In an attempt to both build my blogging skills and get my house clean, I decided to create a daily diary of the trials and tribulations of taking a three bedroom, four cat house from trainwreck to triumph. You get to ride along if you so chose.
First off, let me say that I hate housework with a passion that cannot be described…but I just had my first hour-long session on my new regimen, and it was sort of fun.
Several things conspired to make it so:
- Being finally fed up with the sheer mess of it…
- Having a new (and rather literal) gameplan for getting it done.
- A good book from Audible to pass the time.
My new “gameplan” is this:
I made a chart of the big areas in the house — upstairs; downstairs; garage/pantry; and outside. (4)
Then I made a chart of the smaller pieces of each of those areas — Computer room, bedroom, study, studio, “junk room”, master bath, guest bath, “hall” area (upstairs, 8); Kitchen, dining room, hallway/stairs, bathroom, library, living room (downstairs, 6); back, front (outside, 4); garage, pantry (4)
Finally, I made a chart of durations, in fifteen minute intervals from 15 minutes to 2 hours. (8)
Then I dug out my old D&D dice and rolled up my first chore of the year.
It turned out to be a 2 on a four-sided die (or garage/pantry session). Rolling a four-sided again, with odds being the garage and evens being the pantry, I was directed to the pantry, and rolled an eight-sided to find out I’d be spending an hour there.
I set the alarm on my phone, turned on Stephen King’s 11/22/63 and went to work. Seemed like no time till the alarm went off, and I got a nice chunk of shelves organized.
My goal is a minimum of 3 hours worth of cleaning a day. Chores like dishes, laundry and shopping don’t figure into the list — those will still be done when needed.
I hope to use this blog to comment on tips I figure out along the way; products that work — and don’t; and to seek advice from more experienced housewives when needed!
I hope you come along for the journey — and feel free to post suggestions, encouragement, or questions in the comments.
Let’s clean!
Adrienne
UPDATE ONE: My second roll was 45 minutes in the Master Bath. Had Newell look when I was done and he said it looked like much more than 45 minutes worth of work. That’s all the encouragement I need for roll three!
UPDATE TWO: My final roll of the day was not quite so lucky, because it turned out to be an hour and a half in the guest bath upstairs. After one bathroom session today, I wasn’t looking forward to it…but I soldiered on even though Newell said I could reroll. Had to give up and admit I wasn’t going to QUITE get there about ten minutes early when my back was screaming at me from the unaccustomed exercise. But, the bathroom is in much better shape, and I never said I’d finish a room in one session.
DAILY WRAP: 1 hour pantry + 45 minutes Master Bath + 1 hour 15 minutes Guest Bath = 3 hours cleaning. Not a bad first day.
, and I am very proud of the results. I would like to do more along those lines…so if you write music, and want lyrics, drop me a line!
Rie Sheridan Rose 
Day Four
Sometimes, you just can’t sleep. Normally, for me, that means sitting in front of my computer playing Free Cell until I wear myself out or the allergy medicine kicks in…but I realized this wee hour session that I could get some cleaning done — even if I was only sitting at my computer. I am a terrible procrastinator when it comes to email. If I don’t read it immediately, I usually just let them sit in the inbox until I get around to them. Well, a daily offer or coupon isn’t going to have any value if you don’t open it for a month usually. The weekly tips on what film to see are outdated when the next edition of the newsletter arrives. Do you REALLY need to order something from that company you used once, or can you skip it this month? I just sorted my inbox by sender and deleted 1400 unread emails that it really made no point to open. Yes, you saw that right. 1400. And I still have over 600 that made it past the initial culling. But that little bit of “cleaning” makes me feel far better than playing a dozen games of Free Cell would have…and I think the meds may have kicked in enough to let me go try sleeping again. In any case, it made me feel virtuous. 🙂 Do you have a similar chore you can take care of today?
UPDATE ONE: Getting a very late start today, but excited to get stuff done. First roll of the day, 30 minutes downstairs in the hallway/stairs area. That may not sound difficult, and it isn’t, but you haven’t seen the hallway. You will. 😉
UPDATE TWO: Well, I tricked myself that time! When I set my alarm for 30 minutes, I forgot to change it from PM to AM, so I worked another 15 minutes before I started wondering if there was a problem…lol. But I think I made a dent. You decide:
Hall before the session.
Hall after the session. Not finished, but better.
Next roll of the day…is 2 hours in the pantry. I’m calling a tweak of the system. This is the fourth time in four days I have rolled the pantry. There are way too many areas that haven’t been touched yet. Again, I’ll keep the duration, but I need to re-roll the location. Have to keep some balance in getting things started. If one room is COMPLETELY done before all the others, that will throw things off. So, here we go with the re-roll: the Computer room. We really need a lot of work here, so I’m happy.
UPDATE THREE: It’s very hard to tell what was done in that two hours…but you should have seen the pile of mail opened, sorted and first pass filed. I need to get some file folders to get them totally organized, but it was a step forward. And I ALMOST cleared the Ping Pong table, which has been a dream of Newell’s for years now.
Computer room before starting the session.
Computer room after the session. Yeah…you can hardly see a difference, but TRUST me. I can tell the difference. 😉
UPDATE FOUR: Rolled 30 minutes outside in the front yard. Nice end to the day. There should be enough work to do for that length of time. And I can get back to my Audible book instead of having Top Chef Masters on in the background…
UPDATE FIVE: One of the things I have really wanted to take care of in the front yard is this weird growth on my porch rail:
(My pictures will get better when I unearth my camera in due course…at least my phone has a camera again!)
I don’t know exactly what the fungus is, or how to completely get rid of it. After 409 and a scrub brush, as well as another cleanser [Newell got it before we were married from Amway, and it doesn’t have a name on the bottle] and paper towels, this is what the rail looks like:
As you can see, there are still remnants of the fungus on the paint. I expect they will probably regrow. Does any one have any ideas on how to completely eradicate the fungus? Or a tip where to look for the answer? Remember — this is supposed to be an interactive thing. 😉
DAILY WRAP UP: 30 (45) minutes in Front Hallway + 2 hours in Computer Room + 30 minutes Front Yard = 3 hours (and 15 minutes.)