My 200th Post - About Cleaning

I’ve never managed the knack of how my mother kept house, though my husband and I did develop what we call Company Coming Cleaning in the early days of our marriage. It’s actually pretty simple. You start at one end of your place and work your way to the other end picking up things as quickly as possible. What you do with the stuff you pick up is you throw it into closets as you go. In 20 minutes you can get your house into a presentable position for company to come calling.

What do you do about dust? Dim the lights. No, I’m kidding. Get the canned air that you have for your computer and aim it at some of the book shelves. If there is time do a little vacuuming. Spray a little air freshener around. Before you begin the pick up empty the cat’s litter box of anything she’s left there. At the end of your whirl wind cleaning she will have left another deposit in the clean box that you can pick up too.

If you don’t have any air freshener you could sprinkle a little cinnamon into a saucepan half full of water. Set it on a burner on the stove and the house will be on its way to smelling better by the time you are finished picking up. If you go the cinnamon route you should probably dispense with the air freshener. Too many smells can be annoying rather than evocative.

By the way, this is my 200th post.

Company Coming

Here's a hint that might help folks to get your house picked up. You pretend that company is coming. You might actually be somebody who gets a lot of company. In our house we don't see more than our neighbor for long stretches of time, but DeeDude informed me yesterday somebody is coming by on Monday to see how he puts his books together. They've given him photos to use for previous projects and the man just wants to see the creative process at work.

I looked at DeeDude yesterday and said, "You know what that means, don't you?" He said, "He might not even come farther than the computer. Remember the lady who came and I picked up the place and she didn't even go past the front door?" I said, "It doesn't matter. It matters that the place is clean and picked up and we know it is clean and picked up. What if she wanted to go into the bathroom and there were cat turds all around or something awful like that?" He reluctantly agreed.

So, for about 20 minutes this afternoon DeeDude and I need to do a, "Company Coming Cleaning".

The good thing about this method of cleaning is it doesn't last very long; just about half an hour or so, which isn't all that long when you think about it. It's a mad rush through the house picking things up and putting them away. In theory if company is parking their car on the street outside you can throw things into the closets and just close the doors. If you have time you vacuum. If you don't have time you get the dust buster out and hit the highlights.

Cleaning

It’s the weekend. What have I got planned for today? Something vague about cleaning. There is a group of girls who are accepting e-waste and other stuff: books, newspapers, fridges, etc. from 10 am to 2 pm. I ought to go through my books and round up at least one box worth.

DeeDude has been on a tear recently taking up the rug. So far he’s gotten the entire hallway and a portion of the living room done. The place is so much brighter and smells so much better. This is carpet that has been in place since our place was built in the early 1960’s. We’d worn holes into it and the final straw was when we both took a fall catching our toes in a widening hole in the hallway portion.

But, along with this major house cleaning project goes another project of going through our books. DeeDude has what he calls the 5 year rule. If he hasn’t looked at a book in 5 years it is on the list for getting rid of. Generally, we take them to the library and they will either sell them or include them in their collections. Some of these books are magnificent and it absolutely tears my heart out to get rid of them. But, we have no more room for them and it’s something that we should have done a long time ago. Last week I offered up 2 boxes of my own books. I came to a place of peace in my heart about this culling through the books when I began thinking of them as tools; the tool that was needed for a specific project that has since either been completed or abandoned for whatever reason. Weird, but it helped me to deal with the book anguish I was experiencing. I mean, books are my friends and every single one of them is precious to me.

With the advent of the internet much of the research we do can be completed online. Before, we would have gone to a book. Things change.

And…..I just culled through my part of the collection and got 2 boxes ready to go. I feel nobler. Still have to clean up the study, but at least it’s moving forward.

Stuck in Suck Mode?

This isn't about venting. It's about scratching my head. Vacuum while you walk. Do you like it? I just ran across it ambling (I'm 51...I don't surf anymore) around the internet.

They call them Shoovers. Electrolux is behind this idea. Looks like they'd add another inch to my height. They work on batteries. Except I can't find any to buy yet. The references I was seeing in Google to these needed housewifely appliances all dated to December, 2006.

Can you imagine wearing them to work, turning them on and then looking at your co-worker and saying, "These shoes really suck."

Messy Me

When I pull in my email I can count on seeing specific ones day in and day out. I don’t always look at them, but I bought something from these folks at one time or I signed up to join their forum and asked for their daily digest of messages. Like I said, I don’t make it a habit to read each and every one of them. Sometimes, I will save them up and every couple of weeks delete a whole bunch at once leaving one to look at. That’s enough to satisfy me.

You might ask, “Why don’t you just tell them not to send their stuff anymore?” Well, even though I am not reading each and every one of them I do still want to read them every once in a while. The easiest way to do that is to have one of them handy and in a more prominent place in my inbox…like up front and center rather than buried 150 deep. Also, it’s like making cold calls. Nobody likes to do it, but many times, in a job where you must convince somebody else to give you their money you have to. It’s just that waiting for them to come to you doesn’t always work well. But, when you’re making cold calls you can figure that you’re going to get one nibble from every hundred calls you make. I might read one email out of a hundred from the forums I’ve signed up for or from the companies I’ve used in the past.

I don’t know if other people handle their stuff the same way, but if I’m not able to “see” something sitting in front of me I’m not likely to do it. My mind just isn’t the steel trap it used to be. I accept that and use post-it notes to remind me.

So, what was the point of this post? Not really any point at all. It was just that I was thinking of cleaning up my study at home for my big weekend project and I believe I began to justify in my mind why it should stay messy. What can I say? I’m a slob.

Clean Much?

Okay…here’s something ditzy. I’d noticed some time ago that my monitor had this swatch of different looking surface glass. It was like it had burned or something. I know it wasn’t the sort of monitor burn that happens when you leave the same thing up on your screen for days on end. It was like a band 3 inches wide across the upper part of the screen. Very strange. And, it began bothering me. I’m figuring my monitor is on its way out and this is the first step. This has been going on for a long time. I actually have trouble with the dimmer part.

Duh. I cleaned it today. I used to smoke. Years ago. That’s how long it’s been since this monitor has been cleaned? I…well…maybe. I was cleaning one of the shelves nearby and had enough clean area on my paper towel to do a good swipe of the monitor. I happened to look at the towel (was using Lysol 3 in 1 Disinfectant) and saw a smear of black. What? That had never happened before. I looked at the monitor. It couldn’t be. Yet, I hadn’t cleaned anything else with that particular part of the towel. I set to work scrubbing and a bit more came off. I thought, “Oh, crap, now I’m taking off the protective coating on the monitor.” Except where it had come off was nice and clean and I could see better.

That’s when I remember how I used to smoke while I was using this monitor. Right. Except this is on like iron. So, even with vigorous scrubbing and the super cleaner it still wasn’t coming off quickly. I didn’t want to take a scrubber pad to it because I know I’d scratch the glass. Then I remembered. DeeDude just bought two boxes of Mr. Clean magic erasers and was using them to clean the shower. He’d left one in the bathroom. They don’t last long, but they do clean real good. I snagged it and the thing is blacker than anything and my monitor is a whole lot cleaner than it’s been in years.