Housekeeping

I should come clean:  I am not a good housekeeper.  Oh, I keep things vaguely corralled in their correct spots (living in a very small house makes that necessary), but I loathe cleaning the house.  I'll put it off...and put it off...and put it off some more, until I can't remember the last time I scrubbed the tub or cleaned the toilet or swept the floor.  And from the looks of things, its been a long, long while...

My house never did get a good spring clean last year, or a fall clean, or even a mid-winter clean.  Here is it in June, and the level of filth is appalling.  Dust, left long enough and combined with kitchen grease, soot from the wood stove, and animal hair, becomes a physical thing which doesn't respond to the usual sweep-it-and-call-it-good method I like to employ.  Oh no, now its down to gallons of vinegar and a stack of rags and lots and lots of good ol' fashioned scrubbing.  Boo.  Hiss.  I guess its a good thing that for much of this week, its too wet to do any planting.  I can still haul compost (and do, a couple loads per day) but overall, I have no excuse not to clean house.

Dang it.

In my dreams, I will one day be wealthy enough to hire someone to come in weekly and give my house a good going over with a scrub brush and cloth.  Until then, its just me.  Now don't get me wrong, I really do like clean rooms and tidyness and overall, knowing that the Dust of the Ages is not floating around in my house.  I just hate cleaning.  That said, I have a small arsenal of products that help me get through much of every grimy task that might come up in this small, very untidy house.

1. Borax.  It's great, scrubs things with not too much grit, and doesn't fry your brain with fumes.
2. Vinegar.  Regular old white vinegar cleans everything from windows to the calcium deposit caking the inside of your electric kettle.  I like to combine it in a mason jar with citrus peels, to give it a nice orange-lemon scent while I clean.
3. Bon Ami.  Not only is the little yellow chick on the can adorable, this cleanser is great for scrubbing down the grime from the sink.
4. Bleach.  Yeah, I know.  Bleach is bad, or something.  But when you have a small house with sinks that share duty with washing your dishes and washing your eggs, bleach is necessary to clean and murder any unpleasant germs that may be lurking about, waiting to make you barf or worse.
5. Soap.  Ordinary soap, combined with warm water, washes everything from the walls to the laundry to my dirty hands.

There you have it.  I have some other cleansers kicking around, and I do spray a bit of Endust from time to time, but that's pretty much what I use every day...well, every day that I clean, that is.  Speaking of cleaning, I'd better get back to it.  That floor isn't going to get swept on its own, I guess...