It’s day two of Project Home Recovery.
In case you missed yesterday’s post, this isn’t a noble, I’m-cleaning-my-house-for-all -the-right-reasons series.
People will be coming to my house in less than five days, and my house was a disaster after the last few crazy weeks.
I have no choice but to get it into shape.
Here is my Day Two report:
At 9 a.m., I again set my kitchen timer for two hours.
I finished emptying my dishwasher and put all remaining dirty dishes in it.
See? An empty sink!
And . . . unlike yesterday’s three-loads-in-one-day, there is plenty of room in the dishwasher so I won’t have to run it again until tonight.
Within six or seven minutes, my kitchen was clean. If you’re avoiding Day One of 28 Days, there’s your proof that Day Two is ever-so-much easier. [NOTE: My 28 Days e-book is now retired – for detailed guides, check out my books: How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind and Decluttering at the Speed of Life.]
After the kitchen was clean, I headed to the bathrooms.
Bathrooms are my least favorite cleaning job. But today is Tuesday, and Tuesday is Bathroom Day.
I’m determined to do my daily checklist and weekly cleaning tasks each day this week.
I’ve made up many excuses to miss the last several (or more) Bathroom Days, but this is a week when excuses won’t fly.
And knocking out bathrooms today means I’ll stay on track to have this house under control in time for the party Saturday morning.
Have I mentioned that I hate cleaning bathrooms?
Yes. I hate it. I’ve been cleaning our half bath regularly for our weekly home group meetings. But I’d been pretending that my kids’ bathroom didn’t exist. No more pretending. While I can direct adults to my preferred-though-slightly-out-of-the-way bathroom, kids don’t seem to know which areas need to be avoided.
The shower was loaded down with empty shampoo containers.
And a band-aid.
Ew.
And the shower curtain. Ugh. I have no idea why my kids believe the shower curtain is a better way to dry their hands and wipe toothpaste from their mouths than the hand towel that was on the counter.
I took the shower curtain down and put it in the washing machine. Twice.
(You can read my fancy method of drying shower curtains here.)
I cleaned the mirror’s splatter marks that were three feet higher than my tallest child’s head.
I wiped up toothpaste that made me wonder if my kids have been brushing the counter rather than their teeth.
I scrubbed the shower, wiped down the counters, steam-cleaned behind, around, and all over the toilet.
I grunted, held my breath, thought unkind thoughts, and wiped down walls.
And when I was done, I was pooped. (Get it?)
But I went ahead and cleaned the half-bath and felt no guilt whatsoever about ignoring my master bathroom. (Ummm, that door will be LOCKED for the party . . . )
I took a shower (because bathroom cleaning is disgusting), and then was thoroughly disappointed to see that there were still another 20+ minutes left in my designated Home Recovery time for today.
I wanted to be DONE. Not done with the house, but done for the moment. But thankfully, that blankety-blank timer motivated me to do SOMEthing for the next twenty minutes.
I thought about tackling my daughter’s room.
That’s her room, AFTER we worked in there twice already this week. I wandered around for a moment, but couldn’t do it. So I decided to spend the (now 18) minutes picking up.
Randomly picking up.
Things get put down randomly, so sometimes random picking up works best. I took water bottles to the dishwasher, Christmas gift bags to the Christmas-bag-storage-spot, coats to the coat hooks, trash to the trash can, and finally emptied and put away my suitcase from Blissdom.
Not a huge difference, but that’s one less spot that needs a MAJOR overhaul.
I was so relieved when that timer finally went off.
I have more to do today (my daughter’s room), but it will happen after my self-imposed deadline for being on the computer.
Stay tuned the rest of this week as I chip away at my messy house!
Want to see my bathroom cleaning checklist? Go here.
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Oh, and I’ll be linking this up at Money Saving Mom as she reports on her own Bathroom Cleaning for today!
Two hours – very impressive! We’ve been doing lots of cooking so I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be one of those 3 dish load days. Good work!
Way to go!
Loved seeing your daughter’s room that way actually, made my daughter look like Martha Stewart!
Your bathrooms sounds like mine. I can’t believe I am the only one who can see the toothpaste splatter all over the faucet and our huge mirror. My son would rather use his shirt to wipe off any stay toothpaste from his face instead of the towel. I am lucky he hasn’t started using the shower curtain. 🙂 You did a great job, bathrooms are something I dread cleaning too.
Hi Nony,
Discovered you on Pinterest on Tuesday, bought your eBook off Amazon on Wednesday and have been in a declutter frenzy for 48 hours. I need help!~ What do I do with my paper monster? I have an empty file cabinet, but each paper I look at makes my “head explode!” Any advice? Thanks for your motivating blog!
Paper is my nemesis too! I can’t give final how-to-conquer-it advice, but I will say that heading straight to the trash can from the mailbox and kids’ backpacks has helped minimize it significantly.
I have a random suggestion about the curtain-as-towel dilemma. My nephew was doing this, so my sister switched to a vinyl shower curtain. Non-absorbent-feels-weird-the-towel-works-much-better-vinyl. Maybe not as pretty, and it might not work for you, but I thought I’d throw it out there!