Two weeks ago, I talked about my daily cleaning routine. Keeping up with that list of chores keeps the house mostly neat and orderly.  It’s not perfect, but it’s usually company ready.

The Saturday before Halloween we had a pumpkin carving party.  I had a semi-smart idea to lay down newspapers on the floor, but should have coupled that with a really smart idea and put down drop cloths under the newspaper.  On Sunday morning the kitchen floor was horrifying.  Big Daddy and I set at getting the pumpkin seeds and guts off of the floor, but our old steam mop wasn’t cutting it.

In all honesty, the old steam mop really hadn’t been cutting it downstairs for some time.  Our kitchen, laundry room, powder room and foyer is all tile.  The tile is textured.  Dirt gets caught in the crevices.  Big Daddy and I have scrubbed the floor on our hands and knees.  Because the steam mop couldn’t get in the crevices.

On that Sunday morning, Big Daddy decided that it was time for us to upgrade our floor cleaning system.  He hemmed and hawed and we hit the car to buy the Hoover Floormate.*

That afternoon, Big Daddy set to cleaning the floors and the floormate?  It works great.

My point, though, isn’t only about how well the floormate works.  It’s about how having the right tools can make your life (and house work process) so much easier.  I use clorox wipes.  I know they’re expensive.  I know that I could probably do the job as well with spray and a rag.  But I don’t like those things.  I like grabbing a couple of clorox wipes when I wipe up the bathroom or counters. I like that they’re contained.  I like the way they smell (green color is my favorite followed by yellow). I  like that I can leave a container of each under the sink in the bathroom.  That tool makes wipe ups easier. I can hand one to the big girls and let them wipe up too.

It’s time to look at your routines.  What things are being made harder by your process?  Are you back tracking a lot?  Are you working harder than you need to?

As a messy, I want to make sure I say the following.  There is no way to do housework that doesn’t involve you working.  Well, that’s not true.    You could hire a maid.  If you can’t afford to hire a full time maid, there’s no way that you can do housework without doing it.  I don’t like housework.  But since I like the house clean, don’t want to be on Hoarders and don’t want people scared when they come over, I’ve worked to stream line the process to make it as un labor intensive as possible.  Which, is really, the ultimate lazy girls’ way to clean house.

*In the spirit of full disclosure,  Big Daddy and I bought and paid for our own floormate.  Hoover didn’t provide one for us.  We got nothing free.  This is my own personal opinion of something we bought with our own money.  I think that covers the disclosure thing? I buy clorox wipes all by myself too.

It’s 45 days until Christmas.

Forty-Five Days.

I don’t want to freak anyone out.  Really. I promise.  But, well, if you’re not thinking about Christmas and you’re aspire to Martha-esque Christmas greatness, it’s time to start thinking, planning and doing.

Over the next seven weeks, I’m going to be suggesting tasks, cleaning and other projects to help you be ready for Christmas with the goal of ringing in the week of December 20th with nothing left to do but some cooking baking and reveling.  Sound fun?

Week 7 To-Do List

1) Take down your Halloween decorations.  As of publish time, mine were still half unpacked.  Big Daddy took down our air blown giant cat over the weekend and it’s drying in the basement.

2) Have you decorated for fall?  It’s not Christmas related, but why not put it out.  Thanksgiving is still weeks away and you have plenty of time to enjoy them.

3) Do you have a list of whom you’re buying gifts for?  Do you have budget ranges and gift ideas?  If not, this is the time to try and assemble those things.  There are some great deals to be had prior to Thanksgiving, but you have to know what you’re shopping for.

4)What Christmas decor are you missing?  We needed to buy new lights for our big tree and Big Daddy and I did that over the weekend.  We’ve started talking about and planning and measuring for our outdoor decor so we can purchase that as well.   Being prepared means you don’t end up frustrated when you overbuy something expensive or under buy something you really need.

5) Start deep cleaning the house.  I’m a messy girl too, but there is something wonderful about a house that is clean, decluttered and decorated for Christmas.  This week, I’ll be deep cleaning my bathroom and bedroom.  I’ll be purging old medications and toiletries.  I’ll be asking Big Daddy to put our bed together (Yes, we’ve lived here for six months and no our bed is still not assembled).  I’ll be purging drawers and closets.  I’ll be dusting, vacuuming baseboard, pulling down cobwebs and cleaning windows.  I might also splurge on a new pair of flannel sheets as our new house is quite a bit colder than our old one and we’re back to needing an extra layer.

Cleaning out actually serves two purposes:  first, decluttering is great.  Second, you might find things that need replaced that you can add to your Christmas list.

Why do the bedroom first?  If you’re like me, the main areas of the house probably need to be decluttered more, but the bedroom will keep if you pick up after yourself.  Also, don’t you deserve a clean bedroom?  You probably do.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about perfectionism.  I wrote about how it gets me down.  How it can make it hard to function.  I think that was a sentiment that  lot of people could understand.  The question would remain, though, how DO you deal with your house if you don’t let perfectionism take over.

My answer is a routine.  I have a set list of chores that I do every day.  Well, that I TRY to do every day.  Sometimes the kids are crabby or I just. don’t. want. to.  That creates another set of problems though.*

I have worked hard to keep this list simple.  It’s far too easy for me to over achieve and feel like I should be scrubbing the baseboards with a toothbrush or soaking the mini blinds in the bathtub.

My Daily Cleaning Routine looks a like this:

Morning

• Make the beds (mine and Big Daddy’s, Baby Bee’s and Littlebit’s)
• Wipe a bathroom (we have three. I wipe one a day on rotation and then everyone gets wiped up)
• Start laundry (we generate a load a day, so I try to wash, dry, fold and put away one load a day)
• Deal with dishes (if we’re running well, this means unloading the dinner dishes from the dish washer and loading up the breakfast dishes.  If we’re not, I cycle a load)
• Sweep the hard floors downstairs
• Vacuum the carpet downstairs

Evening

• Clean up dinner dishes and wipe up kitchen counters
• Wipe up the table after dinner
• take out kitchen garbage
• clean up the family room
• tidy up the playroom
• tidy up the little girl’s rooms
• put away clean laundry

I enlist the help of the other people who live with me to get through the evening chores.  It really only takes about 15 minutes to get everything done.  I have a weekly chore list as well, which I’ll talk about on a different day, but these two short lists are the minimum it takes to keep the house running and so we don’t show up on an episode of Hoarders.  I focus most of my attention on the things we need to keep the house running smoothly: clean clothes, a clean kitchen and a reasonably neat family room.  This sort of jives with Small Notebook’s cleaning hierarchy, so I must be something something semi-right because she’s sort of a guru.

*I’m no clean freak. I want to say that first.  I am not the sort of person who gets any amount of joy from the act of cleaning.  I do enjoy a clean, tidy and mostly organized home.  I am a happier person that way. But, I need to say this;  if you let housework languish it’s going to take more time, work and effort to clean up. I know this should seem like a no-brainer, but it’s taken me 11.5 years of keeping my own house to realize that letting anything linger is going to make it worse. The splattered spaghetti sauce on your stove?  Tomorrow it’s going to be like cement.  The laundry in the dryer?  Tomorrow it’s going to be wrinkled.  If it was damp, it might stink and require rewashing and then it takes MORE effort to get through your next load.  The pile of papers on your end table?  They’re going to pile up if you let them sit until tomorrow.  TRUST me.

This is my steamer. See?  It’s not pretty.  It’s kind of scuffed up, but that’s because it’s useful.  I use it.  For what?  What don’t I use it for.

Ugly, but good.

1) Cleaning glass.  Super easy.  Hose that glass down with steam and use the squeegee.   Your glass will be sparkling clean in minutes AND no chemicals.

2) All natural soap leave….um…chunks in your shower?  Steam if off.

3) Potty training children leave pee places you don’t want it?  Steam it off! (but, it stinks.  Just thought I should point that out)

4) Gunk around the shoe molding on your baseboards?  You get what I’m saying?

5) Dirty nasty sliding door track?  You guessed it.

It really REALLY does work.  It’s not a gimmick AND best of all?  It’s chemical free and does the job.  I’m all for spending money on products that make your housework easier and this is a biggie.  It really does work for me.

What one just like it?  You can find it at amazon.com (I don’t have to tell you that I don’t make any money from that link, right?)  Want to see what’s working for other people?  Check out WFMW at We are THAT family