To further explain my weekly routine, Friday is sparkle and shine cleaning (I picked up that term from Leila's post). This is a short version of what my mother called "house cleaning," done every Saturday morning, all morning long. I got lots of cleaning ideas from Marla Cilley (The Fly Lady) in her book Sink Reflections. I shortened my house cleaning to one hour, tops, although living with my children means I spread it out over a whole day.
My Friday Sparkle and Shine:
1. dust
2. vacuum
3. shake rugs
4. dust steps with damp cloth
5. do one of the following: wipe doorknobs/lightswitches, clean/seal kitchen countertops, or wipe off kitchen cabinets
A few comments:
1. I don't have a lot of knick knacks. I do include the obvious baseboards, but I'm not moving furniture to get to any.
3. I have 6 throw rugs to shake in the summer, 8 in the winter. If I'm rushed, I just sloppily run the vacuum over them.
4. We have painted wood steps, and I learned this nifty trick of hand dusting the steps from my pastor Sue. I use a microfiber cloth.
5. These are all jobs that cannot be left to zone cleaning (deep cleaning), but don't necessarily need to be done every week.
Did you realize that my bathroom is not included in the sparkle and shine cleaning? It just felt too exhausting and overwhelming to me to clean everything in one day, but bookending the weekend with sparkle and shine cleaning on Friday and bathroom on Monday means that the house is relatively clean the rest of the week. And I don't think about it the rest of the week either, nor do I clean inbetween (except for the vacuum of obvious dirt on Tuesday - and I do mean obvious). I don't worry if I see dirt on Thursday because I know that sparkle and shine cleaning is tomorrow. My mind is free to focus on other things and consider other projects.
10 comments:
I'm cleaning today too : ) Have Fun!!!
I need my husband's help to clean and Wednesdays are our day; I tidy, dust, clean the bathroom and do a once over on the kitchen (that gets cleaned as we go, all week) then he hoovers the 3 carpeted rooms and sweeps and mops the rest. Then we sit down with a tray of tea and cakes. The most satisfying day of the week - all the other days all but the direst of muck gets ignored!
Attila, I think I will add a "tray of tea and cakes" as #6 to my sparkle and shine cleaning!
OMG is that an Electrolux sweeper c. 1960's? THat was my mother's sweeper!
Deanna Beth, YES!! My husband got it from his grandparents and brought it into our marriage. I love my sweeper!
Things I am loving today:
the phrase "Sparkle and Shine"
enamel rag bins
a clean house in just one hour
Fly Lady
that vintage sweeper in that gorgeous color
little boys in overalls
a mind that is free to focus and consider
TRAYS OF TEA AND CAKES
great post! :)
Robin in CA
I really like that you don't add tackling the bathroom cleaning on the same day as 'sparkle and shine.' I think that may be one of my issues at accomplishing my cleaning goals: trying to get everything done in one day. Or it might be that I'm willing to be distracted by almost anything to avoid cleaning in the first place. (I love your sweeper too!)
I'm loving your old canister vac!
I seem to gravitate to tea and cakes without doing the cleaning first---your tips are good ones and I hope to someday incorporate them, especially since I also don't really have any knicknacks...hahahahahahahahah
We used to have that lovely vac around the farmhouse too--As a kid I never thought about how it may have been 40 years old, but makes sense since how it said bye to us was by shooting flames out the back.
A, I take very good care of my vacuum, but I have already talked to myself about its(hopefully distant) demise.
But flames?! Seriously.
I've tried to be resigned to a cheapy department store replacement that will probably be black and gray or something boring like that.
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