X and Y, No Z Today | Chickens in the Road

May
27

There are two things I do every single day, no matter how manic my life is. I make the bed, and I clean up the kitchen. The entire house can be falling around my ears but my God the bed is made and the granite countertops are sparkling (countertops that we got for an amazing bargain because my husband is an eBay shopper extraordinaire and yes, you can even buy granite on eBay!!). I don’t know why it makes me feel right about my world to have the bed made and the granite sparkling when everything else looks like a tsunami came through, but it does. I like to light a candle, too.

Yesterday my husband came home and the granite was NOT sparkling. I think he thought he was in the wrong house. He said, the kitchen isn’t clean. He looked so lost. He can leap hurdles over the laundry on the way to his easy chair and never say a word in complaint but he knows something is up when the granite doesn’t sparkle. I said–I FINISHED MY BOOK TODAY. Then he got it. (And he even cleaned the kitchen up!)

What do you do, bare minimum, when you’re stressed and manic and you just do the things you HAVE to do mentally to tolerate your house? Don’t tell me I’m the only one who has x and y that they can live with when the rest of the alphabet isn’t done! :shock:

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23 Responses
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5-27
7:13
am

I do the dishes (note=load the dishwasher). I can’t stand having dirty dishes around. The countertops might be nasty, but by God, the dishes are out of sight! :thumbsup:

Michelle

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5-27
8:48
am

I only make my bed when I change the sheets, and I don’t have a dishwasher, but I can’t stand it if my family room isn’t vaccuumed and I just can’t tolerate anything on the stairs. Anything on the stairs – other than the cat-who-does-no-wrong – makes me crazed. Must have clean, uncluttered by anything, stairs to function. Luckily I only have two sets of them. :thumbsup:

Katie

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5-27
9:31
am

I used to clean the kitchen every night, but I quit this year. I still wash towels once a week. Does that count?

mary beth

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5-27
9:37
am

Like you, the bed has to be made. If I don’t get anything else done, the bed must be made. I try to make sure there are no dishes in the sink when I go to bed. I hate my kitchen counters. They are tile circa 1978 (meaning harvest gold with black grout). If I actually clean them, the grout crumbles and the tiles fall apart. I don’t scrub my sink because I hate it so much. It is urine yellow. Very curious about this ebay-granite thing. We are getting ready to start a major remodel and going with granite.

Rene

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5-27
9:38
am

When I’m in the home stretch of a book and can’t handle the stress, I put blinders on and make my people fend for themselves, including the kitchen countertops (which rarely sparkle!)

Jill

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5-27
9:42
am

I’m exactly like you, Suzanne. I need the bed made and counter tops have to be clean. I also make sure the dishwasher is loaded. I hate dirty dishes hanging around. Oh! And I clean the cat box once in the morning and once at night.

Trace

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5-27
10:12
am

Always on the day before Natty [our weekly cleaner] comes in, I tidy up the place. No matter how stressed, overworked or psychotic I am, the place has to be reasonably tidy before she comes.
Once I came home from work at 2am and I remembered that she was due in the following day, I tidied and cleaned the house ’til about 4am.
Stupid, I know, but I can’t bear thinking what she may think when she sees the true state of our place. ops: And yes my husband finds this baffling.

Màili

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5-27
10:57
am

Make the bed, and clean the front room so we can walk through. You just never know when someone is going to pop in. The kitchen (:yuck:) is the last stop of my day.

Kelly

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5-27
10:57
am

The kitchen does bug me the most. With these guys (3 sons and a dh) it gets to be such a mess so fast. But I do let a lot go because I have to prioritize and writing is a priority. Anyone who works a 9-5 isn’t expected to clean the house while they work. Same here. I hire cleaners to come in every other week and that helps to preserve my sanity!

Cheyenne McCray

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5-27
11:07
am

my solution: go to a coffee shop with the laptop and hope the cleaning fairies visit while I’m gone.

I have just posted :fryingpan:an educational feature addressing the wasabi pea question.

Kate PS

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5-27
12:37
pm

We’re supposed to do things like clean? How come no one ever clued me in on this part of staying home? Huh. Are you sure there aren’t cleaning fairies? If the world was right there would be.

AngieW

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5-27
12:40
pm

Mine is make the bed. The kitchen may or may not be sparkling, but the bed will always be made. Of course, I’ve decided that since I can’t keep up with the glorious housework:yuck:, I’m going to hire someone who can.:bananadance: Thank goodness it’s inexpensive.

Jordan

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5-27
1:40
pm

Housework schmousework. The housework can go to hell (at least for a few days), but the mail must always be sorted. I HATE having piles of unread, unsorted mail sitting around.

Sonja (from HCRW)

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5-27
2:09
pm

The only thing I do every day is get the mail! I figure everything else will do just fine without my attention! :smile:
I do wonder why someone has not invent some kind of state of the art bathroom where you just shut the door and it cleans and sanitizes by it’s self. Like a dishwasher! I hate cleaning the bathrooms and I have 3 and a half of them.

Tammy C

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5-27
2:37
pm

*hanging head in shame* Martha Stewart I’m not. I’m not even the illegitimate offspring of her third cousin, twice removed. To distract everyone from my obviously poor housekeeping skills, let’s all look at the Google ads to the left of this screen. Suzanne mentioned granite counters and, voila, Google supplies options where we can buy our very own! This could come in handy when I put in a new kitchen, which I will then pledge to keep clean! (Do I get points for using the environmentally-friendly cleaner Simple Green when I DO clean?)

Mary Stella

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5-27
2:50
pm

Google is kinda freaky that way, huh? If I mention Saddam again, will we get underwear ads? :shock:

Suzanne

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5-27
3:15
pm

Or ads on how to become a dictator? :mrgreen:

I used to always make my bed first thing after I got up, but since getting the futon it usually doesn’t get made up until the afternoon.

Tori

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5-27
3:57
pm

Make the bed? No. Do the dishes? If I must. I like to vacuum actually. But not when I’m manic. I clean clutter. Off the table. Off the cabinets. It’s clean space. Therapeutic, actually. Everything else? :talktothehand: Negatory.
Grins*
Congrats Suzanne!

Crystal*

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5-27
7:29
pm

Suzanne congrats on finishing!!

You know, it drives me INSANE to have a messy house, and a messy kitchen. And it’s so bad, I’m embarrassed to have anyone even come over and see it to clean it for me. Yes, I am a very sick woman.

The one thing that I must do to keep my sanity is make my bed. I’m a closet control freak, and I finally got to the point where I realized that with as out of control as my house is, that I needed something I could control. I never understood the point of making a bed that was only going to get messed up again in a few hours anyway, but it really did help to start doing that one thing. On the days where I fall out of bed and dash out of the house without making the bed, I end up not having a very good day, and I tend to get more depressed. Weird, huh?

Danica

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5-27
8:07
pm

Danica, that is so much like me and it is so weird, LOL, but making my bed makes me feel as if the whole house is under control. Which it’s NOT!!!! But I make my bed every day, have been like that for years. And the rest of the house can be insanely messy but if the bed is made, all is right with the world.:shock:

Suzanne

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5-27
8:39
pm

So seeing you mention making the bed, made me make mine. Oops? ops: Congrats on finishing the book.

Gina

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5-27
9:31
pm

I’m still waiting for the cleaning fairy, but until one shows up, I have to have the laundry done. Hate wanting to wear something and it’s dirty, plus my office and the laundry room are one. :-) Other than that clean toilets and dishes done.

Congrats on finishing the book.

Carol Burnside

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5-28
3:42
am

The rest of the house can be a disaster, I hate cleaning, but I can’t stand a dirty sink or dirty toilet. Also, I have to have the laundry done, the rest of the stuff can just sit for all I care! :yuck:

Teresa H

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