It All Started With A SIMPLE Plan...

Today is my half day at work.  I have the morning at home all by myself.  

(It's not as glorious as I thought it would be to tell you the truth.)

I thought I'd give the house a quick once over since it is guaranteed to stay that way for at least 7 hours until everyone gets back home.  Shouldn't take me more than an hour. Tops.

I said to myself, "Self, where should I start?"  

"The kitchen" I said.  "It'll be quick" I said.  Just a few dishes.  And whip up some more ranch dressing mix to get the empty jar off the counter.  Easy peasy.

But then, I decided I wasn't super in love with the ranch dressing mix recipe I used the last time and maybe I should find a new one.  There are a million of them on Pinterest.  No problem.  I found one in a reasonable amount of time.  So, I'll just pull out the ingredients and whip this up.  Lickety split.  Over and done, right. 

 Wrong.  I found a few half containers of the same herb or spice and decided that would never do so I combined them.  Then I found odds and ends baggies of bulk spices I bought along the way and felt compelled to put them in nicely labeled glass jars.  Then I sorted everything back into its proper bins and went to put it away. 

 But the shelves were dirty.  Can't have that now.  So, I wiped off the shelves and rearranged everything.

OK, now it is an hour later and I still haven't completed my super easy ranch dressing mix.  Seriously.  I'm annoying myself right about now.

The recipe said to grind the spices together for a smoother dressing/dip.  So, out to the shed to pull out my newly acquired 1972 food processor so I can grind my ranch mix.  That part goes pretty quickly and without incident.  But then it looks like this recipe makes more than will fit in my original jar.  So, back to the shed for a bigger jar.  I pour the nice ground up herb packed ranch powder into the jar only to find out that it really wasn't that much after all and it will fit back into its original container.

Now, nearly two hours in, I have my little jar of ranch dressing powder complete, a nice clean spice cabinet and my second batch of dishes done for the day.  

I probably won't get the whole house done today.  Just a hunch...

Speed Cleaning and Mud Season

Well, its full on Mud Season here.  I don't know if other parts of the country experience this blissful time of year when the snow is melting but the ground is still frozen so the runoff gathers in every possible nook and cranny turning all unpaved ground into a big dirty sponge, but that is what its like here right now.  The moisture is great and I'll take this over howling wind and subzero temps any day (except maybe Christmas).

What Mud Season means for us is a lot of extra dirt tracked into the house and a ton of wet filthy laundry.  That said, I decided yesterday that I didn't want to spend my whole day off while the kids were at school cleaning house.  So I figured I'd try this whole speed cleaning thing that's all the rage on Pinterest.  So, I set a timer, started in one room and worked my way through the house.

I started in the kitchen.  Its the entry point of the house and gets the dirtiest on a daily basis.  I set the timer for 15 minutes, filled a sink full of hot soapy water and got started.  Here's the thing.  The dishwasher was full of clean dishes from the night before.  So, before I could start cleaning up the morning's mess, I had to put away all the clean dishes.  I also had just come in from the chicken coop and had a dozen fresh eggs to clean and box up.  By some miracle, I managed to get almost completely done when the timer went off.  Except the floor.  I was really praying nobody stopped by unannounced at this point because it looked like I could plant crops on that floor.

Next was the dining room.  Easy peasy.  In fact, I had extra time in there.  I went through all the rooms except the bathroom, because it needs a good deep clean.  Shoes and clothes aren't the only filthy things around here during the aforementioned Mud Season.  And we have hard water.  Great combo.

So, anyway, after going through all the rooms but one, allowing 15 minutes each for folding and putting and putting away laundry, I was sweaty and my house did look pretty good.

I enjoyed it for approximately 20 minutes until it was time to leave and pick up kids from school.

Now, a mere 24 hours later...

There are 3 loads of laundry to be folded, wet rugs in the bathroom, unmade beds, dirt tracks in the kitchen and more dirty dishes.

And I ask myself, what's the point?

The point is that I can't stand a mess.  And I like to have a plan.  This speed cleaning thing probably works better when you're not trying to catch up on a whole weekend's worth of housework and laundry.  It probably also works better when there's not 30 pounds of dried caked mud on things.  Overall, it was a success and I'd do it again.  It was nice to focus on one room at a time and not run around like I have the worst case of ADD in the world.

I could probably beat the pants off of my cleaning time today.  But, I'm not going through the whole house again.  I really need to get at the bathroom before people start to think they've mistakenly landed in a sketchy gas station.  Besides, the rest of the house is still much cleaner than it was yesterday.  Good enough for now.

If you'd like to read more about "the plan" here's a link to the blog I got it from.  She has lots of other great ideas by the way.  Living Well Spending Less Blog