I hate puzzles.
I know that “hate” is a strong word, but it’s pretty much how I feel.
I’m an intelligent person. I was high school salutatorian, and did fine in college despite having a lot of fun. But puzzles make me feel dumb.
My brain just doesn’t work that way. Looking at a ton of pieces that look pretty much exactly the same, and figuring out which two out of 1000 will actually fit together gets on my nerves. It isn’t fun.
But give me a bunch of odd shaped tiles and ask me to create a mosaic, and I’ll be happy for hours.
I mentioned earlier this week that I’m going to try to assign a weekly task to each day of the week. Tuesday is going to be bathrooms, and I think I’m going to make Thursdays mopping the kitchen.
Since we’re talking about mopping, I’m ready to share a secret. It’s something I started doing around the same time that I started the blog. Around the same time that I decided to stop making excuses and do what needs to be done.
See, just thinking about mopping used to wear me out. All of the chair-moving, bucket-finding, bucket-cleaning-out-from-the-last-time-I-mopped-and-never-washed-out-the-bucket-so-it’s-totally-gross-with-dried-on-dirt, bucket-filling, bucket-lifting, mop-squeezing, dripping, floor-drying, blah blah blah exhausted me before I even did any actual work.
So last fall, I decided to try something I’d seen my mother-in-law do. We had spent the night at her house and one of my children got disoriented in the middle of the night. He thought he had to get to the bathroom on the other side of the house rather than use the one next door to his room. He somehow peed an entire river right through the middle of her kitchen.
I saw her not get flustered over having to mop. She didn’t pull out a bucket and lift it into the sink where it barely fit and then lug it back down onto the floor, full of heavy water. She just filled the sink in her laundry room (just off of the kitchen) and stuck the mop right in there. No bucket.
I had always wanted to try this. Somehow, though, the germaphobe side of my personality worried that it was gross to use my kitchen sink as a mop bucket, since I don’t have a laundry sink like she does. So, while worrying about germs, months went by and my floors got more and more disgusting.
So finally, I just did it. And boy, does it make the mopping process easier. And when I’m done, I scrub down the sink really well, which it needs anyway. And it’s been several months and we’re all alive, so I’m guessing it’s okay.
Now back to the puzzle analogy. I had decided that Thursdays should really be mopping days. Not that I wanted to mop, but it just makes sense.
So I went into the kitchen and realized that although in my mind I had cleaned up the kitchen because I had started the dishwasher . . . in reality, I had not. There were still the big pots and pans in the sink. (I have such an amazing gift for not seeing huge objects.) And the past few days worth of clean dishes that had been set on the counter to dry were . . . still sitting there. (Again, the selective vision issue.)
Anyway, in order to justify the sink-as-a-mop-bucket technique, I really can’t let any dishes touch the mop or mopwater, clean ones or dirty ones. So I had to clean the kitchen. REALLY clean it.
See, it’s all those interlocking pieces. A puzzle isn’t done until the last piece is in place. With a mosaic, you can just spread the pieces out more if you don’t feel like finding a place for all of them. The look might be a little different, but it can have equal beauty.
I’m not saying that I need to force the creative side of my brain into a mold that makes it something it isn’t. But I need to find the joy in puzzles.
If I can simplify things, I think I can do it. I enjoy a puzzle meant for a 4 yr old. You know, one that’s beyond having the pictures painted in the slots, but still doesn’t require you to clear off a table to complete it. If I make myself employ all those tricks that puzzle people know, like taking it slowly, finding the edge and corner pieces first, grouping colors together, it can be fun.
If I can do my daily tasks consistently, then when it comes time to mop/clean bathrooms/vacuum etc, it isn’t totally overwhelming, and can actually be . . . yes . . . fun.
Wow. We really were standing in the same line when God was handing out the housekeeping skills, and it was any line but the proper one. :>) I'm really glad you're figuring yourself out because it's pretty enlightening over here as well! "Selective vision" is the name of my game…
Being consistent helps me too! I hate mopping so much. I use the Swiffer now. Differently then how they intended though. LOL I use the one with the clean you can put into it. But I use the wet mop pads and don't hook them on.
I know they cost money but it's my little piece of sanity in mopping. LOL
When I was reading your post I also thought of my friend Heidi, who wrote a book, in which she teaches you to have a day for each major thing. Her blog website is http://bootcampforlousyhousekeepers.blogspot.com/
That last part again, you know the part where you said mopping can be “fun” – ?? Run that by me one more time… ?! :-S I’m confused! lol
I learned the same from my MIL (and I can’t share with my mom, because that’s where I learned my germophobe skills! She’d just die!) and it made mopping easier…until I got a steam mop that is.
Anyway, I completely agree with you abt puzzles! You called it. Tetris and putting together Thomas train tracks, I love, but clean-off-the-kitchen-table-to-complete-puzzles…ick.
I am like the princess and the pea with mops! I just am never quite comfortable one kind of mop and technique. When I was a housekeeper I almost only did all floors by hand, but I was getting paid and always gave my clients excellent treatment.
Now I’ve gone through handwashing only, mop in sink with drying, mop in bucket with drying, microfiber string mop, professional mop with big yellow bucket and wringer (got rid of that clutter!), swiffer, steam mop, back to swiffer, Bona, steam cleaner vacuum for hard floors, and finally back to swiffers with occasional steaming. I have 2 swiffers and I let the kids use them as this forces me to finish wiping up all the cleaner they spray. It isn’t perfect but it’s better than nothing!!
I’ve learnt a new word: salutatorian
Had to search it. Apparently a North American thing. Ah, well, feel there are enough speeches at a graduation ceremony, so happy that Australia doesn’t have this.
I LOVE puzzles (just not at my house (no clear surfaces), only at my mom’s). But they do take a lot of patience at the beginning to sort out all the edges and turn the pieces right side up. It’s tempting to want to jump right in and start making a beautiful picture, but it would be WAY harder if you didn’t patiently do the unfun prep work.
I want my house to look like the finished picture, but I need to be patient and do the prep work, figuring out what works for me, progressing a bit at a time, not giving up when a piece doesn’t fit.
The puzzle analogy only goes so far, since housekeeping is never “done”. Maybe add in a toddler, teenager, or husband, who keeps randomly taking out the pieces. But putting those pieces back is easier than waiting until the whole puzzle is all broken up and having to start over at the beginning again.
I want to add that not all slobs are alike. A lot of people here say “I’m just like you”. I am totally not creative, but I can still “not see” the messes all around me, so many of the suggestions here work for me. We all just need to figure ourselves out and what works for us, trying a piece, but being willing to try a different one if that one doesn’t work.
Ha I love the above comment we were standing in the same line when God was handing out housekeeping skills. I was in that line too. This post sounds JUST like me. I have this uncanny ability to NOT SEE dirty dishes, yet if the icons on my iPhone aren’t even I have a fit. I have OCD about some things and other things just seem to disappear.
I’ve been doing “Cross Country Ski Mopping” (just made that up now) for the last few times and it’s pretty fun…. I just fill the bucket (I know – the bucket 😉 with a little vinegar and hot water, put two big cleaning rags in, wring out and put one under each foot. Then I ski around our large kitchen/dining room area and it’s done pretty quickly. Plus, I kill two birds with one stone and get exercise!
I just mopped tonight (it was on my to-do list, but I was tired) because I was inspired by what you’d posted somewhere else about how little time things actually take if we just get up and do them!
Emptying the dishwasher in the morning is also my best habit. I’ve known for YEARS that my coffee maker takes 4 minutes to make coffee and it takes me 4 minutes to empty the dishwasher. It is perfect!
I even figured out dishes-math (but didn’t have a name for it). But dishes that have been dirty for 3-4 days take WAY longer to wash.
The crazy thing is that it never occurred to me that I HAD to start running the DW at night. Non-negotiable. I was forever saying, “I’m too tired. I’ll do the dishes in the morning”. And you know how that goes…
So glad to have found your book and got that missing piece of the DUH puzzle. If you want to unload the DW in the AM, you HAVE to run it at night. Like, duh! 🙂
Also, just a little embarrassed that I never figured this out for myself but so very happy to be on track for 20 days in a row, now!