Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody, Everywhere...

This week Kelly is chatting about cleaning. 

Let me tell you, I loathe laundry; I have a healthy disdain for dishes, and making my bed makes me cringe. Cleaning my house, however, is not too bad. I don't mind dusting, vacuuming, windexing, scrubbing, and any other -ing word pertaining to the topic. I think it's because laundry, dishes and the bed are never really complete unless, of course, you do your laundry naked. I'm neither here nor there about that. All of those things are messed up again within hours, whereas I can enjoy my clean house for a couple days. (Mind you, I don't have children, but I do have a huge dog that is banned to the backyard during cleaning.)

I'm starting to come into some sort of cleaning schedule. I try to keep my house picked up and relatively neat, (although that doesn't always happen) and I deep clean on Thursdays or Fridays right after work. I am no where near being an expert cleaner. There are a lot of times that I just push dirt around, but I have picked up a few tricks.

1. Music

The first thing I do when I clean is crank up my iTunes. Music helps the brain function, so I use it to my advantage. I thought about making a playlist for my blog with cleaning type songs such as "Car Wash", "One Way, Or Another" or "Whistle While You Work," but I thought you all might think I had too much time on my hands.

2. Microfiber cloths

These things are AMAZING!!! Plus, they are excellent for the environment. I hardly use paper towels since I bought these. Plus, they can be super cute, and the cuter the cloth, the better it cleans.

My dad showed me a trick with the microfiber cloths the other day. If you have a Swiffer, just wet a microfiber cloth and wrap it around the head of the Swiffer. Bam! You have a dust mop. It works better than the Swiffer Wet Mop things and costs way less!

3. Socks

I save my mismatched socks to use as a dust rag. I put them on my hand like a sock puppet, and go to town. I think it makes my dusting faster, but I could be wrong.

4. Clean Rags

I used to try to use 1 rag to clean most of my house, but now I go through about 5. It's amazing what a difference a clean rag makes. In fact, I've come up with a way to fold the cloth when I'm mopping my bathroom floor so that I get 9 clean sides. Every 2 tiles I refold my rag, so it's as if I have a new clean one.

5. Window Corners

The other day my grandma and I were sitting at QuikTrip, and she pointed out that the lady cleaning the front door was missing the corners. She said, "Look at that, she is just cleaning the middle. People don't know how to clean anymore, they all miss the corners." When I got home, I looked in the corners of my mirrors, and lo and behold they were dirtier than the rest of the mirror. So now I try to hit the corners.

I am excited to see other people's tips because Heaven knows, I need all the cleaning help I can get!

=j