Help Is On The Way

This week's Cleaning Club began long before Monday morning. The Shannon family had been down and out with a very bad cold. We were sicker than we have been in years. It was such a great relief to know that we could just be sick without worrying about the house for the whole week. My mantra was "Cleaning Club will be here on Monday."

It turned out that I had a bit of reprieve over the weekend and was able to get some work done around the house, but not having the pressure of feeling like there was no help allowed me to clean the house and do laundry in a completely stress-free way without resentment.

Monday morning then found us with a clean house, so I decided that we'd go into the room which I'd pretty much avoided since we moved in September: Bernadette and Andrew's bedroom. These guys just turned 5 and 3 respectively and have a bunch of toys in their bedroom. It's been just chaos pretty much the whole time we've lived here.





So with the help of King Michael's direction, we sorted and recycled, trashed and cleaned. It was another time where I was just so glad to have Jennifer and Rachel there--because I started feeling worse again as the morning wore on and left to my own devices would have ended in a far more chaotic state than we began. We stripped all of the bed clothes . Using the tutorial from preparing for Michael's birth, Rachel washed and dried all of the bedding. Jennifer and I flipped the mattresses.





The results were just fabulous! It's one of those projects for which I am so glad we have before and after photos. The difference in that room has been phenomenal and has endured an entire extra week of mommy being dreadfully ill. Bedtime is better. Nap time is better. In fact everything about that room is better.





And what is the first thing all kids want to do in a newly cleaned room? Why dump out all of the the toys, of course, and play in this wonderful "new" space! Lyle and Andrew got right to playing with the trains on the cleaned and cleared floor. Since we cleaned--Bernadette and Andrew both have really enjoyed playing in their room. It's been so much easier for them to pick up, since everything now has a place and is easy to put away.



Even King Michael looks pleased at our offering. Huzzah!

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We Clean High and Low

I had to come up with a project for CC in a hurry this week, because Shannon's hubby was home from work sick and she thought it would be better not to have the Club descend on their home when he needed to rest. So we looked around and found a few things that were in need of some work.



We settled on this little cabinet to start with. The picture at the top of the page is the view underneath (yuck!) and as you can see, the cabinet was such a mess inside that the door wouldn't even close properly. I wanted to clear it out and put back only the basic drawing and coloring supplies, so that we could easily get to them.

So Rachel fished for lost treasure with a yard stick,



And we sorted through all the papers and old coloring books in the cabinet.



Of course, Michael was close at hand barking out orders and trying to keep us slackers in line.



It wasn't long before the shelves were wiped out and we were putting things back into place. A quick and easy project! But one that will make a HUGE difference in our day to day lives. When we have drawing supplies within easy reach, it provides a quick and easy activity and helps transition us from one thing to the next. All 4 of my kids love to draw so much, and this makes it so much easier.



After we had some lunch, we checked my list and decided to tackle the other job I had written down, which was to clear the tops of my kitchen cabinets. This may not be a problem area for some people, but at nearly 6 feet tall, I tend to stick things up there to get them out of the way or just to deal with them later. I didn't even REALLY notice how much junk was up there until we started taking it all down. In fact, I suffered from an attack of camnesia there for a minute and did not get a photo until all the stuff was actually on the countertop. I almost made Rachel put it all back up there just for the sake of the picture, but that's another good thing about working in a group- they don't let you do ridiculous things like that. (Yes, I probably would have done it if I were working alone. It's the photo-perfectionist in me. And you thought all my photos were candid! HA!)



Rachel did all the dirty work this time. My hero! She got up there with the vacuum and a rag and knocked out the cleaning while Shannon and I put all the stuff where it belonged.




Michael was so proud of us, he was kicking his legs and doing cheers!



After everyone left, I stayed in the groove and got the stove cleaned and took out the compost (both long overdue) and loaded the dishwasher. My kitchen feels so great!

 







Another excellent meeting of the Cleaning Club. We got a lot accomplished and had time to sit and chat too. And my family felt the difference immediately- that clutter up above our heads was weighing us down! Everything feels more balanced and I can close my little corner cabinet again, which was completely messing up the chi in my special room. Yay!

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Helping a Brother Out

My husband Joe has a lot of clothes. Way more than I do. And although he is the hardest working person I know, the poor guy comes home to share the smallest bedroom in the house and no closet (the one in our room houses our washer and dryer). As my grandma would say, that's a fine how do you do! Joe's clothes are therefore in several places around the house: in his dresser, on the shelf in our closet/laundry room, in my daughter's closet upstairs, and in the hallway closet I use for my hanging clothes. Until Cleaning Club this week there was no real rhyme or reason to what went where.

To top it off, Joe and my two kids were in a car accident on the Friday before Cleaning Club that totaled his car. They are all fine, but the residual emotional stress and the work necessary to deal with the aftermath were taxing on all of us this weekend and I didn't really know what we were going to do when Cleaning Club arrived Monday morning. And although nothing physically happened to me, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed and really looking forward to having Shannon and Jennifer here with me, regardless of what we accomplished.

Once they were here I was able to think through what I wanted to do (which started with emptying my dishwasher and reloading it, as doing anything else here while the dishes sat there seemed silly): something to help organize Joe's clothes world better.

We emptied out the shelf in the laundry closet which was loaded down with sweaters and sweatshirts that neither of us really ever wear.


We sorted through them and loaded up a couple big bags of donations (which Jennifer quietly loaded off to take to Goodwill for me, a huge help). We were left with a tiny stack of my sweaters that went back on the shelf.


We decided to divide Joe's clothes into dress clothes and casual clothes. Dress clothes would go upstairs in his half of my daughter's closet, and casual would stay downstairs in his dresser. We went through his dresser drawers and refolded and reorganized them. We moved anything dressy up to the upstairs closet and did some rearranging and cleaning out while we were there.



We put all his ties on a hanger and all his underwear and socks in these hanging baskets. Look, Joe's underwear! This blog is no longer PG.


Joe was so thankful when he saw what we'd done. Not only did his clothes make sense now, but the sweaters above the dryer had worried him (apparently a fire hazard). I think it made him feel loved to have our little team working on something just for him.

A funny side story: A couple days after CC, Jennifer's daughter spent the night with my daughter. The two girls apparently got the Cleaning Club bug and spent hours cleaning my house! They dusted and washed windows and organized and scrubbed and decorated in almost every room in the house. It was amazing!


Beware: Cleaning Club is catching!

A note on photos: Jennifer didn't bring her camera this week, so we used our point and shoot. And we forgot to get any of Michael, who was of course in the middle of it all barking orders.

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Pimp My Ride, Mama Style

That's right. We took Cleaning Club outside this week in order to hook up the mini van with some sweet new rims and a custom flame job.



Oh all right, you got me. We didn't do any of that, but we DID scrape mystery crud out of the back seat cup holders and clean gum off the seats. Not to mention all the vacuuming, scrubbing, wiping, and Q-Tip detailing that went on (All Hail Shannon, the Queen of the Q-Tip!)


Front seat cup holder. You don't even wanna know what the back seat ones looked like.

I am serious, the inside of my van has never been so clean. At least not since we bought it and proceeded to road-trip from TX to GA during the first week of ownership. Add 2 kids to the 2 we had already, and it's pretty much stayed a mess ever since.


Nasty carpet and 10 year old road atlas we unearthed beneath the basket that sits here.



Get those old ketchup packets OUT of the glove box.

We emptied everything out first- the glove box and all other compartments, throwing trash away as we found it and setting the rest aside. We took the seats and floor mats out, and even tossed the car-seat covers into the wash. Shannon detailed the car-seats themselves, while Rachel and I Armor-Alled the hell out of every surface in there. Now, I am usually a fan of plain old soap and water or maybe a bit of vinegar or perhaps a natural cleaning product or two. But that stuff really makes the car feel all new-ish again. The dash is shiny! And it got the grimy crud out of the faux leather grain on the armrests too.



Which reminds me: take a look at the armrests and steering wheel in your vehicle sometime. Especially if they are beige or some other light color. Yuck! The other thing that really surprised me when I took a closer look was the area between the door interior and the edge of the actual door. Blech! I was able to clean that grime off on all the doors and the back hatch, and it makes such a difference! I've completely overlooked that so many times when washing the car or cleaning the inside. It was so great being able to take the time to clean those off because of all the help I had.



Rachel vacuumed the entire thing out while I finished the doorways and washed the windows.



Luke took an interest in the vacuuming around the edges of the back hatch.



And Andrew was completely enthralled with the vacuum hose and tools.



Michael once again served as our overlord, keeping a watchful eye out for places we missed.


 "I can see those smudges from here! And don't forget the rear view mirror!"

 
"Can I get a little help here?"

We got the floor mats and seats back in, sorted through the rest of the stuff to bring in the house or put back into the van, and called it a day. Just look at the floors in there!

 

I followed through with the car seats and got them out of the wash and hanging to dry before I went to bed that night so I could re-install them in the morning. And of course, I was hit with a massive surge of the Cleaning Club Effect when the sun came out on Wednesday and I realized how grimy the outside of the van was now in comparison. A trip to the $4, all automated, water recycling car wash took care of that though, and made Stella & Lyle happy besides (who doesn't love a ride through the carwash?) I even brought an old towel with me and stopped to wipe the van off afterwards, which enabled me to get a few spots the auto wash missed AND shine my car up all pretty. 


Now it's so shiny I can take cool pictures of the trees reflecting in it.

It feels so great to get into a nice clean vehicle. Especially when it's yours. The kids didn't seem too impressed when they first got in, but then I directed their attention to the cup holders and storage pocket in the sides of the back seat. "WOW! OHMYGOD THIS IS SO AWESOME!!" was the basic theme of the conversation for several minutes thereafter.

It's very cool to now be able to take my Cleaning Club project with me everywhere I go. This is just another example of something I wouldn't have done as well or as quickly had I done it myself. And my entire family will be reaping the benefits for a long time to come- if for no other reason than Mom being a happier chauffeur!

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The Armless Woman

This week's project will resonate with anyone who's ever had a three month old baby in the house. One of my biggest struggles with having a baby in the house is seemingly losing the ability to use my arms for any length of time. This post has been delayed for days waiting to not have to type it one handed, and in bits and pieces. Alas--I am here between nursing sessions typing one handed.

After much consideration, and procrastination, and failure to get stuff for the original project I wanted to do--I decided that what I really needed help with this week was just an all over, top to bottom cleaning. My daughter, Jane, had her 7th birthday on the weekend. My son, Andrew, had his 3rd birthday on Wednesday. I knew that amidst so much partying, there'd be no way I could nongrumpily clean the house.



So on Monday we busted out the vacuums and dust rags, the toilet brushes and window cleaner. One of the awesome Cleaning Club Effects is that a job that you normally would do kind of half-assed, you do really well. I know Jennifer and Rachel vacuumed places in my house they'd not only never do in their houses, but that I also wouldn't do in my own house. For my part, knowing how hard they were working helped me to not slack while working on the bathrooms, which hadn't had a hardcore, deep cleaning since Michael has been born. If they weren't cleaning along with me, I wouldn't have had the (guilt) motivation to do as good of a job as I did.



I was also able to prepare our big meal for the day while I had help around. I'd been craving spinach and feta pie, but knew it was a little more time consuming to prepare than many of the meals which I make. What a great gift to get to prepare a great meal surrounded by love!

It turned out to be a great project, since Michael decided this week that he pretty much wanted to be in my arms nearly all day. And while I am an avid user of various slings and carriers, there is just no way to really clean the tub with a baby strapped to your body.





We finished Cleaning Club with a double round of Happy Birthday and blowing out candles for Andrew and Jane. Not only did the kids love it, but it helped us to eat up cake from Jane's birthday, before there was new cake for Andrew's birthday. Good thing #163 about Cleaning Club: they help you eat cake.

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The Project with Multiple Benefits

One thing we've never really done before is a project in one of our (count 'em twelve) kids' bedrooms. Of course, many of our projects benefit our kids (arguably all of them do since they make their mamas happy), but, today it would directly benefit my son Luke, whose closet desperately needed tending.


It was crammed and cluttered and with the recent addition of several toys that contain seventyhundredjillion pieces, everything was just stock-piling and it was one of those things in the Stuff to Get to Someday area of my brain.


While considering cleaning out and reorganizing Luke's closet, I realized that this project would also help me remedy one of those minor hassles of Cleaning Club that Shannon so eloquently described in her last post, namely: the cleaning up after having a house full of kids thing (or as Shannon described it, the "post-cleaning club apocalypse." But, she's prone to hyperbole. A rhetorical device I would never in a million years consider using!)


Because of the aforementioned seventyhundredgazillion piece toy fetish Luke has, his room is often ground zero for the mess- making. This is true not only of times we host Cleaning Club, but when we host parties or friends with younger kids. So, in cleaning out Luke's closet, we were able to free up space to stash most of those containers of toys up high, AND I pulled out several things that he doesn't play with anymore to put in the hall closet so we can pull those things out for our littlest visitors to play with in the main living area of the house. Perfect!


Michael oversaw the efforts, and only once mentioned an OSHA violation.


Also, lucky for us we had not one but two superheroes on the premises (just in case).


We started by taking off the doors of the closet. This allowed us to move over the dresser in there to free up more floor space on one side and makes for easier access all around. Then we took every thing out of the closet and piled it all up around Michael, like some kind of offering, and we vacuumed the rug in there.


We sorted everything--trash, recycling, donate, send home with another Cleaning Clubber, and move to another part of the house--and then put back a few things and added more containers of toys that had been on the ground. And the Spilling Over Effect I mentioned in my last post happened again when we ended up sorting and dusting Luke's shelves while we were at it (thanks to Shannon taking the initiative). After lunch we cleared out everything that was leaving the room and delivered it to its rightful place (including Jennifer taking away my donations piles, which I so appreciate her always offering to do).
 

The effects were immediately evident as Luke was thrilled to see his new closet, the little kids had a great time with all the stuff now set aside for them, and the clean up was quick and done before everyone left. And later that night, when two other younger kids came over to visit, the room stayed clean easily, too.


I loved the way Cleaning Club worked today. It was a high I rode for the rest of the day and brought with it a solution that will help in the future, too.

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