Quick Sweep

A couple of weeks ago, my father, step-mom, brother and two nieces came over to our house for dinner after work during the week.  My brother had just gotten into town from Camp Lejeune and it was the first time we’ve seen him since he left for Afghanistan last year.  It was great to have everyone over for dinner; however, Todd worked on his two days off to clean the house from top to bottom.  He did a great job, but was exhausted the whole rest of the week!  His joke is that he goes to work to “relax” from all the stuff I “make” him do.

I wanted to keep the house picked up.  It has been difficult.  I come in and out of the house several times in the morning and also in the evening when I get home from work because of taking Lana out to go potty.  So there ALWAYS seems to be a coat hung out on a chair.  Add to that when Todd takes her out, there is another coat (or 3) on chairs because sometimes it’s really cold when he takes her out in the morning, and then it will warm up a little, so he’ll wear a lighter jacket, and then a hoodie!

I decided that I wanted to do a “quick sweep” of the house a couple of times a week.  This means to put everything away.  On Sunday, Todd went to the hardware store down the street, and I wanted to see how much I could get done in the time he was gone.  He was only gone for 15 minutes, and in that time, I picked up the kitchen counter, put away 3 jackets that were hanging on the backs of chairs, put all the dirty laundry (Todd likes to leave a pile on the floor next to the tub when he gets in the shower, and it accumulates) into the laundry basket and threw a load in the wash of Todd’s work clothes, made the bed and put away some towels that were folded on the dresser from the laundry the week before.  I was miserably sick on this particular Sunday and was exhausted when I was done, but one side of the house looked so good!  The house looks so much more cozy and inviting when it is picked up.

A few days later, it was looking pretty rough again.  I asked Todd if we could both take 10 minutes out of our evening and do a “quick sweep” again.  That night, after work, we both got to it and did another quick sweep, put things in their places and picked up.  It is amazing what can be done in just 10 minutes with 2 people working on it!

On the weekend, I plan on going over the bathroom to keep it clean, along with sweep the floors.  I figure if we do it little by little, the house will be kept up and there will be a lot less stress for BOTH of us during the week and when we invite someone over.  It really is a lot less stressful to come home to a clean house or to even wake up to a clean house.