MY CLEANING ABILITIES OR LACK THERE-OF

Yucky, Dirty Grout At Our Back Entryway

This is NOT a paid post... Just so we're clear on how bad I was at this cleaning thing. :o)

Nobody has ever accused me of being a wonderful house keeper.  I've been told that I have excellent organization skills and a little knack for writing, but deep house cleaning...as in scrubbing and washing...has never been one of my strengths.

Now that Kazz is married, Brise is in college and our 4 "Junior Varsity" kiddos are in private school, I've had some time on my hands.  I haven't been using my computer much these days either, due to the lack of homeschooling needs, so I've had some minutes in the day to think about cleaning in a more scheduly kind of way.  (yes, scheduly-ish...new words...call Webster to let 'em know, please.)

My New Best Friend

I was also prompted, gently, onto the cleaning path by my gorgeous, loving husband, Brian.  One evening I complained that I was a bit bored now that my days aren't filled with homeschooling and foster parenting.  I sadly proclaimed that I didn't know what to do with myself.

Brian's eyes lit up.  He took my hand and off we went for a little walk around the house.  (This was all tongue in cheek, mind you....yet somehow...not)

Brian introduced me to a thing called a mop as we passed by the kitchen, on our way down to a part of the house in which I was unfamiliar.  The room downstairs held two white things.  One, he said, was called a washer and the other was called a dryer.  They're for cleaning clothes, apparently. Who knew? (Kazz and Brisan told me that they knew.)

I began to mull over this cleaning idea. I started to think of housekeeping as a sort of challenge, but didn't quite know where to start.

Foam Doing Its Thing

As it so happens, I was sitting on the potty one day, thinking about this house-deep-cleaning thing...and...as I sat there, I had a little time to look at the floor. I had never really looked "knowingly" at the grout and corners of our home before.  For some reason, my eyes just never really registered those things.

I took a moment to look down at the floor and THAT was a bad idea...or good...depending on how you look at it. The grout actually scared me. Parts of it were black.  I tried to remember if Brian had used black grout when he installed the flooring.  I was pretty sure that was wishful thinking. 

As I sat there pondering this situation, I checked under the sink and found a bottle of Clorox Foaming Bathroom Cleaner.  I picked it up, sprayed a particularly icky part of the floor and put the bottle back.  I went about my day and forgot I ever sprayed that part of the floor.

The next morning I got up to use the bathroom before waking the kids for school.  I was SHOCKED to see that the cruddy part of the floor that I had sprayed had LIGHT TAN grout!  Ick!!  After the kids left, I sprayed the heck out of that floor, let the foaming bubbles sit for an hour and then mopped.  Voila!  Clean floor!

AND THAT DID IT!! I LOVED THAT FEELING!

Clean Grout After Foam, 1 Hour Wait and Mopping

I promptly went into our kitchen, swept the floor and then sprayed that foaming cleaner all down and across the grout.  I waited an hour....actually I took a nap and came back in 2 1/2 hours....then I mopped and found out that we have white-ish grout in the Kitchen.  Holy Crap!

Brian got home and was shocked at the difference.  The kids got home and Kole exclaimed that our floor looked like we just had it installed.

This feeling is amazing!  I can't stop myself.  I've moved furniture, De-cluttered the house, made a little buffet/bar by the dining area for Brian.  I've contact papered my cupboards. yada-yada... on and on it goes.

Being a proper housekeeper feels pretty good.  I kind of get a thrill washing things down and moving things around...and throwing them away for that matter.  Oh the things I have learned at the ripe-old-age of forty-two.

Turns out, our windows pop out so I can wash the outside from the inside!  Yep.  I've lived here 11 years and didn't know that.  Sad?  No.  I had little minds to fill with knowledge.  Now, however, I'm filling mine with the fun of fixing up our living space. I enjoy figuring out the next part of the house to spruce up and Brian enjoys coming home to relaxation.

I was a little worried that I would run out of things to do, but thanks to Pinterest I will never be out of ideas for our little piece of the pie....or out of recipes for actual pie for that matter...or workout ideas...

You know, I'm starting to agree with my friend Heather P.  She is convinced that Pinterest was invented by men who wanted to trick women into cooking, cleaning and working out.  Hmmm....