More cleaning projects this week

Lest you think I totally slacked off after the great toy sort (which did wear me out), I thought I'd better report on my cleaning projects the rest of this week... 
Tuesday
I spent an hour in Emily's room while she was at preschool (a necessity).  Yes, this was totally separate from the toy sort the day before.  It should have only taken 30 minutes, but I kept getting distracted by the audio book I was listening to on my mp3 player (The Romanov Bride by Robert Alexander).  My task was to put away all her clothing items, throw away all the trash (a whole grocery sack full of half-used tissues and various papers), sort and reorganize the books, put away misc items and dust mop the whole thing.  Whew!  Emily was pretty impressed and excited when she saw it afterwards.

Wednesday
I almost didn't do anything today, but the kids & I spent 2.5 hours playing in the basement while the wind howled outside.  We are going to be spending many more hours down there this winter when we can't always go outside.  So I spent some time setting up and rearranging things down there.  It is going to be a continual work in progress.  It is also going to bother me that it won't stay very "clean", but it is a basement, after all, and it's just going to be dusty, dirty and cob-webby sometimes.

One of the ongoing dilemmas of the basement play area is how to handle the rice box, which is kind of like an indoor sandbox.  It is essential to have it on a hard surface and not on any kind of carpeting, but it gets old sweeping up the rice that bounces all over the place along with dirt and dead bugs. :op  My latest attempt to keep things sort of under control is to put it in a corner on some foam mats that you can pick up and funnel all the loose rice back into the box.  I didn't really count on Lincoln taking up residency in the box and kicking, tossing and pouring the rice out.  Plus I'm finding it other places around the house--especially his changing table--as it falls out of his shoes, pants and diaper.  I could get rid of the rice box or only get it out once in awhile, but it is heavy to move and both kids absolutely LOVE it.  At least for now.  So we'll just deal with the mess and enjoy it. :o)

Thursday

Today the baker's rack in the kitchen received a thorough cleaning.  There wasn't much organizing to do other than straighten the cookbooks, but it was dirty gross.

Friday

It had always been the plan to deep-clean the rest of the kitchen today, including wiping down over a year's worth of kitchen grime and dust from the cabinets.  It was not, however, in the original plan to move the refrigerator and mop up the entire cup of milk I spilled down the crack between the fridge and the countertop at breakfast this morning. :op  It took three rounds to get everything cleaned.  This organizing/cleaning thing does not go as well or as fast with little kids around.  And then the kitchen turned into a disaster area again while I cooked supper.  Sigh.  At least I have a wonderful husband who cleans everything up and returns it to near pristine condition again at night!

Thoughts

As I had predicted, accomplishing small cleaning projects each day is motivating and almost addicting.  I sometimes have to tell myself to stop and just take a little chunk at a time.  Otherwise I'll get burned out.  Plus, as I mentioned above, it just doesn't work well when the kids are awake and around, so that naturally limits the amount and scope of the projects I tackle.  I think part of the motivating factor is that I'm finally feeling normal again after dealing with my foot/leg issues for three months and only operating in survival mode. 

I have also discovered that many of the ideas about cleaning came from FlyLady.  While I'm not quite ready to become a full-fledged Fly-Baby yet, I like her philosophy about baby steps and her mantra of "You're not behind, you're just getting started!" :o)

I have also appreciated the shout-outs from some of my blogger friends that have been inspired by my cleaning frenzy.  I had hoped that recording my accomplishments would not only be motivating for me, but for others as well.  Keep up the good work!