Thoughts on cleaning and housewifery

My poll has closed and a massive 2 people voted. One of you has a strict cleaning rota, one of you does jobs as they go.

Interestingly for me this 50/50 split seems to pretty much describe my situation as it is now. I have drawn up a rota for myself and I aim to follow it but it's just not happening and I've just been doing things as they arise and wandering around my home in a sort of bewildered daze

What gets me about the cleaning is how cleaning seems to begat more cleaning. I clean something but that leads me to see more dirt where I wasn't aware there was dirt before. So I clean that but then I find more dirt. I've found surfaces I didn't even know existed. For example this morning I was dusting our coffee table when I noticed there is a small rim around the bottom of it, a small rim which was filled with crumbs and dust. This is now clean too but it leads me to wonder if I'll ever get to the bottom of cleaning. I'm also mortified that people have been around to my home and seen the crumb and dust filled rim as well as all the other dusty little corners I keep finding.

Looking back on the past weeks, I'm not at all in the place I thought I would be. I thought I'd be sitting in a pristine home by now, but it hasn't happened. Instead I'm sat in a home which is cleaner and more organised then it was but which still has a long way to go. Partly this is because of the Wedding which was a huge time suck but it's also partly because of  my own inertia. It's a lot harder to discipline myself then I imagined it would be and I sometimes feel a little unmotivated.

On reflection the most successful days have been the ones when I've got up early and started my work early. Cleaning by the early morning light certainly exposes the dust which is a bonus but I think it's also because once I've got up and got going I can fit more into the day. There is a sense of satisfaction and well being to be had by sitting down for lunch with most of your work done.

Speaking of a sense of satisfaction - there are some jobs I really enjoy and some I'm not so keen on.

Favourite jobs


Baking bread
Cleaning mirrors and glass - (shininess and the minty smell of my cleaning products = yay)
Vacuuming
Cleaning the bathroom

Least favourite jobs


Ironing - so boring
Washing up - too much water

Despite feeling like I still have a long way to go I'm also starting to see some really positive sides to my new life style.

• Nearly everything we eat has been made from scratch. This is healthier and cheaper.
• If a guest dropped by unannounced I wouldn't barricade myself in because of mess related shame (apart from the bedroom. The bedroom is my mess zone right now)
• Our home feels more relaxed because it is less messy and I take pleasure in sitting in the living room. It feels like a place of relaxing refuge. 

So having taken stock I'm looking for ways to move forward. One thing I've decided to is set myself a 'clean a drawer a day' challenge. I have an estimated 22 drawers and many more shelves which I need to sort out. At the moment they are the hiders of mess, the guardians of garbage. Even the drawers in the now 'neat' rooms are busting at the seams. I can't face a massive clear out but I think I can pluck up the courage to clean one a day. Whose with me?