered another color but received pink. I’m not sure that my son would have been quite so excited about using pink slippers to ~~skate around the house~~ dust.

Amazon.com Widgets

Oh. The Amazon links? Yes, they’re definitely my affiliate links.