Thoughts on housekeeping

Housekeeping is a funny thing to do.  Especially with a 3 year old whirling dervish that loves to help with chores.  Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t just hold off a couple of years and give it a go then.

popcorn is never a tidy snack.

I really like the articles by Leila that talk about a reasonably clean house. Hum.  That phrase reasonably clean has rung through my head since I first read it.  A perfectly clean house is not practical.  More so, I think, because our house is negative 600 square feet big. 

Thought I would randomly pepper this post with pictures of some projects that Izaak & Elliot have worked on - a castle

There is no space that is child-toy free.  I do not have a dedicated playroom to help manage her things.  I do not have a formal living room to keep perfectly clean as a refuge from all the living that we do.  In cleaning and tidying the house, Elliot follows behind me playing duplos and getting out markers and…before you know it I need to start all over again.  

A dog chasing its own tail. 

A perfectly clean house (with little ones, and small spaces) is not attainable.  So, I like the idea of a reasonably clean house.   I have a dear aunt who said to me once that clean doesn’t have a  smell.  Yah, that stuck with me too.  Clean doesn’t smell like expensive scented candles, plug-ins, or chemical pine.  Clean is just fresh air.

Elliot can do awesome things with glitter glue and wiggly eyes, right?

As an aside, I have for over three years now, made all my own cleaners.  I got this book from the library about the time that Elliot was born.  Changed my pine-sol-bleaching-409 housekeeping to a something else entirely.  (And thankfully, because this was before we were fully aware of her skin issues...she, as it turns out, is super chemical sensitive)  That all to say that sometimes there are whiffs of tea tree, clove, or mint in the air.  All from essential oils . (not just perfumes.  Eo's have antibacterial properties, ya'know.)

Why I am talking about all this now?  Well, I was pondering how much calmer I am when my house was clean and tidy...and how being reasonably clean might just mean different things to everyone else.   That to me, it feels nice and calm with a little tidying and vacuuming.  I am also and perhaps foremost a fan of a place for everything, and everything in its place.  That if I had one housekeeping rule that would be it.  No matter how messy life gets, there is always the possibility that everything can be put away somewhere.  (And, if company is expected, it can be put away very quickly.)

So. Ramble ramble ramble.  Happy pre-thanksgiving