Monday, April 5, 2010

Monday Cleaning is Brutal

I love cleaning. No, really, my house is spotless all the time. Of course, by "love" I mean "try to avoid at all costs" and by "all the time" I mean "5 minutes before we move in and 5 minutes before we walk out for the last time". I have 6 kids, for crying out loud; most days I'm lucky if I can even see the bare floor!

Now I have a confession to make. The whole "day of rest on the Sabbath" thing you find in the 10 commandments? I take that seriously. (Serious enough to try to incorporate it into EVERY day). Yeah, that is my semi-religious argument for why I don't usually clean on Sunday, even to clear the dinner dishes. Housework and rest are incompatible, after all. As for not cleaning on Saturday, I really don't have a reason. Maybe I should get dual citizenship (religiousnessship? No, no the word must be membership) with Judaism or something.

So most Mondays begin with a teeny, could hide an elephant in there, bit of a mess. Now take that mess and add to it 8 hours of watching a conference for my church and letting the kids do whatever keeps them quiet enough that I can listen. Then add Easter and its accompanying candy wrappers. Are you getting a picture in your head?

So . . . I had a lot of work to do today. (I have yet to find a religion that recommends Monday as a day of rest. But I'm open for suggestions.) Purely for your entertainment, I even took photos. Some notes about the video below...
  • Six pregnancies in 10 years taught me to clean using the least amount of energy possible. I make piles, they grow and grow and grow, and then I put them away all at once.
  • Since I'm confessing my dirty (literally) sins: I usually Photoshop my pictures to get rid of the pieces of junk on the floor that haven't been swept. Okay, fine, I also Photoshop dirt off the kids' faces.
  • Like 70 year old women, I still use a vacuum that not only uses a bag, but is a canister. And I do it on purpose.
  • Outside of those overexposed windows is the ocean, so don't feel too bad for me.

*WARNING*
This video is dangerous for the clean freak or germophobic.
Watch at your own risk.

If you're too busy to watch the 1 minute video, here is a before/after shot:



Want to place bets on how long it takes to reach that level again?




post signature

35 comments:

  1. Hey, when did you get your new design? (love it!)

    You do good work. I had plans, but then I slept for 3 hours (after going to bed last night at 8:30. Sounds like I'm bragging, I know, but I'm more ... bemused.)

    I confess sometimes I make everyone clean on Sunday night. I just get to a point where I can't take it anymore, and then I figure cleaning on Sunday is better than mass family-cide. :P

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  2. I bet you threw stuff around, ha ha ha.. You have such a darling home..

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  3. Did you just throw it all in your bedroom?

    It's nice to know I'm not the only one who had a General Conference tornado rip through their house. That on top of "mom was gone all day saturday and dad forgot to have anyone do their chores or clean anything himself".

    And I have family coming to stay tomorrow.

    Maybe I should just kill myself right now.

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  4. I believe I saw Caillou on the television during that video, haven't we discussed the terribleness of that show? It is inspiring to see the cleanliness take place!

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  5. Gotta confess: your Before looks pretty good compared to my place, and I don't have kids! I do have packrat tendencies, a packrat husband, and a very small place.

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  6. Wow, nice place! Love the furniture and wood floors!
    Wait, was I suppose to be looking at the mess? Sorry, I was too busy drooling over your nice living room.

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  7. i am IN LOVE with those windows(and the hardwood floors)!!!

    i think it looks awesome. makes me wanna go pick up a broom...if only i could fly on it too!

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  8. I hope you didn't slow down your cleaning just for our entertainment of your photos. Do you have some cool feature that takes pictures every five minutes automatically?

    Kent's trick is to invite people over when the house is out-of-control messy. He usually gives me a day or two of notice, and almost without fail I get everything sparkling clean in time.

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  9. I thought you were going to photo-shop the junk out of there but you really cleaned!

    I feel for you, Charlotte, because my daughter is a one-child whirlwind. She whirls into a room like a hurricane and leaves everything messy behind her. If just half your kids are like her - forget it!

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  10. Hey- I'm in the market for a vacuum.....I want to know why you like a canister.

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  11. Knowing what six kids can do, I am sure by the time I finished reading, the room was a mess again. LOL!

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  12. It looks great! Nice looking home.

    I'm betting it takes about 4 hour until it is all messy again. With 6 kids, I'd be in awe if it took any longer. :-)

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  13. Nicki & Allison:

    You both are pretty close to right. As soon as the kids got home from school the destruction began again! I almost took a picture of what it looked like by bed time, but I was too tired at that point.

    FelixAndAva:

    I handle mess much better than clutter for some reason. If I can't walk on the bare floor, I'll live. If the cupboard is full of papers or junk- I just can't think without going crazy. I am the opposite of packrat and usually throw out stuff that I probably still needed.

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  14. Awesome. That's all I have to say. Thank you for exposing the truth of a messy home! :) Mine isn't as spacious, but it sure is just as messy!

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  15. awesome post! And I really like your new design.

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  16. Nice. I wish I could have been as productive as you yesterday! You must have listened close to Sister Beck's talk. :-) I'm glad I'm not the only one who takes Sundays off, or the only one to "forget" the kids have been watching PBS all morning while I clean.

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  17. When my kids were little & I wanted to clean up the house fast, I would put fast music on the stereo & work to the beat of the music. (I'm too old now, and that would kill me -- literally.)
    LaurieBee

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  18. I can't believe I overlooked the Saturday Sabbath benefit of converting to Judaism. I'm off to reconsider my world view . . .

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  19. hmm.....ocean out the window....SO jealous. Loved the time lapsed video, nice touch. It looks good clean in there!

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  20. You seriously have just made my day so happy. Clean makes me feel in control...and after the week I've had, I needed to see SOMETHING that was clean and beautiful. I love the progressive pictures. Seriously, do I need to emphasize again how happy that sequence makes me? I might need psychological help.

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  21. I am the exact same way! I don't do chores unless absolutely necessary on Sunday (seriously, if we are short one fork for dinner, I will take one fork out of the dishwasher and wash only it.) And Mondays are the worst. My three boys are 4, 20 months and 3 months, so.... the messes are bad. Glad to know there is somebody just like me!

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  22. Those before and afters? Amazing! Please, please, please - do my house next! Or you could just show me how to photoshop out the junk in my life....wouldn't that be a great trick?

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  23. Cleaning the house is a constant around here.
    24/7...I have to get dishes done on Sunday b/c I HATE waking up to a sinkful of dirty dishes on Monday--or any other day for that matter--I feel like I'm already behind when I do...and that makes me cranky.
    But your house isn't dirty, it's living!

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  24. I agree with Kim the only real sin here is that Caillou came on at your house! That makes me sick!
    The room looks great! I bet you felt so good that night.

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  25. I'm gonna say 10 minutes.

    If it makes you feel any better, our home looked remarkably similar to mine. . .

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  26. I am so very guilty of photoshopping (is that a word?) out the mess. Spots on the floor, dirty kid faces, even stains on their clothes. Once someone commented on how white and clean my floors were in a picture and I felt a little guilty because I spent more time photoshopping out the spots in the picture than it would have taken to just mop the floor. Love the video. Thanks for sharing!

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  27. So funny I hate how fast things get messy and I am also so sick of the candy wrappers!!! I should actually be cleaning right now!

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  28. Never heard of anyone photoshopping the floor before, but those pictures gave me a pretty good laugh. I think we've all seen our houses look tons worse then that..although I do wonder about the length of time it takes to photoshop the pic (it takes me FOREVER) in relation to how long it would take to pick up

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  29. Oh Charlotte. You must have been talking about me accidentally. It's okay, I'll forgive that you told everyone all about my habit to be slothful on Saturday-Sunday.

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  30. Charlotte, I'm laughing and I assure you it's with you and not at you. Although I will admit, I did feel a small sense of relief. Apparently two kids is less work...(I am under no illusions, hey are boys, and my future holds lots of messes).

    This is a hugely clever post! I also wanted to say, when you develop relationships "virtually" you get a sense of person, albeit, I think a small sense. It can be somewhat shocking when you actually hear that persons voice! Yours is lovely, and no you seem all that much more real to me.

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  31. You and I totally have twinner messes. Except my house is way not as nice or on the beach like yours. Or filled with books.

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  32. Great work there! I have a hard time keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest because I work and go to school and have to use every minute on the weekends to do house stuff. Ugh...

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  33. Ahhhh yes, the General conference, Easter Weekend aftermath. Been there done that with 6 kids!! Then add in my realtor calling me wanting to show the house....Sure no problem. Tell the potential buyers iit comes as is.

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  34. P.S. You are my hero for showing to the world what a real families house lookes like!

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  35. Looks really good. The mess didn't really seem that bad. Mine can look like that and I don't have six little ones at home. Glad you got it all done.

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