Cleaning the House- A Confession

Alright...I need to be real...I have a confession to make. I generally have an organized, clean classroom and a house that would embarrass the heck out of me if someone unexpectedly came over. I had made it my mission, back at the beginning of the school year, to have a house that was people-ready. If someone stopped by I wouldn't be running to the back bedroom and covering myself under blankets pretending I wasn't home. I would answer the door-what a concept! I would sit and sip some hot chocolate with them instead of slyly wiping down the counters as we stood in the kitchen and talked. 

Things on the cleaning front were going well...for about a month. I don't know what happened, except to say I got lazy. Or life happened. Or something. Things weren't being put away, vacuuming wasn't happening, the mop was yelling at me from the garage demanding some attention, I swear. Now it's not to say that my house was ready to be featured on an episode of Hoarders, but coming home to a messy house was drenching me in guilt. 

I wanted to clean the house top to bottom and get it over with, but I also wanted to fix the problem. I hate deep cleanings that take up an entire day and I wanted to stop spending every Saturday doing that. I set out to scour some blogs trying to find ideas. I've tried the clean for 15 minutes a day gig, and it didn't work. I'd skip days, looking around thinking things were fine, and then the next day do the same thing, and so on and so on until the house was a mess and I was a big blob of laziness. I tried the check-off sheet of endless chores to do each week, fitting them in whenever I could. Didn't happen. The list just hung there on my cabinet, unchecked and lonely. That's when I came across a cleaning schedule from Little Green Notebook's blog. 

I was giddy with excitement upon finding this schedule because it incorporated important elements for me including routine and general upkeep. The idea is that you do some specific upkeep on a daily basis as part of your morning routine, such as wiping down the bathroom counter as the shower warms up (we're talking a whopping 30 seconds of time people!). You also have one chore each day to do, like mopping each Thursday. I love this kind of organization. 

I decided to give this idea a go. I altered the schedule a bit to fit my house's needs and printed it on pretty pink paper. I slapped it into a plastic sheet protector and hung it in my kitchen cabinet where my monthly dinner menu is. I wanted to start with a clean slate, so I did it...I spent my entire Saturday deep cleaning the house and I'm hoping that's the last time I have to do that because it's just plain awful! Here's to hoping this works!

[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]