Cleaning the House New/Old School -- aka -- I Am Really Lazy


Saturday was a banner day for me.  I got up with loads of energy and I had great plans.  I was going to clean house.  Now, you must understand -- this sort of thing doesn't happen to me often.  I am not domestic.  Not even remotely.  I grew up with a mother that would be known today as a "clean freak".  She cleaned -- a lot.  I don't know that she LOVED it -- I don't remember her saying but she detested clutter and there was precious little around of that.  Of course, we lived in a 950 sq. ft. house which was typical of the time so there wasn't a lot of room for too much clutter.  In any event, I always lived in a very clean -- I mean Clorox clean -- house. 

My children lived in a clean house but I really couldn't stand the smell of Clorox so I used other things.  I used to clean the bathroom tile with a toothbrush and dust didn't land anywhere.  We lived in a small house but we had more room to store things so more things were collected.

The kids grew.  The collections grew.  I learned that one would not die from clutter.  One might go crazy but not die.  So what did I do, little Mrs. Non-Domestic?  I decided to ignore the whole thing and take up hobbies.  Lots of hobbies with lots and lots of things.  More clutter, more mess, yuck.

So, the kids are grown, most of their stuff has gone and I have reached a point in my life that I want my toothbrush and tile floors back.  I don't want the hobby stuff, I don't want the clutter, I can live without the magazines -- I just want it clean.

Well, that's great but over the years I have learned to really, really dislike housework.  So, back to Saturday.  I decided to start cleaning in my bedroom.  I have a large window seat that seems to attract "stuff" like a magnet.  I worked on that for quite sometime.  Then I dusted, vacuumed, tacked the bathroom...you know, cleaned the room.  It. Took. All, Day.  I decided to do everything with the vacuum cleaner -- I dusted the furniture, I dusted the shutters, I dusted the exercise equipment (which needs a new home, BTW) and at the end of the day you couldn't tell I had done a thing.  I was too tired to even put the vacuum cleaner away.

Fast forward to today.  I got up with great plans -- going to finish cleaning the house.  BUT.....I was going old school -- with sort of new techniques.  I dusted with microfiber cloths, cleaned the bathrooms with microfiber cloths, dust mopped the hard floors with my Big Woolly wool dust mop, use my little carpet sweeper on the throw rugs, mopped with my Rubbermaid microfiber spray mop and threw away all the seasonal holiday catalogs that have invaded my mailbox.

I got all that done in the length of time it took me to argue with myself about dragging out the vacuum cleaner. 

So, I guess it is official. I am living in the 50's.  I am just a little lazy.  I am not keeping up with the times but I got done quickly enough today to have time to play with my Nook tablet -- the one I have had for two years and not messed with -- and I figured out how to check out library books on it and how to listen to audio books on it!

So, yes, a day well spent!