Clean Machine

I took Friday off from work. I stayed home, and I cleaned the house.

I take that back. "Cleaned" implies things like dusting and vacuuming and washing, and I did none of that. (Well, very little.) What I did was sort through all the kids' toys and other assorted crap, and purge it.

I know I'm prone to hyperbole, but this is plain fact: I got rid of twelve trash bags full of crap. Five bags full (and I mean full) of stuff got taken to the CHKD Thrift Store. Another seven bags went into the trash. (The trash bin's lid does not close all the way. I had to rearrange the bin a couple of times to make sure nothing showed from outside that Penny might recognize and flip out over.)

I removed almost all the toys from our bedroom. (I think I left a couple of stuffies for Alex to play with while we're getting dressed in the morning and for Penny to use as "squeezies" when she's getting her bedtime shot.) I cleared a bunch of crap out of Alex's closet that's been in there since before Penny could walk. (There is still more crap that should be cleaned out of both kids' closets, but our house has a dearth of closet space, and I only had so much time on Friday.)

I purged the toys in Penny's bedroom, and straightened up the ones that escaped the purge. I purged the toys in the ex-garage/playroom, and straightened up and organized the ones that escaped the purge. I moved almost all the toys from the living room into the playroom (except one basket of toys for Alex), straightened the kids' book shelves (turned spines toward the room and right-side-up, moved all the cloth and board books down to the very bottom shelf for Alex, etc.), and disconnected the kiddie karaoke see-yourself-on-TV machine that Penny never uses.

(While I was at it, I did a purge on my end-table -- that was probably most of a trash bag, right there.)

I cleared off the dining table of all the assorted crap that doesn't belong on it, and moved all the toys in the dining room back into the playroom. Then I completely emptied Penny's craft cabinet, threw a whole bunch of stuff away, got out the DustBuster to clean up the detritus (the sole extent of vacuuming I did), and organized the stuff that had escaped the purge.

Then I tackled the downstairs bathroom. I reclaimed a dozen or so Tupperware bowls that Penny had usurped as toys, threw away a few toys that had never meant to be played with in the sink and were subsequently ruined, moved a few more back to the playroom, and left a reasonable few in a bucket on the counter.

I picked up the few toys that were on the kitchen floor and moved them to the side (Alex's toys -- like his sister at that age, he seems to need a change of scenery every so often. Unlike his sister, he is usually willing to play by himself while Matt or I get chores done.)

In between doing all of that, I left the house to:
- take a fresh vial of test strips up to daycare for Penny (oops, forgot to check the kit before school).
- take bags of stuff to the thrift store.
- pick up invitations for Penny's birthday party, which is in two weeks.
- pick up some prescription refills from the drugstore.
- swing by my office to submit my timecard and approve my underling's.

It was a lot of work, but by the time I was done, even though I hadn't really cleaned much of anything (except the inside of the craft cabinet drawers, and one toy which was so disgustingly coated with dust that I gave it a spray-down in the kitchen sink) the house looked so much better that I wanted to weep.

And because the house looked so much better, and because Saturday we started a brand new chore chart for Penny, I decided we'd go ahead and put into place her new chore that I'd been planning to start when she turned 5: At about 7:15 every night, it becomes clean-up time. Penny has to pick up all her toys that she got out during the day, while Matt and I pick up our stuff (and Alex's, of course -- we can't really start training him to pick up his things just yet). As a rule, this should only take about 10 minutes or so. (Saturday, we were done in less than 10; last night took almost 20 minutes because Penny had dumped ALL her letter magnets on the dining table, and insisted on carrying them back to the fridge one at a time.)

Penny does not organize her things when she puts them away -- but honestly, I don't care, as long as they're in the various shelves and bins and not on tables and floors. And as a result, there were only three toys on the floor this morning when we got ready to leave (all Alex's) so it was really simple to pick them up, chuck them back into the basket I'd set out for the purpose, and to start the Roomba as we were heading out the door.

You know, the Roomba I got a year ago on the theory that I could run it every couple of days to control the random crumbs, cat litter, and dirt, and actually run only about four times? Yeah, that Roomba.

And since I have to wash dishes on a daily basis for Alex's bottles anyway, I've been making it a point to try to actually load the dishwasher every night and wipe the splatters and crumbs off the counters and stove so the kitchen looks moderately clean.

...I could get used to this whole "neat house" thing.