Why?
Well, if a picture is worth a thousand words, I think this one image will explain everything.
I shall refrain from posting more than one "before" picture to save myself the public humility, but suffice it to say that the above is what happens when Daddy works 5 weekends in a row; when Mommy is fatigued; and when the two-week Monstervirus hits. Ahem.
As embarrassing as the above photo is, at least it's realistic. We can't always plan for life events, and when they hit simultaneously, sometimes all we can do is clean up the aftermath. So, when our house turned into a pig sty hit by a tornado, I was very eager to get things back into shape.
Of course, our experiment didn't go quite as planned:
Monstervirus was only half way over when we started, so instead of getting through the whole house, we cleaned 2 rooms. Total. Out of 9. Not including the porch, grounds, shed, or car. In an entire week. Not quite the deep cleaning I had in mind!
With everyone walking around like death warmed over (at least, for those who even got out of bed that week), trying to simultaneously accomplish cleaning and some sort of learning like music appreciation, counting, and/or sorting didn't happen. I think we listened to one CD the entire week, and L counted to 14 once. That was it.
Not all was doom and gloom, however. There were a few bright spots in between the illness, two unplanned trips to the doctor, and attempts at school work:
The kids had a great time and loved being involved...until they got bored and started playing with all the boxes that I was trying to recycle. And, of course, playing with boxes meant they had to pull out all of their newly organized toys to fill up said boxes. Sigh. And giggle.
They actually don't look too sick in this photo, so that's a plus!
There were some lessons learned along the way, as always (at least for me; like I mentioned earlier, I don't know how much the spark plugs learned with their feverish little heads being congested as badly as they were).
In The Money Saving Mom's Budget, she recommends decluttering to help with finances. Amy at Amy's Finer Things thought this was a waste of time...until she located two forgotten, uncashed paychecks. I laughed at her post about it here...until I found a stash of change that I've been collecting from my dryer's lint catcher.
I guess the joke's on me!
So, see? It even PAYS to keep a house clean.
A few things that hit me as we worked:
When I first set the bar at eliminating 100 items from each room, I wondered if I'd be able to reach that goal. Not only did we reach it, but we far exceeded it; and, IT WAS EASY! I might try again and get rid of another hundred (after we eventually get to the rest of the house, of course).
The plan to include the spark plugs in this deep cleaning and decluttering was good, but it turns out that teaching them to daily pick up their things and return them to their rightful spots of residence is, at this point, a much more needful activity. It's the daily buildup of dishes and toys out of place that leads to situations in the "before" picture above. I do plan to do more deep cleaning, and I also plan to enlist their help again, but through the end of the school year, we'll be focusing on tidying up various rooms each day before nap and bedtime. I think this will be much more efficient in the long run.
I'm very grateful that we made a stab at this, even though it produced completely different results than I'd hoped for. At least I knew enough not to expect any specific results - life simply doesn't allow for consistency!
One final note to self: once a room is cleaned, take photos immediately. Do not wait until Daddy comes home; do not pass "go"; do not even blink! If you have spark plugs, a pet, or dust bunnies, they will instantaneously render your beautiful new room dirty again.
Otherwise, you, like me, will leave your dear little blog readers to only speculate what those beautiful rooms once looked like.
Must I admit that I'm pretty sure my "after" photo would so greatly resemble the "before" picture that it's not even worth posting?
*Blush!*
