The Beginning: Or How I Saved My Countertops and Marriage (Week 1)

SOURCE:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/djbrady/ / CC BY 2.0

OK, so I've finally made the leap into blog world. It was only a matter of time. Recently I've been a little obsessed with with my blogger dashboard. And perhaps guilt has crept in a little. I mean, other people are entertaining me on a daily basis. Isn't it selfish to read multiple blogs every day and not actually blog myself? Yes, I have guilt issues. I've been thinking about blogging for a while now. I've mentally composed countless blog posts. Revised and edited them into my Facebook status. But something has finally pushed me over the edge. I've started a project. And as everyone (OK, maybe not everyone) knows, a project = a blog.

What is this project, you ask! Drumroll, please....It's housekeeping. Whoop hoodoo! No, seriously. That's it. What is blog-worthy about housekeeping? Not much. But in my house, it's a miracle. And miracles are blog-worthy. Get it? This all started 6 days ago. I cleaned my kitchen. Well, technically I cleaned off the countertops in my kitchen. I even got rid of all those piles of paper and random electronic devices.  Why would anyone need three memory cards, a cellphone battery, and some sort of microchip device on my kitchen counter at all times?  After said cleaning, I mentioned to my husband that (I'll use exact wording here, in case you want to try it on your significant other) "I'm really going to try to focus on keeping the counters clean. I mean every time I get something out, I'm going to put it away; anytime I spill something, it will get wiped up; anytime I dirty a dish, it will go in the dishwasher." And he said "OK." But something happened that I hadn't expected. I'd wished for it and prayed for it for YEARS. Somehow, for some reason, my husband heard all of this this as "We're really going to try to focus on keeping the counters clean. Every time we get something out, we're going to put it away, anytime we spill something, we're going to wipe it up. Anytime we dirty a dish, we'll put it in the dishwasher. Six days later, our counters are still spotless.  And I've spent less time and energy cleaning them than I've ever spent in my life.

So we now have a new standard in this house...for the kitchen countertops. And it didn't take nagging, whining, a 5-minute nightly cleanup (which inevitably turns into 40 minutes), or anything. It just took a conscious effort and about 10 seconds here and there. I love my clean countertops. They're beautiful! I realize most of you out there are saying, "Duh!" This is common sense. And you're right. But it's been lacking in this household for 8 years.

My goal is to implement this strategy throughout the rest of the house. Slowly. Next up is our bedroom. The plan works like this:

1. purge

2. sort

3. assess

4. organize

5. clean

6. don't screw it up!

In my mind this is so incredibly brilliant. I envision a continually clean house with seemingly little effort. A general lack of extra junk.  And energy I've previously spent picking up, putting away, etc. will be spent on deeper cleaning (like vacuuming and dusting)--chores that were mostly saved for company before. I'm planning on getting a room done every week or two until the entire house is finished. It won't be easy. I can only hope my husband doesn't give up along the way. And with a two-year-old, a three-month-old, and two big dogs, I've got my hands full. But I have very high hopes!