I love clean bathrooms. Sparkly ones. Ones with no grime in the corners or rings in the toilet.
If this is your first time here, and you’re doing research on slobs, this probably seems strange to you.
I can’t tell you how it makes my buttcheeks squeeze together when I hear someone remark about a slob that they “can’t understand why he/she would want to live that way.”
I don’t want to live that way. With this blog, I’m working to figure out why my brain doesn’t notice the stages in between sparkly and disgusting.
My daily tasks have made a huge difference. “All housekeeping points expire at midnight” means that I have to do the tasks whether something obviously needs to be cleaned or not. But the balance (almost everything in life is about balance) is that although the points expire in one sense, in another sense they accumulate. This means that if I’ll wipe spattered pee off of the toilets nightly, when it comes time to really “clean the bathroom” it is tons easier (and less overwhelming) than when I ignore the daily tasks and have to scrub away days or weeks worth of dried-on pee.
Make sense?
I’ve been avoiding making a schedule of weekly tasks. But since I do love a sparkly toilet, and the knowlege that it has been thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed, I need to figure out a way to start working on one.
The best way that I’ve come up with is to have one weekly task assigned to each day of the week. This worked well for one year when my kids were tiny, but then when schedules changed I got flustered and gave up.
Rather than make an elaborate list of all the things that need to be done weekly and randomly assigning them, I’m going to start small.
Tuesday will be my day to clean the bathrooms.
I’m generally home on Tuesday mornings. Knowing that Tuesday is the day to clean bathrooms will hopefully make me figure out a way to work bathroom-cleaning in even if something else comes up. And if I really can’t clean them one Tuesday, they’ll get cleaned the next Tuesday. Two weeks between bathroom cleanings isn’t really much of a stretch around here.
I love a shiny bathroom and kitchen. I refuse to cook if my kitchen isn't clean. Lets just say Sunday after church we been going out for lunch because I won't cook. Need to have the kitchen usable before I go to church.
I would never cook if I had to have a clean kitchen. LOL
I just found your blog and I can't stop reading it. How did you look into my home and mind? I am trying so hard to do the same things at home, but kids and a hubby who like to sit on the couch are a bad influance LOL. Keep up the good work because you make me know that there is hope.
My biggest housekeeping frustration has been the SMELL of my kids’ bathroom. No matter how much I scrubbed it always smelled like a portapotty in there. But in the last week, since I have been doing a swish and swipe daily, there is NO smell. I honestly can’t believe it, since I’ve tried every cleanser and method possible – apparently I wasn’t doing it OFTEN enough….every two months should be good, right???
Thank you!!
Few years ago I make an once-a-week plan. I still work on it… if I do anything at all, of course 😉
I chose days for the tasks because of the same first letters. I had to use several languages names but it was fun.
*Made
Gosh, I’m a teacher 😉
Ain’t ‘several languages names’ to much?
When my kids were really little (I think I was pregnant with my now 16yo third child) I did the FlyLady’s weekly home blessing hour each Monday. It took me more than an hour because there were ALWAYS things to pick up before I could sweep and mop. But my brother-in-law was astounded that I did that much housework every single week. He thought I was some sort of domestic goddess. I’m guessing I fell off that wagon when that baby was born. I haven’t been within sight of the wagon trail since then.
Most people will use the fact that I’ve had five more children in those 15 years as an excuse for me but it’s not legit. Or that I educate them myself at home. Or, or, or, or, or. People are so kind to me that way. Your blog and book are helping me to see that I’m not the only person out there who is too smart to be such a mess but somehow is a mess anyway. And helping me to dig my way out before all my children are grown and gone and I’ve missed out on doing all the fun things because the house was too much of a mess.