Fourth Blog: What I learned about housecleaning

What I thought I knew: When I was growing up, we cleaned the house on a weekly basis. Every Saturday at 9:00 AM, we had to help mom clean the house, even if we would rather watch "The Monkeys" or cartoons. We changed sheets and towels, cleaned the sink, toilet, tub, counters, mirror and floor in the bathrooms, dusted and vacuumed the entire house, including the tops of doors and the cross pieces of chairs, and cleaned the sink, counter tops and washed the floor of the kitchen. This took a long time. I remember my mother doing the chores before we were old enough. When we got bigger, say in the 1st grade (I will check with my sister on the timing), we started helping with dinner chores. This meant setting the table and clearing up after dinner. We were responsible for cleaning up our messes every day, making our beds and brushing our teeth. We emptied garbage cans and put away our laundry. When I was in high school, I started cleaning the house for money. My mother had me from 9:00 AM until 3:00 PM every Saturday. If I finished the house, I started on the laundry and ironing. I got $10.00 for my time, which I saved for spending money on family vacations. At dinner time, we all helped, making salad, setting the table, doing the dishes, clearing the table, vacuuming under the dining table. It was a family event.

What I learned when I got married: If I wanted the dishes done, I did them. The first time my husband had the agreed upon responsibility to do the dishes, we went out and spent some vacation money we had left over on a dishwasher. That dishwasher followed us from San Mateo, California to Seattle, Washington and finally to Boise, Idaho, when we eventually gave it to my sister who was living in Mountain Home. Somehow, over time, cleaning the house was not so important. I think I cleaned house once a week, but I don't remember the last years in which that happened. Must have been early Idaho 20 years ago. . .

What I was learning: Housecleaning, it's not necessary for my sanity. Apparently, housecleaning is important for my former husband according to my children. While I was giving it up, he was adding it to his "must do" agenda. The kids tell stories of having to re-clean and organize if they did not get things done appropriately. Meanwhile, I took a year off from mowing my lawn because I was in graduate school and just decided to keep a jungle in the back yard. I mowed the front; after all, I respect my neighbors. I began cleaning less and less, and mostly just putting things away. I went from doing everything on my mother's list to vacuuming if dirt was showing and cleaning the sinks when I just could not stand it anymore. Housework is time consuming and physical work. It wore me out to clean the whole house, explaining why my mother was willing to pay me when I was in high school.

What I know now: Oddly enough, after my kids moved away to college, I developed a realistic attitude about cleaning up, or maybe my values became more apparent. It only takes a few minutes to do the dishes, and maybe a half hour at Thanksgiving, if you clean as you cook. I vacuum once a week or more depending who is living with me at the time. (My friend Paula says vacuum the number of times a week that equals the number of people living in your house.) I sometimes do the bathroom sinks once a week, but I also learned to wipe out any sink that appears dirty to postpone the time consuming deep cleaning. Sometimes, it gets away from me. I have noticed that I will clean a) if the house is so dirty that I can't stand it or b) if I have company coming or the big one, c) if I have a work project that just needs to be done immediately. Then my house gets some extra chores done, which diverts me from any actual work I have assigned myself.

I'd write some more, but I have to take out the recycling, maybe, I guess, if I have to. Actually, I'll probably do it Friday morning, which is trash day. Maybe Thursday night? The sheer joy of not having to decide is pleasurable. I hope that you get the same joy out of your day.