Thoughts on Cleaning House
Nov 15th, 2007 by lisa
You know how it is. You start out to do one little thing like putting out fresh towels, and the next thing you know you’re cleaning the bathroom. As you are finishing the bathroom, suddenly the kitchen floor is the unbearably dirty and you are cleaning the kitchen.
I vacuumed yesterday, thank goodness. Otherwise I’d likely be doing that today as well. I’m trying not to notice the dust, because then I’d lose my afternoon. I can’t just simply dust around things. I’ve tried that. I make the determination that I will dust around things quickly and that will be good enough, and then the next thing I know I’m clearing surfaces, and dusting not only the surfaces but the objects as well. It’s pathetic. When it comes to housework, I’m no good at shortcuts. It’s all or nothing. That might seem like a good thing, but it often results in me putting off housework because I simply don’t have the energy, until it gets bad enough that I can’t ignore it anymore.
I’ve rediscovered Lysol. I remember it as something my grandmother used, and then my mom after her. Lysol, Pine Sol, ammonia and bleach. You didn’t need anything else. You didn’t need specialized products that cost $3.49 and only clean one thing in your house. You had your arsenal of cleaning products, understood their versatility and knew how to use them. They worked as advertised and your home always smelled good afterward. Removing the need for yet another product costing $4.29 that does nothing but spew chemical scents into the air.
I bought some Lysol at WalMart the other day because I needed something that would rid my bathtub of soap scum. We use an olive oil based soap in the shower and while it’s wonderful for the skin, it’s leaves a film in the tub. The Lysol was on sale, the bottle mad the claim that it would remove soap scum, so I bought it. Not only did it quickly and easily remove said scum, my tub is a shiny and sparkly as the day we moved in. I thought about grandma and mom and it occurred to me that simple is always better.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of being overwhelmed with products to choose from in the store. I’m tired of consumer overload. I just want simple things to do simple jobs. I feel that life has become unnecessarily complicated in our time, and I’m fed up with it. I can’t change the world, but I can change how I do things at home. I started with simplifying my diet, and now I’m working on simplifying how I keep house. One thing at a time…
You just described my cleaning patterns. I ignore things until I can’t any longer… which is not saying that my house is a mess, cuz it isn’t I do keep it tidy… I just don’t do the deep cleaning stuff like I used to. I have a tendency to dwell on things when I’m cleaning because it is so mindless. I usually have the physical energy to clean, not always the emotional energy.
I agree with you a mazillion percent, there are far too many specialized cleaning products available. I rely on two things… Windex and Comet. The ‘Sols’ are too aromatic to me. Good for you deciding to simplify in yet another healthy way.
Don’t you find it sadly ironic that we have to ‘decide’ to do things that were just the way things were a generation ago?
Yes, very ironic. And annoying. The old ways are as good, if not better, than a lot of what the advertisers want us to buy into these days.