On to the Dining Room

I decided to drop the 'Cleaning the House After an Illness' part.  It was getting redundant to me, lol!  

After finishing with both the master bedroom and the master bathroom, I moved on to dining room which is directly out of my bedroom.  It was the natural place to tackle next.  

I was excited about working on the dining area because it is a high traffic area, and my family uses it all the time.  So, it was going to be noticeable that I was doing something!

I was also dreading working on the dining area because it is a high traffic area, and my family uses it all the time.  So, it was not going to stay clean for very long.

To be fair, the dining room had been somewhat maintained over the time I was ill.  My mother had given it a good clean and even mopped it each time she came to help.  The kids had cleared the dishes and wiped it down (sorta) at least once a day.  And, Charger had been pretty good about sweeping up the floors every few days.  

There wasn't, however, any consistency to keeping it clean, and certainly no routine.  So, this is where I came in.  

As with all the other days of cleaning, I found the most important thing to keep the house under control was to ALWAYS start at the very same place with the very same task.  So, I...

1. Made my bed
2. Got dressed (with shoes)
3. Started at the bedside and worked my way around the bedroom picking up clothes/trash/ and things that didn't belong there.
4.  Picked up the counters and floors in the bathroom.
5.  Changed the toilet paper roll if needed.
6.  Did my one bathroom task for the day.
7.  Started a load of laundry (came back later to put it in the drier/hang it up and fold a load).

Then, I was ready to start on the dining room.

My plan throughout the recovery was to add SLOWLY.  So, the first day I simply cleared off the table and wiped it off.  I also wiped down the benches and chair.  The end.  Could I have tackled more?  Maybe, but I certainly wasn't feeling it that day.

Day two was much like the first (I won't repeat the checklist, lol).  But, after I finished wiping down the table and and benches, I emptied the trash.  

Emptying the trash is seriously one of my least favorite jobs.  Well, okay, I can't imagine that it is the top of any one's list.  However, we keep our trash can in a cabinet.  Which is all well and good (actually super good when you live in the country and don't want any mice in your house), but my children believe that in order to throw something away you just have to get it in the CABINET, not necessarily in the trash CAN.  Grrrr.  

Believe it or not, since it hadn't been well maintained, I first emptied the trash can of the current bag.  I was then able to go back and fill a second bag with trash from the cabinet.  Yuck!!!!!

And, as you can imagine, therein ended day two.

Day three brought me to finally sweeping the floor.  Which, was the last of my daily routine items to tackle.

However, I did work on the room for a fourth day because I dusted the china cabinet, cleaned and cleaned the glass on it.  I also dusted the corners and the light fixture and the fan.  These are things I do very rarely (so rarely I'm pretty sure they need to be done again).

I realized when I was all 'done' that I really needed a new mop.  So, the next time I was at the store, I purchased a Swiffer Wet Jet.  It seems to do a good enough job.  The best part was that Mustang really thought it was cool and has volunteered to mop every day since!

Another room finally tackled.  The only major difference with the dining area is that it isn't something that I can ever cut short.  Other then maybe the sweeping for one day, it really all has to be done daily.  I have enlisted the kids' help on days where I was feeling really tired or run down, but overall I have been the one doing it.  Because of this, I didn't move right on to the next room. 

It was taking me between 30 and 40 minutes to do the entire checklist (not including the laundry folding).   And, I hadn't been used to working for quite as long and needed to build up my energy to do so.  So, I just worked on the three rooms for another couple days and decided what I wanted to do next.

The difference after the 'big cleanup' and after is that cleaning the dining room is already part of my routine, so I don't have to gear up to get it done.  I also know that it really is only going to take a few minutes of my time, and that helps with getting me motivated.


God Bless,
Lisa