One of the most challenging things about the stay-at-home-mom gig is finding the time to do anything OTHER than take care of His Royal Highness, Prince Aiden of Drooldom. Especially since I'm now taking care of most of the housecleaning. Before I quit my job, we were very fortunate to have the expendable income to hire a maid, so I never had to clean the toilets. Now, that's changed, since my income is gone, and Momma's cleaning it all!
I'm trying to schedule out my housekeeping tasks so that I can manage to get everything done, bit by bit. The last thing I want to do is look around my house and say, "This whole place is a mess!" and then have to spend 5 hours cleaning it all. So I'm trying to do a little each day to keep up with it all.
Things like doing the dishes or laundry aren't a big deal. I just run the dishwasher or throw in a load of clothes when I need to. Same goes for vacuuming. Ideally, I should vacuum every time I even think about it, because with two dogs and a long-haired cat, there's way too much animal hair floating around in here. I know, gross. But we love them.
My biggest question is how often I should schedule a task. Should it be done once a week? Twice a week? Once a month? I don't need things to be pristine, but I don't want to be lazy about it.
So here's my list of stuff that I still need to schedule:
Clean bathrooms (scrub toilets, tubs, sink)
Dust (everywhere, ugh)
Clean kitchen (wipe cabinets, deep-clean sink and refrigerator)
Scrub floors (hardwood and tile- especially important now that Aiden's almost crawling!)
Clean windows
Clean baseboards (I don't think I've ever done this myself, but the maid did sometimes)
How often do you do this stuff, if ever? And how long can I reasonably go without my house becoming a pigsty? I may not be able to keep it pet-hair free, but at least it can be somewhat clean!
PLUS! Getting my hair cut today! And I dyed it red, all by myself! Pics to come next time!
Friday, November 02, 2007
4 Comments:
I am right there with you. I used to be able to keep my house clean working full time and going to school. I thought now that I stay home, there would be plenty of opportunity to clean. HA! At least now, Ryan can crawl and follow me while I clean. But, she also likes to UNfold clothes. I try to keep my house clean, the kitchen is done everyday. It's amazing how many dishes you go through being home all day! I usually clean here and there during the week, and Fridays do some good cleaning.
So, I don't really have any suggestions, just do a little everyday, I guess. I'd say do the things you listed ONCE a week. Otherwise, you would feel like you were always cleaning!
I am not a "real" grown up, so I'm not much help... I'm thinking back to helping my mom with chores as a kid.
I'd say that the bathrooms, dusting, kitchens and floors are weekly tasks. (The fridge is definitely one of those tasks that's no big deal when undertaken incrementally each week, but sucks once it's a big mess!) Windows, monthly. Baseboards can probably go every eight weeks or so.
Our cleaning person comes every-other-week and I think that's good for bathrooms and the kitchen. Any more would be gross, and every week would be nice, but I'm lazy and am not going to clean them myself in between. I will do the kitchen floor a couple times between and hubby will vacuum as well. Go by your gut...our neighbor told me she has to clean out her bathroom every week or she gets a gross build-up or something. I'm not sure what they do in their bathrooms, but I looked at ours after 1 week and it still looks nice and clean!
I try to do all those things (except baseboards) once a week. But I live in a tiny two bedroom apartment, I am sure I would do it less if I had an actual house. Also, I have a 3 month old so for the past 4 months things haven't been clean as usual.
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