Motivating Myself to Deep Clean

Ah, housework. Some days it seems like all I can keep up with are the daily basics: throw in a load of laundry, empty the dishwasher, recycle the junk mail. Repeat. Repeat again. Housework is not my favorite part of stay-at-home-mom life. Volunteering, yes. Being there for the kids when they need me, definitely yes. Flexibility, yes. Not dealing with a daily commute, yes. So many other things, yes. But housework, no, not so much.

Our house is "mostly" clean, and it's certainly even cleaner when we know we're having guests. But the deep-deep cleaning has been on the back burner for a while because it's messy and takes a lot of time and I have better things to do and deep cleaning is so very b o r i n g.  But this spring, I realized that we've been in this house for three years and there are some "should be done annually" (or, um, even more frequently) type of deep-cleaning that I haven't done at all, or haven't done in quite a while.

But I seem to be on a deep-deep cleaning focus right now, so I thought I'd share some random thoughts about what has kept me motivated:

Emergency deep-clean: Within one 12-hour period this week, I smashed a light bulb and my husband smashed our glass coffeepot. We swept and dust-busted, but I was still concerned about tiny bits of glass, especially since we are so often barefoot. A-ha! There's the motivation I needed to deep-clean the kitchen floor (one of my least favorite chores)!  I mentally divide our kitchen into three zones (kitchen, eating area, and laundry room) and as of this writing, I've only cleaned the middle zone where the incidents occurred, but I think I'll be motivated to finish the job... I think. Either that, or I'll have to smash some more things.

Test ideas from Pinterest: In the past month or so, I've tried a bunch of small Pinterest tips. Successful experiments include: cleaning the tarnish off of my jewelry by using whitening toothpaste ~ deep cleaning my dishwasher and clothes washing machine by using vinegar ~ getting rid of ants in our kitchen by using a combination of sugar-water and Borax ~ cleaning our shower drain with baking soda and vinegar.  All of these are inexpensive, green-cleaning solutions that were easy and worked great.

Just do it: Our family bath towels have been looking worse and worse. I'm not sure what's happening ~ same soap, same everything, but they are coming out stained in weird ways. (See above, deep cleaning my clothes washing machine.) After literally months of being frustrated, I finally bit the bullet and bought a bunch of new towels in bright and happy colors and got rid of the old and ugly and sad towels. Spent less than $100 (I don't have my receipt, it was probably even less than that) and my linen closet and my laundry are happier (not that these things have emotions, but whatever...) My old towels were mellow shades of sage green and light brown; my new towels are brighter shades of yellow, red, purple, etc. And because they are from Target instead of from the more expensive catalog I like (The Company Store), I won't feel horrible if they don't last forever, since I still don't quite know what was causing the original problem. And the new towels led to a clean-out of the hall linen closet, which now looks much better.

Get a little gadget: After noticing yet another dust bunny and yet another spider web, I decided to get one of those dusters I remember my mother had when I was little; for a whopping $11, I now have a 'fun' little tool and can go around to all the corners to get rid of the evidence of my poor housekeeping (the kids can do the low corners). Silly, yes, but I am no longer worried that there will be something embarrassing in a corner when people come over!

Get a big gadget: My old vacuum cleaner has been dying a slow death. We've paid once to fix a broken belt and were told at the time we should just get a new vacuum cleaner. More and more often, the carpet looks almost as blah after I vacuum as before. And the extension hose (with the attachments) has been dead as a doornail for a while now.  This week, I finally bought a new vacuum from Target. Not a Dyson (I wish) or a Roomba (I wish), but a nice basic vacuum that will do the trick. The little red-for-dirty, green-for-clean feature makes me so happy, as did having an attachment wand thingy to deep-clean the edges. I'm weird like that. I went around practically my whole house the first day I had the vacuum.

Enlist family members in a speed sort: In our house, we have a 'game' called Keep or Throw. It's actually more like Keep-and-if-so-where-does-it-go or Throw-if-it's-garbage-or-recycle-if-you-can-or-does-a-friend-want-this-or-can-it-be-donated. It's best to do this quickly and make immediate decisions. Doing this in Kate's room the other night resulted in a huge number of things passed down to Alex, set aside for our little girl friends, given away to charity, or recycled/trash.

I'm sure there are more tips and tricks I've been using to get these deep-cleaning tasks done... tell me, how do you motivate yourself to deep clean?

Inspired by Pinterest: Basement Organization

A good part of my weekend was spent trying to make order out of chaos in our basement.

Our basement is known as "Kids Zone USA" and was re-done in fall/winter 2011 after a flood. We got rid of the tall bookshelves and the bulky furniture and instead opened up the space and more or less turned it over to the kids.

When the basement is neat and clean, I love it. Some of my favorite elements in the space:

• One of those big 16-cube bookshelf units from Ikea that stores sooooo much
• Desks for the kids (also Ikea), and an additional 8-cube bookshelf for more storage
• We finally displayed the kids' postcard collection (along the top beam that hides the pipes) instead of just keeping them in a box, and we finally displayed their artwork through the years (down the stairs ~ I always thought I would get around to framing it, but just plain scotch tape loops have done the trick too)
• Framed pictures of the kids in happy times, as if to remind them to be good to each other.

(These are pictures taken during the renovation process, back in 2011.)

 New carpeting and postcard display

Amazing how much this bookcase can hold! 

Framed photos of kids above; artwork up the stairs. 

(Christmas tree is not there all the time.)

Kids' desks (later we added bulletin boards to fill the walls).

Although it looks neat here, the systems did not work. Messy all the time.

Notice I said "when the basement is neat and clean, I love it" -- which happens, like, hardly ever. These pictures are funny to look at, because a whole lot of mess has been added in the past 18 months! The thing about having a basement known as "Kids Zone USA" is that I don't spend much time down there. I'm not a stickler about cleaning up... until it gets bad.

This blog post contains no before pictures of the mess because it was bad.

We are having friends stay with us over the Memorial Day weekend, and Kate's sleepover birthday party will be in about a month, so it was time to do something about the mess.

Decluttering

I'm happy to say that the kids helped me during a couple of 30-minute speed sort sessions (and I did a bunch on my own too), and we got rid of A LOT of stuff. Out with the Groovy Girls, unopened art kits that are now deemed too young and simple, cars and trucks that were seldom played with, the floor piano (think "Big" movie), indoor hopscotch mat, and tons more.

It's too bad I hate the idea of organizing a yard sale, because wow we do have a ton of great stuff. But I'd rather give things to friends and charity ~ spending none of the time and hassle, but reaping the rewards of happiness from sending things to other homes.

We also have overflowing garbage and recycling bins. What a great feeling.

Organizing

My little label maker has been working overtime this weekend. Yep, this is my perfectionist Virgo personality on full display. I believe a big part of the mess is caused by not having "a place for everything."

First, here are the inspirational pictures I found on Pinterest:

Inspiration #1: This picture is from the Land of Nod website. Loved the happy colors of the boxes, while their transparency means that it's easy to see what was inside.

Inspiration #2: This picture features my exact same Ikea corner desk unit. The blogger said that she no longer uses the furniture as a desk now that she has a laptop ~ samesies! I loved her idea of creating a "Mom Cave." (You can read about her project here.)

At the end of the weekend, I found myself perhaps 75% done with my attempts to organize and label everything. The easy part / low-hanging fruit is done, and today I'll try to get to the rest.

Here are some "in progress" photos. Not quite as beautiful as the inspiration pictures, but definitely functional and a big improvement over what was there before.

I got the colored bins from Target and will go back to get more this week as I work to fill in the extra spaces. I have made several trips for these, because I am deciding first what will go in the boxes, rather than just buy a bunch of random containers.  Perhaps I'll post the final pictures when this project is done.

Listening to Starbucks

I am so grateful to some guy named Mark Heringer for compiling a list of ALL of the Starbucks
"Pick of the Week" selections, going back to 2008. You can find his list here.

I've been collecting the free songs from Starbucks for many years. One evening after finding Mark's list (probably in front of the television, possibly with a glass of wine), I compared his comprehensive list with my iTunes library and created my own playlist called "Starbucks Freebies." 

I'm really not much of a music person, but I do tend to like the selections that Starbucks has made, and with a couple of exceptions (like Christmas music or classical/instrumental), the songs flow pretty well from one to the next. Now my "Starbucks Freebies" playlist is the one I go to for background music when I need something somewhat mellow in the background.

Some of you reading this will recall my love affair with Starbucks, but a few months ago I announced a trial separation. I feel like the quality of drinks has really gone downhill, or perhaps my tastebuds (and wallet) prefer the lattes that Jed makes for me at home.

The other day I happened to notice a bunch of messages on my Starbucks iPhone app. Lo and behold, the app automatically sends out the weekly pick (mostly songs, but occasionally apps or movies or books). I don't have to go into Starbucks to pick up the little slip of paper, and it was even easier to download the songs through the app.

Funny how this little discovery made me feel so happy. I thought I'd share it here, just in case you hadn't noticed this little feature on your Starbucks app.

Who Cares?

I can't seem to get the groove of blogging on a regular basis.

Here's what happens: I start off with a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm. I loudly sing the praises of my latest obsession to anyone who cares to listen. I celebrate my projects like they are truly going to Change.My.Life. and that they are the Greatest.Thing.Ever. I go way, way overboard. And then... I move on to something else.

This seems to be a pattern I repeat. Like, a lot.

A brief list of some of my short-lived obsessions that started off strong and then faded away:

• The "Motivated Moms" app - to help me stay on top of housework
• Spotify - to introduce me to different music
• Fitbit - to keep me active with 10,000+ steps a day
• Absolutely anything related to gardening and yard work
• Mint.com - to keep on top of our family finances
• Achieving "Inbox Zero"
• NPR podcasts - to expand my mind
• Unclutterer blog and forums - to make progress on all the extra stuff taking over our house
• Making seasonal "Bucket Lists"
• Spring cleaning checklists

And on and on.

Every so often I'll dust one of these projects off and try it again. But then, inevitably, the cycle repeats.

I'm not sure what this means, this frequent striving of mine, this pattern of starting a life-improvement project with over-the-top energy that just never quite cements into habit.

The very concept of moderation seems lost on me. Could it be that I have a touch of the bipolar that runs through my family, and this is how it manifests itself? Or maybe it's not that dramatic -- maybe I am simply someone who suffers from "shiny-object" syndrome, and gets easily distracted by something new before I have finished with something old.

Perhaps I could go back into therapy, figure out where this all comes from. Without a doubt, I have some deep-seeded fears of being bored, isolated, and/or depressed -- so I fill my days with activities that keep me go-go-going on this self-improvement path. Maybe I should just relax, not be so busy all the time, stop doing too much and just breathe.

Except, here's the thing: Who cares?

I'm not hurting anyone by starting and stopping projects. For the most part, I do follow through on commitments where other people are depending on me. (I certainly try to.) That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the projects I do for myself.

Relaxing and doing nothing just isn't in my nature. I've been accused of being an overachiever and a perfectionist, or of being annoyingly upbeat and chipper. And it's all true.

I am happy. Happier than I've ever been. Happier than I ever thought I would be. My friends who know me best understand why this is something worthy of celebration for me.

And so all of this deep-thinking to figure out what is making me tick, why I am running around doing too much, starting project after project but never quite committing to long-term habits -- I don't actually care. It doesn't bother me that I don't wear my Fitbit every day and I haven't updated my blog in six weeks and my yard has too many weeds.

So what if I don't follow through on everything I try? I do a little bit here and a little bit there, and it all adds up to a happy life. I'm not trying to prove anything, to myself or to anyone else. It's all good.