Do Piles = Clean?

Okay many of you have probably heard me say this before but ... I clean like a man. (No offence meant to you strange and rare neat freak men out there). Now for the most part God did an excellent job when he paired me up with Dan. He is really good in the areas where I am not and vise versa. Buuuuuttt.. not so much in the cleaning area. Now this is a really bad thing because what that means is we both clean like a man.

I am really good at picking up. I can keep things basically sanitary. But it is those little feminine touches that just never happen around here. You know things like cleaning in corners (you should see the spider webs) or doing the window seals and baseboards (you could write clean me if they were wide enough). I rarely remember to clean things like door frames, light switches, or fridge handles so icky smudgie finger prints abound. The ceiling fan blades are something else that I never think to clean.

To me clean means there is nothing in the floor. And all surfaces are cleared except one. One out of the way surface in each room is an exception.  That is where all the books, papers, and misc. stuff from that room is neatly piled. Oh and there needs to be a cute basket on that surface where all the little things like paper clips, pens, electronic doodads, and other small junk that doesn't have a home goes.

Here are some visuals for you. The rest of these two rooms are picked-up or what I like to pretend is called clean.

Now this may not seem like that big of a deal but here is what I have finally learned after years and years and years of trying to figure out how my house gets messy so darn quick. It only takes about 5 seconds for everything that is piled up to end up spread all over everywhere again. TAAADAAA! I figured it out. I am always cleaning (read picking stuff up) because I am constantly repiling the same crap over and over and over.

Anyway I found on online resource for the housekeeping challenged and printed out lists of what it means to actually clean each room. Did you know you are supposed to clean out all Hot Spots (that would be places where you pile stuff) and actually either put the stuff away or if it doesn't have a home find one for it or toss it. Did you know that you are supposed to take those light fixture thingies down and actually clean them? Okay somewhere in the back of my head I knew that but I am too busy making piles in the real world to dig through the piles in my head and find info like that.

So wish me luck. I am heading out on a new adventure. I am going to take a room a week and try to learn to clean like a woman instead of man!

Shell

On a side note. While searching for a picture for this blog I learned that "piles" is term associated with hemorrhoids and the google images are nothing anyone ever should have to see EVER. I think my retinas are permanently damages LOL.