Martha Monday--Spring cleaning

It's spring here in the Midwest. Well, scratch that. It was winter, then it was summer, and now back to almost winter, so spring must be coming soon.  Any minute now, in fact!  And spring means cleaning.

Though I must admit....do you know what really puts me in the mood to clean?  It's not the weather...it's watching Hoarders. Nothing makes me want to clean quite like watching that show does.  Shudder.

Of course, Martha is a whiz when it comes to spring cleaning. She may have even invented it. 

Honestly! Look how happy she is! I'm nowhere near that happy when I'm cleaning.  I can only guess her happiness is due to the fact that she invented spring cleaning, and now it's a cultural phenomenon.

Note to self: invent something that becomes a cultural phenomenon. Bonus points if it includes ice cream and cake! 

My plan for the weekend was to spring-clean the entire second floor (four bedrooms, two bathrooms and one laundry room) but all we accomplished was cleaning the kids' rooms and simply vacuuming the rest. It's certainly not as much as I hoped to get done, but it is a start.  

One of the great tips I got when I was reading over Martha's list of spring cleaning basics is to clean the curtains, and that did happen for the kids' room.  So while we only tackled a few rooms, we got them completely done. 

Well, mostly almost completely done. Don't look at the baseboards.

Instead, look at this ice cream and cake! It's part of this new thing I've invented!

Happy Monday, everyone!

Spring break FAIL

So I had grand plans for a boatload of cleaning I wanted to accomplish over my spring break. 

Did the master bathroom get cleaned?  No.

Did the kitchen get cleaned?  Negative.

Did the basement get cleaned?  Meh. Kind of. I guess.

To be fair, I did have an unexpected family situation come up that required two days of my time. Then I volunteered to babysit a friend's kid so she could get some work stuff done, so there went another day. Add an unhappy Little Miss with tonsilitis to the mix, and my ideal spring break of cleaning my house from top to bottom has now been postponed until next year.     

The Big Guy and I did tackle the basement on Tuesday morning and serious progress was made. 
Here's the pile of trash:

This is the Mountain of Boxes.  With all the consolidation of STUFF going on, we have a lot of boxes left over.  It might be time to unload these via Craigslist. Do you know anyone with a move in their future? If so, let them know that all the boxes they need are in my basement.

The Big Guy made a lot of progress on his Man Cave/Rec Room.  Truthfully, it's driving me nuts that a room is set up without actual any actual walls, floor or ceiling, but this project is making him happy, so I'm trying to keep my mouth shut.

I did add a few more boxes to the garage sale pile.  It may not look like much from the picture, but each column is actually three boxes deep.  That's a lot of crap that needs to get out of my house by this summer.

This is the only remaining area of the basement that remains unidentified and unsorted.  Not cool.  I plan to tackle it in the next few weeks. 

The only task on my original "Spring Break To-Do List" that was truly completed is the take down and storage of the Easter decorations.  They were taken down, safely packed and tucked away in just under two hours.  How was this done so quickly and completely?

Easy...My Big Martha did it. 

Martha Monday--Spring cleaning

While it doesn't feel like spring in north-central Illinois, I am on spring break so it's time to get down with spring cleaning. Martha has a lot of information on spring cleaning:  a list of spring-cleaning basics, 10 clever cleaning tricks, spring-cleaning organizing tips, and essential spring-cleaning tools.

Let's be clear, while I'll have the time to clean the entire house this week, I don't have the energy or the inclination.  I'll use what energy I do have for a few critical areas: the master bathroom (I hope to get it painted in the next few months), the basement (I'm only half-way ready for a summer yard sale) and the kitchen (with two small children, you can imagine how sticky the cabinets and handles are).  With any luck, I'll get the Easter decorations put away this week, too. 

How do you spring-clean?  Or do you just say "to hell with it!" and eat bon-bons instead?  Because I could really go for some bon-bons right about now!

Cleaning closet organization

This post is a blast from the past, but the organizational tips will last through the ages! Enjoy!
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There's a linen closet in the hall that I use to store all of my cleaning supplies, light bulbs, air fresheners, etc. When I got done organizing my bathroom, it seemed only right to organize this closet next.



Before pictures:






And after:







All I really did was to organize supplies--one bin holds everyday cleaning supplies, and the other two hold extra supplies--in plastic storage totes. An easy enough task, but now I can easily see where everything is, and what I might need more of. And truthfully, I don't need any more cleaning supplies (8 cans of Pledge/Endust is more than enough for me). Why do I have so many cleaning supplies?





Uh oh. I just occurred to me, maybe it's because I don't scrub my house that often? Should I clean more?






No, that can't be it. But I'll tackle that issue another day. A day far in the future. A day when I've grown tired of lounging on my couch eating bon-bons. In the meantime, I'll just stick to organizing.

Martha Monday--My crew

Martha lives the life. Her meals are excellent, her crafts perfect, her house always clean. How does she do it?

Well, now that she is mega-rich, she has people to do it. Take a look at her blog and you'll see that Martha has an entire crew dedicated to making her busy life work. For her own homes, Martha has a housekeeper and staff, stable staff, a large grounds crew, gardeners, dog walkers and more. And that doesn't even begin to describe the assistance she has at her day job.

I have to remind myself of this when my life is far from Martha-Stewart-perfect.
She has people to do things, like housework, driving, cooking, etc., for her. I do not.

But a few weeks ago, I had a follow-up thought to that one...Why the hell don't I have a crew?

I came up with a few namby-pamby answers for this, but none of them held water. The truth is, I have a buttload of housework and chores that need to be done, but I don't have the time or energy to do it. But I did have a checkbook. Getting a crew to help me out was the obvious solution.

So...I hired a crew of window washers to wash all the windows, sills and screens.


They washed every window, inside and out, in record time. With almost 50 windows in the house, many accessible indoors only by a tall ladder, this would have taken me several weekends to get a job like that done. It took this crew of five less than three hours to get it all done.

I had never hired window washers before, but now that I have, I would totally recommend this to anyone. I was happy with the job and so very thrilled to have it done. Worth every penny.

With the dirty windows taken care of, I turned my attention to the albatross around my neck...the dirt pile in the backyard. It was awful. It was ugly. And all summer long, I wanted to do something about it. And all summer long, nothing got done.

But as it turns out, my checkbook could solve that problem, too. I called two neighbor boys, negotiated a rate with them, and they dug up all the dirt and sand. Sweet guys that they are, they even let my sweet Little Guy help out.

I think they got all the dirt/sand/tarps removed in one weekend. Amazing!

I then had some topsoil delivered and one of the boys was brave enough to return, over the course of several evenings/days, and cart the soil to the pit. And like this window washers, this was another big household job that it made sense to just hire out. Totally worth every penny.

Now, the hole is almost completely level with the grade of the yard, and we are ready for seed or sod next spring.

So my windows and screens are clean, the dirt/sand pit is gone and life is good in the TMI household. Wow...being just like Martha Stewart isn't so hard after all. If you have enough pennies. ;)

Martha Monday--spring cleaning

Oh, spring.  That magical time of year when the birds are singing, the weather warms, flowers begin to bloom, and I am overcome with a serious compulsion to clean my house from top to bottom.

I desperately want to remove every possession from my house, scrub every surface from top to bottom, and systematically clean each piece of furniture/decoration/whatever before it is brought back in.  Fortunately for my family and neighbors, I don't have the energy or time necessary for what I call a "whole house cleanse."  For the time being, my home will be considered "normal" on the cleanliness scale, rather than "sparkly showroom clean."

Sigh.

While revamping the kids' bathroom, I did get to indulge in some small-scale spring cleaning.  After the paint was dry but before things were moved back in, I took the time to clean the window, wooden blinds, lightbulbs and medicine cabinet.  My big Martha cleaned the doors and the Big Guy steam cleaned the floor. 

Good times, though I'm not sure my helpers enjoyed the process as much as I did. 

To get started on your spring cleaning in a rational way, check out Martha's spring cleaning tips.  If you'd like to get a little crazy, try the TMI Whole House Cleanse.  And let me know how that goes!

Martha Stewart Clean Giveaway

Last Monday, I profiled Martha's new Martha Stewart Clean line.  Whole Living, a subsidiary of Martha Stewart Living, is hosting a daily giveaway of these products throughout the month of January.  They're giving away cleaning supplies, aprons, storage containers and more.

You can sign up for the giveaway here.  NOTE:  When you hit the "Enter" button for the contest, the first entry form it takes you to includes a trial subscription of Body & Soul magazine.  If you do not want to sign up for a subscription, be sure to click on the link above the entry form that specifically says you want to enter the content without trying a subscription. 

Apparently, the Martha Stewart Clean line is available at Home Depot as of January 8, though I haven't made it to my local HD to check it out. 

Martha Monday--Cleaning supplies

Martha has come out with a whole line of eco-friendly cleaning supplies called Martha Stewart Clean.   She featured the products on her blog just before Christmas, and now they are available for order through her website. 

The Martha Stewart Clean line contains fabric detergent, fabric softener, dishwasher detergent, toilet cleaner, bathroom cleaner, all-purpose cleaner and more.  It's my understanding that Home Depot will carry this line, but I have yet to see it on their website or in the store. 

So until then, I'm relying on the Little Guy to keep the house clean.

We got him a child-size Dyson for Christmas.  I think it's best to teach kids housekeeping skills nice and early, don't you?  That has got to be a good thing!