Cleaning Up My Act

Cleaning and I have a love-hate relationship! I love my house clean, but hate cleaning it.

It's not in my nature {or in my genes} to be cleanly. Ask my parents how they feel about housekeeping. Ask my friend Ali about the Miami Dolphins glass that sat on my high school bedroom window sill for over a year. Ask my friend Nancy about having to share a bathroom with me in college and who cleaned our bathroom more, her or me. Ask Ben who did most of the laundry, vacuuming and emptying the dishwasher when I worked full-time outside of the house. Ask my former housekeeper how I felt about having the let her go since I was going to be staying at home, which meant that I had to become the housekeeper.

When I think back on my childhood, I did have responsibilities that prepared me for my new job description. At my parent's house, everyone washed their own dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher. My parents split the responsibility of cooking/cleaning – one cooked and the other one cleaned up dinner. I was responsible for unloading the dishwasher {and most of the time, I did}. Everyone washed their own clothes; I can't remember a time when I didn't have to do my own laundry. I perfected the dryer fresh up method in my teenage years – toss dirty pre-worn clothes in the dryer with a dryer sheet for a few minutes and you could skip washing after every wear. On weekends when we HAD to clean the house everyone pitched in and dusted, vacuumed, cleaned bathrooms and picked up. We all went grocery shopping together and helped unload groceries. It taught me household responsibilities that many of my friends didn't learn until they were in college. And it taught me to be responsible for my own mess. However, it has also done me a great disservice, too. Now that I have no one to pitch in and help – cleaning seems daunting and overwhelming at times. And because I was always focused on a small cleaning task, I always did the job really well, which takes a lot of time. Apply that learned behavior to my life now and cleaning becomes very time-consuming.

I was always perplexed that our former housekeeper could clean our house top to bottom {my house isn't huge, but remember that we have 3 1/2 bathrooms} in just a few short hours – 2 or 3 tops. Granted everything was all picked up and put away for her and she didn't have any little people "helping" her clean or pulling out toys as she tried to vacuum. But still, it takes me a full day and sometimes more if I'm doing laundry simultaneously. I have had to teach myself to cut a few corners and not try to clean everything, every time I clean. Because I don't wish to spend my entire life cleaning, I've also learned to use tools to lessen the burden and make lighter work.

Enter Stella!

Stella is my sleek little Haan Slim and Light steam mop. I've given her name because she is my new best friend {and because clearly I have too much time on my hands}. I tried calling her Scarlet {because she's red, of course} but Stella just kept jumping in my head, so Stella she'll be. When I go to the laundry room to retrieve her, I think of Dustin Hoffman yelling "Stella!" in the Graduate {which I've never even seen, by the way}. It just fits her.

I fought Teeth Man long and hard for Stella. He insisted that "we" didn't need a steam mop. I insisted that if "we" were mopping the floors, then "we" could dictate whether "we" needed a steam mop or not. I gotta say, Stella has made the task of mopping floors so much faster, easier and environmentally-friendlier. Okay so maybe not environmentally-friendlier for me since my old way involved diluted vinegar, a mop and microfiber drying pad. But it may very well be more environmentally-friendly for those who use say, Pine Sol or other harsh cleaning solvents. I've gone from dreading mopping once a week {or two if I was feeling really lazy} to steam-mopping two or so times in one week. Here is the description from Amazon that describes the Haan best:

The HAAN SI-35 Slim & Light Steam Cleaning Floor Sanitizer is the ultra-sleek, ultra-slim and extraordinarily easy way to clean and sanitize hardwoord, laminate, tile, vinyl and any other sealed hard floor surface throughout the home. With its low profile steam head, the SI-35 easily reaches unders appliances and cabinets. Emitting 212 F steam, the SI-35 eliminates germs and bacteria, like e. coli, salmonella, dust mites and more, virtually on contact - without chemicals! Ultra-sleek and stylish design. Removable water tank can be filled right at the sink.

I should also mention she heats up in a mere 15 seconds and includes a carpet attachment that can be used to sanitize rugs and carpets and remove odors {perfect if you have a pet with a favorite carpeted sleeping spot}.

If you've gotten this far in the post, you may be asking yourself if I've really typed five whole paragraphs about cleaning and a steam mop. Is this really what my life's come to?

Really though, I've gotten better about cleaning. I've grown over the years in my cleanliness. And I've become even a little {dare I say} OCD clean. I love my clean house even more because it takes me so long to make it that way. It kills me when Paige drops food and Marley licks my nice clean hardwood floor and sheds a pound of dog hair on her way in and out of the kitchen. Or Paige pulls out pots and pans and strews them all over the kitchen. Or when Ben throws a dirty diaper in the upstairs trash cans and hangs his sweaty gym clothes over my clean bathtub. Or when Jack pulls out a toy gun and shoots Nerf darts all over the house and takes his shoes off from school and dumps out the sandbox on my newly vacuumed floor. I have to remind myself that a dirty house is a lived in house. And that it can't stay clean forever. Oh, but I really wish it would.

I love this sign that I saw on my friend, Jill's Pinterest – it may have to find it's way into my Etsy cart.

I've resigned to only cleaning every other week or cleaning the upstairs one week and the downstairs the following week. It's the only way that I won't totally lose my mind. Although one may argue that I already have...

Up next...my love-hate relationship with exercise.