Okay, I don't know if I'm actually going to carry through with this, but this is where I'll start.
Once upon a time, I ordered this monstrous book called Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook. I thought that this would be a useful resource for me seeing as I had limited skills in the homekeeping area, and our house could get kinda messy (kinda...hahahaha).
Anyway, now that I have more time at home, and my kids are getting old enough that they can entertain themselves for a few minutes at a time (especially if there are stickers involved), I want to work through the book. I'm trying not to giggle and snort as I type that, because, really, if you could see my house, you'd wonder why someone who doesn't seem to like clean would be interested in an experiment like this. Sort of like Julie and Julia but less entertaining (MamaSutra and Martha? Sounds like a team to me.)
To begin, on page 23, Martha tells us that we should do the following everyday:
- Make the bed. Well, I make the "big bed" everyday, almost, but the kids' bedroom...oy. Credit me for being halfway there (1/2 point).
- Manage clutter. Ummm...does Martha realize that I have two messy kidlets roaming this house? I like how she writes that every time we leave the room we should straighten up and put things away. Obviously, she is not counting the times when we leave at a run because we have just heard the sounds of small children squeezing out entire tubes of expensive skin cream into the bathroom sink. I also like how she says we must "insist" that everyone else in the house do the same. (snort) Give me 1/4 point for trying to tidy up at the end of the day, and sometimes including the rest of the family in this.
- Sort the mail. I'm actually not too bad at this. It helps once we relocated the recycling bin to the bottom of the stairs which is close to the front door where the mail comes. I didn't say that I nicely descend the stairs and place the junk mail into the recycle bin, but the mail does rapidly find its way to the recycling area. Give me a full point if I manage to get a "no flyers" sign up by Friday.
- Clean as you cook. Sometimes I am a rock star, mostly it just sucks. I spent most of Friday doing the dishes that had accumulated over the previous 24 hours (three loads in the dishwasher and about four smaller loads in the sink...which hasn't drained properly since elder daughter dropped a chopstick down the drain...and, no, we don't understand how the chopstick fell all the way down there either). 1/4 point.
- Wipe up spills while they're fresh. I do this most of the time, but I discovered that I do not do this often enough on the inside of the oven. And, really, I should get some credit for the sheer ridiculousness of the number of spills we have here in a day. 3/4 point.
- Sweep the kitchen floor. Oh, if that were enough, to sweep the kitchen floor after supper each day. I do this half the time, but that floor needs a serious mopping every day or two. 1/2 point.
Current score: 3 1/4 of 6. And that's if I get my mailbox sign up this week.
My plan is this: I will gradually work through this book, or at least parts of it, especially the parts that I am really clueless about. I'd like to go through the weekly and seasonal cleaning stuff, and I'm sure there will be some stuff that I need to deal with along the way (I'll perhaps tell you about the oven disaster that happened last Wednesday).
In case any of this is interesting to you (Okay...did I really say interesting? I don't think I'm finding this all that interesting, more essential to the wellbeing of my family. Maybe I'll write a post about my homekeeping history...this is sounding more riveting all the time, isn't it), here are a couple related links! Oh boy!
- Periodic Table of Cleaning: Come on, doesn't that sound hilarious? Okay, I'll admit I'm weird for thinking that if you'll click on the link (the link goes to the explanation at Real Simple, then you need to open the PDF). In my really motivated moments, I think I should combine the Martha lists with this chart...yeah, that motivation never really lasts that long.
- Martha's Homekeeping page: I didn't even know this existed until now! How exciting!
I've started the second blog, I've set the challenges, put in a couple links. It's on, baby! If I get through this book, you're all invited over for mojitos, or something. I can't promise I'll do this, I can't promise there'll even be a second post, I can promise that if I write some more, I will definitely continue to start a lot of sentences with "okay."
