The Cleaning Bug

Do you ever have days when your house looks so dreadful that you can't settle to anything until you deal with it?  Thursday this week was such a day in this household.

Now, I don't like to admit that my house wasn't looking it's best, but it's true.  I don't routinely clean on a weekly basis.  I tend to wash up, wash clothes and tidy daily, try to keep clutter at bay constantly and then deep clean the house when we have guests coming to visit or if a particular room is getting me down.  As a consequence, the house doesn't look too bad most of the time.  Sometimes, however, you just can't ignore the dirt any longer and you've just got to tackle it.

I've kind of neglected the house lately.  I've been more interested in getting on top of the allotment, decluttering, keeping on top of washing and ironing, watching YouTube and Netflix and doing other stuff.  I was long overdue getting on with some serious cleaning.

On this particular day, it was the kitchen floor and the stair carpet that were the final straws that triggered the cleaning frenzy.  After tidying Little Bird's room (following a big declutter she did at the weekend - Good girl!), putting away the ironing, hanging out some washing, collating all the recycling and rubbish to put out for collection and clearing the pile of paperwork on the kitchen table, I finally set to and hoovered through the whole house, mopped most of our wooden floors and more particularly the kitchen floor, wiped down any dusty surfaces I found, cleaned the patio door windows so that the sun could come streaming in and then cleaned the downstairs toilet.  I didn't quite get around to cleaning the bathroom which was on the list too, but I will tackle this today, before we go away for the weekend.

It felt great to get this done.  I still haven't continued any further than posted with the kitchen declutter, and it probably seems a bit strange cleaning the kitchen floor first, but I think I was mentally blocked from doing any more decluttering, by the build up of dirt all over the house.  In addition, the fact that we are going away this weekend helped me to finally knuckle down and do it, as I hate to come back to a dirty house.  I think that when we do come back, I should now be able to properly get stuck into the kitchen and get the job done.  I hope so anyway.

Another thing that is now motivating me to do this, is that on the Saturday after we return, there is another local Give and Take Day, where you can give your unwanted stuff for other people to take for free.  I am going to donate all of April's decluttered items and however many of May's that I've accumulated by this time, to this cause.  Part of the reason for this is that on recent visits, the charity shop that I usually donate to, they have seemed completely overwhelmed with stuff and I've almost felt guilty dumping more stuff on them.  I think everybody must be decluttering or spring cleaning. Maybe everyone around here has joined the Minimalists or been reading Marie Kondo. Anyway, I'm going to give them a break from my stuff and take it elsewhere. Besides, I like the idea that people can take it for free too, as it's hopefully less likely to hang around as a consequence.  Any things that aren't taken are saved for the next event, so they don't get thrown away, which is reassuring.

At least now I can sit down at my computer or in front of the TV and not feel as guilty about the mess around me.