Posts Tagged ‘cleaning’
Daily Home Blessing Hour
Posted on: 11/05/2011
We had two viewings today. And the house was amazingly untidy this morning. As I was beautifying it, with smallest one most unimpressed at the speed with which I scurried from room to room tidying, dusting, hoovering (she only approves if I stay in the same room as her), I was reminded of the fact that nowadays I tend to delete my Flylady emails without reading them.
This doesn’t mean that I think Flylady is rubbish. Quite the opposite. I totally get it, agree with it and endorse it for anyone who, like me, is not a naturally tidy person. What it means is that I have digested Flylady’s wisdom and taken it on board, and don’t need the emails any more. I still don’t shine my sink very often. I don’t have a particularly effective morning routine. I haven’t mastered the weekly home blessing hour. But I am considerably less disorganized than I was. And better than that, I can clean happily now without resenting the fact that I have to. And I am continuing to try and improve my household effectiveness.
The weekly home blessing hour is a fabulous idea. You spend an hour (you can break it into ten minute chunks if you want) and you get all the necessary cleaning done, from changing the sheets to cleaning the mirrors. Don’t get me wrong, it won’t be perfect, but you’ll have clean floors, clean sheets, empty bins, and a dust-free home. It’s all down to her unashamed use of the timer. (Incidentally, the timer is great for the kids too).
What with smallest one being more than a little messy at the table, and me being up to my ears in studies right now, we’ve had help with the cleaning while the house is up for sale. But today we had another viewing on the house, so it was up to me to get it beautiful this time.
It took two hours rather than one, mainly due to needing to give the kitchen a thorough clean and having been too lazy to put a large quantity of laundry away last night. But still, with my audio book playing to me (and smallest one crawling after me, screaming fit to burst every time I left a room, which was immensely cute), it was enjoyable all the same.
We have another viewing tomorrow. Somehow tonight’s dinner mostly stayed off the floor, so I can probably deal with all the mess in less than half an hour. And I’m sort of looking forward to it.
With this little flurry of viewings, I’m thinking of it as my daily home blessing hour.
We were so excited when we started readying our house for market. Six months previously, an identical house round the corner had sold within a fortnight. A month ago a similar house sold within a week. Excellent, we thought. We’ll be receiving offers in no time.
We put our house on the market three weeks ago. In the first week we had three viewings.
In the second week we had none.
In the third week we had none.
Prospects are not looking good.
It doesn’t even help that one of the first three are interested in making an offer, since they can’t sell their own house.
More houses are selling here than in our area right now
I’ve been speculating as to whether the then impending budget meant that people were waiting till now to get off their bottoms and try and sell their house. To be honest the budget has done so little to change the situation for first-time buyers that there is no new market stimulus. So I’m not going to hold my breath expecting the phone bristle with prospective viewings.
Nevertheless, all this time, we have to actually keep the house clean. With three small fry this is no picnic, and I don’t mind telling you that so far we have had help twice a week to keep it in its beautiful state. It no longer feels like our house. Unsurprisingly, we’re now cutting down to once a week help; it wasn’t sustainable otherwise.
In hindsight, we shouldn’t have been quite so naive as to think that our house would sell this easily. Everyone knows the market is not good at the moment. Now I’m starting to wonder if we will be moved come the start of the new school year, which is tricky since it is more disruptive for the children.
But at least I have come to terms with this possibility. A few days ago, this thought had me waking in a sweat. Now I realise it’s not the end of the world. I should really be thanking my lucky stars that we are able to move at all.
Whilst I’m not a fatalist, I do feel myself wanting to burst into Doris Day impressions at times like this.
Que sera, sera…
Cooker hood filters. Euggghhh
Posted on: 21/02/2011
I suppose it was a mistake to leave changing the cooker hood filter for 5 years… But I bit the bullet today, and finally changed the filter.
Yes, it was pretty gross.
No, it wasn’t too bad, especially with the trusty CSI gloves… and I got a bit of momentum going and cleaned all the kitchen cupboard doors at the same time.
No, nobody but me will notice. But even though nobody can see it, at least my invisible halo will be shining brightly today.
Not the most beautiful of pictures, but note the white behind the holes and the lack of grease dripping down from the hood...
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