The one-pile cleaning method for kids

The one-pile cleaning method for kids



I have used this method, though I've never read about it before. It does work well. 

How to Keep a House Clean

I focus on this first for two reasons:

1. It doesn’t do any good to spend 36 hours cleaning a house if it will be just as messy withing a day or two. In fact, that is so disheartening it will keep you from cleaning at all. So we build the habits necessary to keeping it clean before we get it clean. That way once it’s done, it will stay that way.
2. If you do the following to keep a house clean it will almost magically get cleaner each day. For example, one of the daily chores it to do a load of laundry each day. Since most families dirty less than one load every day, doing a full load each day will eventually catch you up. And since you will ignore the enviro-theists shouts to only do full loads and will do what you do have each day, you will stay caught up.

These chores won’t be enough to completely get your house clean, but they will go a long way towards it.

Some Laws of the Universe

1.           The more stuff you have, the more time it takes to clean, and the more money you need to live. 

Go in the most used room of your house (unless it’s your kitchen. Then go to the second most used). Imagine what the room would look like if all the decorations, knick knacks, keepsakes, projects not currently being worked on, and any other extra stuff were removed from the room, leaving only those things your family actually uses every day. 

How long would it take you to clean that room? 10-15 minutes, including vacuuming? How long does it take you to clean it now? 30-45 minutes?

Your Clean House Conga

Step 1: Gather your tools

·        A big trash bag

·        A laundry basket

·        A box

·        A notepad and pen that works (alternately: a phone with a note app)

·        All-purpose cleaner and a couple of rags. (I like Lysol’s All Purpose. It has a fresh, but not over powering and quickly evaporating scent, cleans wonderfully, and isn’t very expensive. And for rags, microfiber cloths can increase the power of your cleaner without having to use extra chemicals. In fact, a lot of the time, a microfiber with plain water will do a great job and you can skip anything stronger.)

The Rest Dance

Do this Dance after the Thanksgiving Dance and once per hour with the Clean House Conga.

Get a glass of ice water or a cup of tea, a good book and your favorite chair. 

Sit down, thank God for chairs, good books, and ice, and rest for 15 minutes.

Now you can do another Clean House Conga or Thanksgiving Dance beginning at Step 6, whichever you are in the mood for.

The Thanksgiving Dance.

*Step 1: When your alarm rings in the morning, get up and turn it off and thank God you woke up this morning.

*Step 2: Brush your teeth, shower and dress while thanking God for running water, a warm house, clothes and toothpaste (none of which millions of people on this planet have.)

Spring Cleaning and American excess

I got to looking around our house and my Mom's house and something occurred to me;

3/4 of everything in our homes is either decorations, mementos, or projects that "I will get to some day" (but know I probably never will. This includes books to read.)

If I were to take everything out of my house that I don't actually use, just kept what we really needed, It would take mere minutes to clean, and we probably wouldn't feel crowded (11 people under one roof tends to make our average sized home crowded, but, really, it's all 11 people's stuff that fills every corner, not the people themselves.)

I have no intention of getting rid of our decorations (I painted most of the pictures, for example, and what I didn't paint, Hubby took as an amateur photographer.) Nor do I intend to get rid of all our mementos.

But all those "do some day" things? I think they'll go.

And any keepsakes that won't really mean anything to my kids or their kids.

And any decorations that aren't just real special.



Yep. Spring is in the air.

Housekeeping

Seems to be the topic for today. This is a subject I can use a lot of help with, though I am improving.

Anna discusses the fact that housework, unlike office work, is never really done. Boy, howdy!

Jess talks about Jesus, the King, coming to serve. We are to be like Him, so we are to serve also. This is really what housework is all about, serving those we love.

Jennifer tells us how she learned to love housework. Yes, LOVE housework.

Kelly talks about simplifying our time in order to simplify our lives.

Spring Cleaning

Spring cleaning is something very few people do anymore. It simply is not as needed and we don’t have the time. But the goal of spring cleaning- to have a pleasant and sanitary home down to the walls- is still valid. 

Our grandmothers did this by taking everything out of the house every year (literally moving out!), washing and repainting the walls and furniture, and putting everything back inside, cleaning and repairing it as they went. 

This is way more than we need to do today. We are not dealing with homes heated with inefficient wood stoves (even our fire places burn much cleaner today), and most of our surfaces have at least a thin coat of plastic to make it easier to keep them clean.

Sidetracked Home Executives

By Pam Young and Peggy Jones


These sisters helped each others homes go from disaster areas to functioning, beautiful homes. Many of their suggestions are intuitive and the book is mildly entertaining.


The truth is that, though I enjoyed reading it, I think “The Messies Manuel,” “Sink Reflections (Fly Lady)” and Don Aslett’s books are much more helpful and entertaining. STHE is one of the main resources the Fly Lady refers to, so there is some historical interest in the evolution of “disaster relief” books.


By the way, if you have small children with no older ones, don’t worry too much about the house. Just get the bare survival stuff done. The day will come when you have a whole team of workers and your home can begin to look much better (unless of course you send them off to PS during the best hours of the day!)

No Time To Clean

No Time to Clean by Don Aslett

I just finished reading this book. It is a very complete guide to the how and why of cleaning a house. It even tells you how to clean each room and about how long that should take. It also discusses professional cleaning equipment and methods (after, the pros can't take all day to clean one house so why would anyone else?) I especially found its brief chemistry lesson useful.

Now, if you have read Mr Aslett's "Is there life after housework," you may find some of the information redundant, but I found it a nice complement. My house has been much better since reading this book.