The bug.

My nice clean stove/oven/pot/tea pot

I know some people out there are huge proponents of Spring/Fall cleaning. Taking an entire day or two to really deep clean the house.

I have two little guys running around and have no idea where I would get two. full. days. to just clean.  Therefore, I do not do the "Spring/Fall Cleaning" thing.  Not really.

At this point, let me say that I'm a fairly clean person.  Tidy but not a neat-freak.  Our house looks lived in but not unkempt. I would not recommend eating off the floors, but you could. 

The way I have been cleaning house since Evan was born and I started staying home all day (and yet not...) is very simple.  I schedule it like most other things in my life.  Mondays are cleaning days.  And Tuesdays are laundry days (to clean all the rags and towels and sheets from the day before, right?).  And each Monday I deep clean one area of the house.  This gives me the freedom to just "regular clean" in between.

For instance, the bathroom.  Every week the sink gets cleaned, the tub gets scrubbed, the toilet gets a once-over, and the floor is swept.  Obviously, light cleaning goes on through-out the week. I do have 4 little hands that are sometimes muddy reaching and grabbing here and there.  A wipe works wonders, I've found, for a quick clean before someone comes over if needed!

On deep cleaning bathroom days (about once a month) the toothbrushes come out.  And I'm not talking the toothbrushes we use....gross...anyway, the toothbrushes come out and I scrub the baseboards, I clean the soap scum off the tiles in the shower (Blue Dawn is my secret weapon for most things and especially this!), I take things out of the medicine cabinet and wipe shelves down.  You get the idea.

Well, this week's "deep clean" area was the kitchen. 

Now, I clean the kitchen every day.  Before bed I sweep (for the 8th time) and make sure all food is away.  I make sure dishes are done and counters are wiped down.  On regular cleaning days/Mondays I scrub the floor and wipe the cabinets down.  I clean the microwave and toaster oven.  Even with all this -- the big oven is usually dirty and parts of my stove top (you know those lovely burners on old school gas stoves, don't you?) are usually slightly crusted or something with pot-overflow.  My pots always look well-loved (and they are) and there are crumbs hiding in drawers.

I admit: I am not a clean cook.  Soups boil over, sauces splatter out, contents of the mixing bowl very rarely stay in the mixing bowl, and let's not forget my little helpers!  Considering my love for cooking, we're in the kitchen a lot. 

So deep cleaning the kitchen is always a must.  Today, I made it an over-haul.   Probably a typical "Fall Cleaning" for the kitchen.  Usually, the fridge gets wiped, the microwave and toaster oven get pulled out and cleaned behind, the stove "parts" get cleaned.  You know the drill, I'm sure.  Today, though, made a "deep clean" day look like a regular Monday cleaning!

Since we moved in (and the house was not clean when we moved in -- especially the kitchen.) there has been burnt-on food that has just not come off the burner trays.  And believe me, I thought I'd tried everything save a putty knife for this stuff.  So a couple weeks ago, I wrote "steel wool" on the Target list as a last pleasepleasepleasework shot.  And today, I finally bought a steel-wool wanna-be and I'll never go back.

Scotch-Brite has these metal scrubbing pads that are pure magic.  Seriously.  They don't break apart, they don't disintegrate, they don't get their little fibers wedged up in your nail bed.  And when they are paired with my favorite Blue Dawn -- they are simply amazing!

This is to show you all (at my embarrassment) what about 10 minutes and some elbow grease can do to a much-loved pot.

I was just going to clean the burner things, thinking it would take me a while, but then I got carried away.  Before I knew it nap time was over and I had cleaned the burners, the then-exposed stove, a few of my pots, the oven, my teapot, and the sink.  This was after, mind you, I had cleaned the fridge, floor and counters.

Just a tip.  Clean the floor and counters after you make a mess cleaning everything else.

Like I said.  I got carried away.  But Fall is in the air and the cleaning bug bit.  Hard.

I know well enough that when the cleaning bug bites, you just go with it.



How do you work cleaning in your home?  Do you have a schedule?  Any "secret weapons" that you just love?