Every fall I think “My house is a mess, I should clean it! As soon as the SIGIR deadline has passed…”. And I by clean I really mean organize. Donate old things we no longer use to good will, dispose/recycle of electronics that no longer work. Sure enough Spring comes around and I get distracted with something: School Work, Internships, Weddings. I usually do two half-houses passes a year, either tackling the downstair or the upstairs, but really what I need to do it all at once.

This years SIGIR deadline has come and gone nearly two months ago, and you couldn’t tell by the disorder chaos that is my home. No more.
Today I got out the scrub brush and got cracking. We’re not just talking clean, were talking Monica-Geller-scrub-the-toilet-brush clean. (Not even kidding on that, I already scrubbed down the toilet brush).

My goals are tri-fold. Clean, Organize, and Fixup.

Clean. This one is pretty self evident, but scrub down every possible surface.

Organize. A few weeks before packing to go to Hawaii we made a note that we were running out of toothpaste. I found a three tube pack under the sink in the guest bathroom. Being a three pack, it must have come from Costco, but our membership had expired over 18 months ago. Yes, we had toothpaste and we had ample supply of toothpaste and we didn’t even know it for probably two years. Did you know toothpaste expires? Another cuplrate for me is deodorant. For some reason I always thinking I’m out, but never am. By getting organize we know how much of each item we have, and what not to waste our money buying more of.

Fixup. We have a list of minor imperfections in our house. The previous owner had secured the toilet paper holder directly into drywall, so of course it’s starting to fall now. The water pressure is low in the guest bathroom sink. As we clean up we’re making a note of all the little things (and fixing a few on the way.) One can’t tackle the honey-do list, if one forget’s what’s on it.

I’ve divided the house into 12 zones (including the garage). Spring Cleaning will not get the best of me this year!

Posted in Family Life | Tags: Spring Cleaning