How Long Can We Keep It Clean?

    Right now my house is pretty clean ~ as in you could call and I'd say come on over.  I'm not saying that my home is a pigsty.  I'm also not the person who claims their house is a mess because the magazines are no longer alphabetized.  With those two extremes as 1 and 10 respectfully I'd say my family hovers around a 5. So yeah right now I'm pretty stoked with how my house looks.
     At the moment my house would probably score a 8.  You see we had friends over Sunday to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  That means on Friday, Saturday and Sunday hours were spent cleaning.  My house is never "dirty" rather it is in a constant state of messiness.  The carpets do get vacuumed regularly.  The tile floor is cleaned; when someone does his chores.  Dusting ~ eh not so often.  Windows ~ well if you can see through them what's the problem?
     I have decided (and I dare you to mess with me on this one) that my main aversion to cleaning comes from my childhood.  For as long as I can remember I wasn't allowed to go out and play Saturday mornings until the living room was cleaned.  REALLY CLEAN.  This meant dusting (and we had a ton of knick-knacks) sweeping, vacuuming, and cleaning the windows.  For some reason I've never understood this chore was never passed to my younger sister.  I even proved to myself the first year I went to college.  I wrote my initials in the dust on the top shelf of our bookcase while home on Thanksgiving break.  They remained there until I was told I needed to resume my weekly cleaning when I came home that summer.
     I know how horrible I had to clean my house.  The thing was I never saw anyone else doing it and it always drove me nuts.  Even after dinner when the dishes were done I had to sweep the floor. So for me cleaning always seemed associated with punishment. I really did have a Cinderella complex going on there for a while even though I wasn't a step.  OK I made the Cinderella complex up but you get what I'm saying.  I felt like the chore horse.
     Obviously with the state of my teens' bedrooms as I parent I have gone 180° from my parents' take a cleaning.  Maybe not the best approach.  Though it was funny to see one of my son's friends get on his case over the condition of his room.  Amazingly my youngest loves decorating and redecorating her room so on my scale it floats around a 9.
     I have tried in the past to use different approaches to keeping the house cleaner.  Years ago I tried FlyLady.net ~ after a week I felt even more a loser when it came to my house.  The list of what you were to do everyday to get your house where it needed to be so you would only have to spend "a few" (60) minutes everyday was killing me.  The amount of emails you had to read daily was more stress I didn't need.  Flybabies, those dedicated to the system, will tell you the only reason it didn't work is because you didn't try hard enough.  However I do have to tell you I know a number of women who swore by this system while running an online business.  Simple Productivity blog has a post, How To Simplify FlyLady for those who are interested in the concept of FlyLady but unwilling to drink the Kool-Aid.
     Another part of my house's cleanliness issue is my refusal to do my kids' chores.  Their bathroom is their responsibility, I don't get involved until I know we're hovering on a warning from the CDC.  Same goes for the kitchen when it comes to the dishes and such.  My days of emptying the dishwasher and feeding the dog are not returning until all kids have flown the nest.
     So how long will my house remain company clean?  Who knows I'm hoping at least until Easter.  Mother's Day however, that would be a long shot.

 

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Frederick Hall (1860-1948)
Cinderella: Grimm's Fairy Tale