J
Jeana_Lynn
Guest
I'm an all or nothing kind of gal. That's why when my house gets messy, suddenly it looks like world war four happened. I look at the mounds of dirty laundry, scattered toys and stuff piling up, and just feel overwhelmed. Not to mention things like cleaning baseboards, windows, light covers... And the list goes on and on. Some people can afford to hire someone to help, or others have family members come in and clean, but when you have nobody, it's all on you. So I do nothing and it gets worse. But not anymore, I'm taking back my home.
So here goes. This is a post to give ideas on how to deal with keeping a house clean, while dealing with all the issues of CF. I only have a few suggestions, but hopefully others will have some to add.
My first suggestion, if you have them, is to utilize your kids. Even my youngest, I have found can be helpful with some things. Sometimes it seems like it takes a long time to train them, but it's worth it in the long run to have them able to take over a chore when I can't do it myself. Part of my problem with that has been that I am more of a perfectionist than them, but what I've come to realize is that having them do the same chore over and over again eventually gets it pretty close to my standards. For example, I have my oldest son who is nine clean the bathroom sink and toilet. The first day he cleaned them, there was toothpaste still left on the sink, very obvious blobs. I had him use the scraper, that is for my stove to scrape it off. The second day, I had him clean that again and try to get the sides of the pedestal sink too. Each day it gets a little bit cleaner. Not all of us had kids, but they are a good resource to help us.
My second suggestion, is actually a website called flylady.com. Although I can't really get down with her baby steps to get started, because my house needed cleaned decades ago, I do like her ZONE system and the detailed cleaning lists within the system. Basically, the house is divided into five zones and you clean each zone during a month for about 4-5 days during that month. The detailed cleaning lists for each zone gives you suggestions as to what needs to be done. You only do as much as you can during that month, knowing you will hit each zone again the next month. I also liked her suggestion to pick hot spots where stuff frequently piles up and use a five minute timer to try to trim each hotspot down. And I also like the suggestion of doing one load of laundry a day. Anyway, it has helped me to an extent and I have just taken from it what works for me, but it's definitely worth checking out.
So here goes. This is a post to give ideas on how to deal with keeping a house clean, while dealing with all the issues of CF. I only have a few suggestions, but hopefully others will have some to add.
My first suggestion, if you have them, is to utilize your kids. Even my youngest, I have found can be helpful with some things. Sometimes it seems like it takes a long time to train them, but it's worth it in the long run to have them able to take over a chore when I can't do it myself. Part of my problem with that has been that I am more of a perfectionist than them, but what I've come to realize is that having them do the same chore over and over again eventually gets it pretty close to my standards. For example, I have my oldest son who is nine clean the bathroom sink and toilet. The first day he cleaned them, there was toothpaste still left on the sink, very obvious blobs. I had him use the scraper, that is for my stove to scrape it off. The second day, I had him clean that again and try to get the sides of the pedestal sink too. Each day it gets a little bit cleaner. Not all of us had kids, but they are a good resource to help us.
My second suggestion, is actually a website called flylady.com. Although I can't really get down with her baby steps to get started, because my house needed cleaned decades ago, I do like her ZONE system and the detailed cleaning lists within the system. Basically, the house is divided into five zones and you clean each zone during a month for about 4-5 days during that month. The detailed cleaning lists for each zone gives you suggestions as to what needs to be done. You only do as much as you can during that month, knowing you will hit each zone again the next month. I also liked her suggestion to pick hot spots where stuff frequently piles up and use a five minute timer to try to trim each hotspot down. And I also like the suggestion of doing one load of laundry a day. Anyway, it has helped me to an extent and I have just taken from it what works for me, but it's definitely worth checking out.
