How Clean Is Your House?

I try not to let my house be a total wreck, but I do not let things like a messy bedroom keep me from time with my kids on a beautiful day. When I get old and look back on my life am I going to remember that afternoon by the lake where my kids picked wild flowers and chased the ducks, or that my dishes where always done?

I really try to be balanced in this but seldom am. Right now I'm still in the process of unpacking from moving in a few weeks ago and then a week vacation in Mexico last week. Whew.
I have about two large loads calling my name, a bathroom that could use some cleaning, some unmade beds and endless boxes that need unpacked.
I tend to like a home to be clean (meaning not in filth) but not so clean and organized that it feels like I'm in a model home. Some houses are just show cases and not a home. I feel more comfortable in a house that appears "lived in". Don't you? So don't sweat it and enjoy some down time. Let it go and do some living ")
C.

I clean clean clean i'm a sahm of 3 & I hate messes even after I clean the kids seem to undo what I just did which is so frustrating.There are day's where the dishes get piled up or left overnite (which I never did)the endless laundry that gathers up,toy's,my home things have a place for them I like to be organized if not clean 100% of the time but I do my best with keeping up & so do my kiddos the best they can for their age.I take great pride for my home.I try to get things all finished before I have to get ready for the day & out doing errands because when I get home I want to relax have baby & toddler nap the last thing I want to do is more work but tthat doesn't alway happen the more I let it go the more cleaning I have to do later & the more things get piled up.There is 1 place that at the moment needs to get cleared out from a few rainy days of play & things just got thrown in there my hutch the bottom has a place made to put things since it has doors & I can control it from baby getting into it with a baby safety latch I opened it up the other day & closed it back a fast as I could it needs to be reorganized,the fish game thrown away too many broken fishes,lite brite pegs all over the lids off the games it was just another chore I didn't want to do yet.

Enjoy the day, enjoy your son. There is a poem by Ruth Hamilton that goes:
Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow...
For babies grow up,
we've learned to
our sorrow...
So quiet down cobwebs...
dust go to sleep...
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep!!
God bless.

When your kids are gone and you have the clean & tidy house - you will wish you had a messy house again w/ kids in the house. Enjoy the time you have with your kids. You can't get this time back, but you will eventually have a clean house. Family, that is the most important thing in life :)

My house is usually tidy chaos. I would estimate that only one major chore or room is ever spotless at one time. Meaning, the laundry may be all done and put away but the bathroom could use a scouring. Or you could eat off the floor in the kitchen but the dust has taken over in the living room.

And for a while after my first was born...This was wrecking my life. I felt unhappy. Even guilty. I was spending the limited time I had with my child and husband cleaning for pete's sake!

NO MORE! I will have a clean house again in 15 years. And when I am 82 years old reminiscing with my husband about our life...I can guarantee I will not be looking back with regret about all the time I could've spent cleaning.

When my 1st was born, my own mother told me your child will not remember you for your cleaning skills. I took my a while to accept this great advice and sometimes 9 years later I still struggle but I know in my heart she is right.

My house is dirty enough to be happy and clean enough to be healthy. By all means, when the weather is beautiful and you don't have to punch the clock that day, you should be enjoying the free gift of a simple, beautiful day.
I keep the bathroom wiped down daily along with keeping the dishes up, the rest is just actually "living space" and yep the newspapers build up and get spread out, shoes are here and there, my hubby leaves his jeans on the livingroom floor every night for some odd reason. As far as dusting, mopping and vacuuming go.... just do it when you are in the mood. Throw a load of laundry in a couple of times a week and things should never get too far out of hand. I'm not anal when I go visit people, I'm there to see them not their stuff or their housekeeping skills.... I figure since I don't judge I dont feel judged when people come visit me even when things arent "white glove" test approved.
There are only 2 people that I do "extra" cleaning for and that is my MIL and my Mom.

Late I know, but... I have a framed art work my mom made when we were little and it states I hope that when my kids look upon today and remember the things we have done and not me cleaning the house. Or something like that. I love it and I live by it. My priority is for my kids to learn and experience. My house is not a mess, but "Lived in" If I know company is coming it would take 1 hr to get it ready. The only room in my house that the door to be kept shut at all times is my room and that is because if I take it from the kids it goes in there, if it is not baby safe it goes in there, so my room is not so clean but ...

In school around mom's day the kids fill out a question sheet, my nephew answered the question "your mom's favorite thing to do is...?" with clean and yes you can eat off her floor 24 7 . and my son's answer was spend time with me. and no you cannot eat off my floor, but you can see my floor, counters, and tables. I love the fact that my son answers that question like that. I feel like I am doing a great job

I hope this helps you find a balance. We spend sometime cleaning and alot of time as a family everyday.

Our house is tidy, but a little dirty. I can't remember the last time we cleaned the baseboards or dusted the blinds. But who eats off the baseboards? Our dishes are out of the sink, we DO NOT have toys everywhere, and laundry is done. But I've learned to just avert my eyes to some of the other stuff - today is simply too gorgeous for housework.

We do tend to invite people over about 1X/month, so that's how I make sure the house gets clean. We clean for company, and then coast from there. Works for us!

I am the messy house person who used to be the everything must be perfect house person. Like the other responder, my balance is the middle. Sometimes I'm really anal about it... But if it has been a rough week and I need a break especially with my hubby & the kids, I can let it go and pick up daily "hazard areas" throughout the week. It's your house, you can keep it how you want. Don't fall into the "what if someone stops by" syndrome either. When people come over, they should be coming to see YOU not grading your housekeeping skills! Enjoy your day off and step away from the Swiffer!!! LOL

This is a balance. I used to think I HAD to have a perfectly clean house. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and all that. But I realized I was doing like you are and making a clean house more important than quality time with my family or for myself. In fact I was making them a little crazy.

I decided dust and a little dirt were not the end of the world, and a bit of clutter made my house look lived in and warm. I made my family, my rest and relaxation the priority.

Suggestions: If you can afford it hire a housekeeper. Even if it is just once a month. You will be amazed at what you can "let go" when you know someone else will eventually be taking care of it.

Change the sheets every other week instead of every week. I was fanatical about this and then my sons went away to college and I think there is a good chance they didn't change their sheets more often than every two months! Guess what? They survived!

As far as laundry.....Try putting a load in when you first get up in the morning. I often get a load of laundry done before I leave the house. And if I don't have time to fold.......I don't sweat it. I lie what I can neatly over a chair and leave the rest in a basket. I fold by the 5 minute rule. Five minutes here and there when I have time. I'm not gonna lie. Some things lie there a week, but they are clean! Sometimes I separate it and take my husbands to him, my sons to him and while they are watching t.v. they fold their own (or all) the laundry. That one little step really helps out.

If you friends are judging you on how neat your house is.......they have some growing to do. Don't sweat the small stuff.

That said, when I know I am going to have company I clean up! If someone catches me off guard.....oh well.

Definitely use www.flylady.net!!!!! That's my "not-so-dirty little secret." My house isn't perfect but I would not die of embarrassment if someone dropped over at a moment's notice. I would not be there if it weren't for flylady.net.

I went from spending all my days off cleaning (so I know what you mean!) and never feeling like I'd have a clean house to having my house 15 minutes from company-ready most of the time. My house is still FAR from perfect but my bathrooms are clean, my laundry is caught up, my kitchen is clean and my house gets vacuumed and dusted every week. That is as good as I can expect from myself!

I use the flylady control journal system where I have divided up my chores by day of the week. Just doing 15 minutes every day of chores and my house is clean all week! Sure we still have messes in the living room and not all my closets are perfect but I'm okay with getting there slowly. My daughter has her own control journal and it helps her know what chores to do. She LOVES crossing off the chores each week! I have everything in plastic sleeves and we use a dry erase marker to cross off our chores.

I would be nowhere without the flylady. So try her out! And remember...BABY steps!

P.S. Flylady.net is FREE to join!!

We keep up with the day to day stuff - laundry, dishes, beds made, trash is taken out. My kitchen counters & table are always clean because, since we eat there, I feel like those areas should be kept clean. I don't clean the kitchen floor as often as I should though. Luckily the color/pattern hides a lot. I do try to vaccuum every week. Bathrooms - I try to clean the powder room downstairs weekly because that is usually the one guests use. Our master bathroom doesn't get cleaned as often as it should though. I do not dust as often as I should. And I find it really hard to get to the non-everyday things like cleaning out closets, etc. There just never seems to be time unless I were to take vacation time from work & that is not really how I want to use my vacation days. I think so much of the housework is just really never ending because everyday we use dishes, have more laundry, use the bathrooms, etc. so it always needs to be done again. I don't think I ever really feel like my house is ready for company, especially overnight guests, but we do have people over anyway. I think most Moms are relieved to see that my house looks just like theirs! It is still hard though because society blames the woman if the house isn't perfectly clean all the time and kids also notice and make comments. And, of course, there are always the houses of your children's friends that look like they could be featured in a magazine. I'm sorry, I guess I'm really not giving you any advice. But just know that you are not the only Mom who struggles with this issue. I just try not to obsess so much that it interferes with my time as a parent. As I'm sure you know, that time goes much too quickly as it is.

My house is a disaster and is always a disaster.

I totally have a room that is closed off lol. My house is not dirty but it is cluttered. If I find I am going to have company on spur of the moment I grab a laundry basket and scoop up whatever is laying around the kitchen counters (bills, paperwork, books etc) I pull it back out after the company and put it away. My house gets cleaned really good about once a month (dusting, mopping etc) I do the bathrooms more often and sweep and vac more often. But we absolutely don't look like better homes and gardens the rest of the time. Today I have about 10 loads of laundry sorted out in the laundry room floor. I meant to do them yesterday but then got side tracked by the hubby and we were out all day. today we went to a birthday party. I'm sorry the laundry isn't done but not sorry we went to the party it was a lovely way to spend the day.

I've always been fairly, um, relaxed when it comes to cleaning house, but after my son was born I really kind of gave up on keeping things company ready. I try to keep the house "clean" as opposed to "tidy", which is to say I want my family home to be clean enough to be healthy, but I can let a lot of the rest go.
I clean up as needed when we are having company, and I try to not let dishes or laundry get too out of control, but I refuse to spend my precious time worrying about keeping house. It's simply not that important.

I would love for my home to be ready for a white glove inspection at any time but it is not. However, it is tidy and if someone drops in, it is not an embarrassment. I keep my front area and family area ready for any drop in guests.

My hubby is quite anal about the house. Although I run the vac almost daily his idea of running the vac is moving furniture, etc. I am not capable of moving all the furniture on a daily basis. I suppose he was raised where someone was cleaning 24/7. He thinks the spring cleaning jobs should be done weekly at least, HA HA.

I am not that way. I am anal in other areas such as my paperwork and its organization. I can locate a receipt from 10 yrs ago in about 5 minutes if needed. I keep things clean and in order but i don't compromise family time with it.

We work from home and it is hard to work, housework, carry on my volunteer duties, keep up with daughter's schedule, and enjoy down time.

We treasure family time and sometimes I am folding laundry while we are all watching a tv program, sorting my papers to file, etc. Multitask!

I'll never forget the 3yr old Mom's class my daughter was in. The children listed what mom's favorite things were... 1 little boy said his moms favorite thing was vacuuming and cleaning. That mom had a reality check that day. The other answers from children were.....laughing, swinging outside, the park, etc. None of them cared how clean the house was, they treasured mommy time.

I think we need to have a good balance.

Check out flylady.com (or it could be .net). She teaches you to stay on top of cleaning up without it taking over your life, one baby step at a time. Hope that. You will achieve the balance that you desire!

My home is almost always ready for company at a moments notice. I like a clean, neat home and still have plenty of time to play with the kids and read Mamasource! First, I'm a sahm and when I did work, I had a housekeeper twice a month for kitchen, bathrooms, and floors. Also, I clean as I go and don't try to do it all at once. When a mess happens, I clean it right then. I wipe up the bathrooms at the end of every day. I use shower spray to keep the shower clean between cleanings. We don't wear shoes in the house. I do one or two big jobs every day like clean a bathroom and dust or mop the kitchen and vaccum the house. I do a load or two of laundry every other day so I don't get behind. If you do a little each day it is easier in my opinion.

Spend time with your kids outside! Tidy up whenever you can; hire a cleaning service to come in a few times per month, but always remember that NO one ever lies on their death bed and thinks, "Well, I missed out on some great afternoons in the back yard or at the local museum with my family, but at least the house was clean!" Do the laundry, make sure mold isn't growing anywhere and go live your life.

haha...I keep a couple of rooms that need to have the door closed. I seriously don't understand how some women have the time to keep their houses pristine!! I do know that having a cleaning woman would be nice. :)
I have come to think of it this way....if company just drops in it is probably someone that I really like and they are not going to judge me if my house needs a little pick up. They like me for me, not my clean house.
Also, I would rather my sons remember me as the mom that took them to the park, movies, walks, beach (lake, in my case).....the mom that had time to really listen to them, laugh with them, wrestle with them, do homework with them....instead of the mom that was ALWAYS on them to clean clean clean.
In my house, cleanliness is NOT next to godliness and it works out just GREAT!
L.

My house is never as clean as I would want it to be, so I would say that it is not "company ready" at moment's notice but, with the exception of my husband's office (he's not very organized), anyone visiting my house probably wouldn't notice as much of the household chores that still need to be done, like I am seeing them, unless they are very critical or the kind who tend to judge. But my house is always a work in progress. No matter how much I get done, with a husband and two kids and our busy schedules, there's always something that needs to be wiped down or folded.

Our house is... not horrible. It would be better if we didn't have three cats and two dogs, plus an extra who will be finding a new home once he feels better (I work at a vet clinic, it's an occupational hazard) and of course our son, who's far more of a mess than all our animals put together. But it's livable. Crowded, a little chaotic at times, but only smelly when the trash needs taking out or the cat box has just been, ehem, used. I keep up with laundry, the kitchen, the cat box and the bathrooms, all those potential health hazard areas and the rest of it is further down the list but does get done. We got the pet edition roomba which makes keeping the floors clean super easy. I know I have petless/childless friends who probably sneer at my housekeeping but damn it, there's zoos to be gone to and play areas to be explored and as long as the house isn't growing anything sentient, well... It does get to me sometimes, mostly the clutter, I miss my childless days when it was just me and my cats hanging in our tidy apartment. But I am awfully fond of my kid, who is currently feeding his snack to the dog in crumby pieces.

I'm in the middle. It's rarely "company clean" but it's picked up and kept somewhat clean I suppose.

It's a gourgeous Sunday and we've got a chore list for the FAMILY that we'll kick out before the Cowboy game.

My house is very clean and tidy -- now that my children are grown. But when they were young it was definitely not always company ready. I moved a lot and I always chose a house that had a family room and a living room so that when unexpected guests arrived there was a room to sit and visit and I wouldn't die of embarrassment.

I also posted the poem below prominently in my house. It is absolutely how I felt about it. I love having a clean house. But I'm so happy that I spent more time with my children and less time cleaning. There's time for cleaning when they grow up.

Excuse This House

Some houses try to hide the fact
That children shelter there.
Ours boasts of it quite openly,
The signs are every where.

For smears are on the windows,
Little smudges on the doors;
I should apologize I guess
For toys strewn on the floor.

But I sat down with the children
And we played and laughed and read,
And if the doorbell doesn't shine,
Their eyes will shine instead.

For when at times I'm forced to
Choose the one job or the other,
I want to be a housewife...
But first I'll be a mother.

I don't like to think of my house as messy, but lived in.
C.

when i was working i had a cleaning lady come in every 2 weeks. i felt like since we were both working full time, i didn't want to waste my time on weekends cleaning, but spending time together. if i left a set of sheets on the beds they would change the sheets too.

Chores that were left for me were: a wipe down of the kitchen counters everynight, load/unload the dishwasher, wipe down of the bathroom, laundry and an vaccuum/sweep of the floors every couple of days.

i unload the dishwasher first thing everymorning, so that as the day goes on everything gets rinsed off and put right in the dishwasher - this cuts down on the sink filling up. and i right it right as i go to bed.

I live with clorox wipes to do a quick wipe down.

the swivel sweeper, it's really a surface vaccuum, but easy enough for my 2 & 4 year olds to use. and the love to "play" with it and they are cleaning up their crumbs as they do it too.

after having my second child, i'm home now, so i do it all now. but my kids are 2 & 4 and they are trained pretty good, and times better at cleaning up after themselves than my husband.

we're not a take your shoes off right as you enter the house kind of place - 1. we don't have a big enough entry to stash everyone's shoes and 2. i need to have some sort of shoes on at all times to help my back and knees. but my kids know the minute they take of their shoes they bring them right to the room (although sometimes 1 find my 2 year olds shoes in his laundry basket).

towels - we each have our own colored towel. so if someone leaves a towel on the floor we now who did it. this was mostly for my husband. after a shower he'd leave the bathroom with a towel and go to our room to get dressed - and he'd leave a towel on the floor or on our bed.... then the next day he'd get a new towel... so we each have our own towel and i pull all the towels on wednesday and sundays.

"Mad Minute" there are times where you look around and the place is a mess - especially on the weekends when we're all home all day - or in and out all day - i call a mad minute (more like 5-10 minutes) - everyone stops what they are doing and helps clean up at the same time - like in the living room - i say mad minute - we put away all toys, fold the blankets on the couch, any cups are brought into the kitchen, the floor is vaccumed, and the coffee table is cleared off/wiped down. imagine if all those tasks were divided among all 4 of you - it's 10-15 minutes of cleaning between all 4 of you instead of 1 hour just for you. mad minute in the kids bedrooms, even your room - means all laundry needs to be put away, toys put away etc.

laundry - i you do it all and fold it - put it in their rooms for them to put away (maybe help the kids put theirs away - but it is something that you do together). but your husband can definatly put his own clothes away. i found that once my husband realized how much laundry their was he was a bit more aware about what he deemed was dirty or not - like he'd put on a shirt, decide that he wanted to wear something else and change - but instead of putting the first shirt back it was easier for him to ball it up and put it in the hamper - once he was putting his own clothes away - he was a bit smarter about it. he was taking 2 showers a day - morning and night and using a new towel for each shower - now he uses a towel for 2 days before he puts it in the laundry.

we all have our own laundry basket - and i'd just keep stacking his clothes in the basket in front of his closet. now realize that that basket was always there with the clean clothes - and was never fully put away.... but aleast it was all in one spot, and if he was out of clean boxers, and he'd have to put the clean laundry away to find clean boxers that were at the bottom of the clean pile.

Trash - our trash day is monday - so sunday night we have a trash mad minute - the kids go get the trash bins from the bathroom/bed rooms, husband emptys out the kitchen trash, i put the recycling together (paper, and cans/bottle/glass), and we all bring it to the curb - again 4 people doing it gets done in 1 trip vs. 1 person doing it in 4 trips... then the kids bring in the barrels after school the next day. if we happen to be home on saturday in the yard etc... i might even put the trash out on saturday - it annoys my husband to have the trash out that early - but it's more annoying for me to be bugging him on monday morning on his way out the door that it's trash day.

my feeling is that everyone contributes to the mess, so everyone needs to help clean it up too.

Laundry and dishes I do daily or nearly daily (they always get cleaned, but they don't always get put away!), but for big cleaning, I'll be honest, I'd rather be outside. So my husband and I set aside 2-3 hours one day a week (Saturday or Sunday) to do some good, hard cleaning in the house. And then that's it. If the house isn't clean at the end of that, oh well. It's our weekend, and we're not going to spend it cleaning. I don't think my house is gross, but it's certainly not neat and tidy - ever. It was hard for me at first, because before I had kids, my house was beautiful on a regular basis. But now, I just kind of deal. I guess I think there are more important things, and I want to make sure I spend quality time with my kids and my husband. I can't do it all, so the house is what gives. ^_^

Well before we had our son, our house was spotlessly clean but now I have come to realization that you have to just do the best you can. I keep the living room and dining room very neat and clean and the rest of the house is well as best as it can be. The kitchen, laundry, tidying up I do mostly every week. I do have a cleaning lady that comes in every two weeks to do deeper cleaning (clean floors, bathrooms, dust, clean mirrors we have a lot in this house) but I do the rest with hubby's help on a daily basis. I do have a tip that I started doing last year. It's like a spring cleaning that has lasted for over a year and continuing. I've started getting rid of things that I don't need anymore in the house. I noticed that we started accumulating furniture, clothes, books, dishes, toys, etc. just things that we rarely look at or use. So I started donating them. Let me tell you not only does the house look better and easier to manage but I feel lighter too! Good luck and enjoy life as its meant to be enjoyed with your family. :)

My house is never all the way clean all at once anymore :-/

My house is always tidy enough for the neighbors or my son's friends to stop by, but I certainly wouldn't call it company ready :-P I don't have junk rooms, but there are piles of mail on the desk, laundry waiting to be folded, and a few rogue dishes in the sink that didn't fit int the last dishwasher load most days.

I'm a single mom and I just can work in the big clean all at once.
Instead, I do things throughout the week. Sunday mornings, I DO spend about an hour dusting, mopping and vacuuming. Laundry I do a load a time throughout the week (sometimes it takes two days for me to fold it and get it put a way, so keeping it to one load stops the pile from overtaking the laundry area), I clean the toilets and scrub showers when I think about it. Same with cleaning sinks etc.

I'd love to have a cleaning service once a week. When we lived in a small apartment I spent less on rent and could afford it (but I also really needed it with us living in such close quarters). For now, it falls to me, and it falls where it may.

T.

The bathrooms were NEVER cleaned. Mold grew, etc. I hired a cleaning lady two times a month so they are under control now. Kids are 4 under age 4. The house can get really bad, so bad that there is no path around the toys, we step on things. The stairs are jam-packed with toys too. Very dangerous. Do clean dishes, no clean laundry. As bad as you can imagine. But, give me a few hours and I can get it decent again. At least the bathrooms are always decent, thank God!

I spend about half of every week working out of town, so my DH helps out A LOT, as well as our kids have chores, but... it's impossible to keep the house perfectly clean all the time! Our goal is to try and keep the house clean enough to where if someone calls and says, "I'm in the neighborhood!" we can have the house acceptable for company within 15 minutes. (Now, that's not to say that the master bath is going to be company ready, but the hallway bath will be. ;)

Honestly, the only way my house was ever beautiful all the time was when I had a cleaning lady come in once a week, and she cleaned the house top to bottom, and did laundry too... but then the economy happened and now we don't have a cleaning lady anymore. I really believe that anyone who has a perfectly clean house all the time, probably has hired help. Or I guess if you stay at home, then you would have enough time to attend to housework every day - but working full time (plus overtime)... it's not easy.

Speaking of, I'd better get to cleaning. Happy Sunday. ;)

I know you got a lot of feedback already, but check out flylady.net, it has totally changed my perspecitve on a clean house and I have been doing it for almost 2 months now and can see the difference the attitude and actually following the outline (75% of the time) makes!

Hi there,

I think it was Erma Bombeck who said something like, do you want your tombstone to read "She kept a tidy house" or "She enjoyed life"? That's my motto! I do the best that I can, but I definitely let things go a lot, especially when there is something more fun to do! I do get mad at myself though when I would like to invite someone over spontaneously and then I don't because the house is a mess. It is a dilemma!

Good luck!
A.

My house is somewhat tidy- like a childs verson of clean. If company stopped over I would be able to let them in the house but..... it wouldn't be perfect.
The kids (3) each have a room a day that is there responsibility. They basically keep it tidy-no dirty laundry, toys, books laying around, dishes in the sink, a quick sweep of the floor or dust. Shoes straightened by the front door- things like that. I also have a room a day that I clean. So it is generally tidy from the kids the day before and I do the major stuff. It works well.
It is not spotless- about once a month or so I will do a major cleaning from top to bottem of every room. This works well- during the summer when all the kids were home we could get up and get all the chores done for the day before noon- even on the days we really slept in. So that we could enjoy the rest of the day. Now after school the kids take about 15-20 minutes to do chores depending on what room they have and how messy it got from the day before. They usually do chores while I am finishing supper, then it is on to whatever else is going on that evening. I can not stand having a messy bathroom- if the whole house looks like a tornado went through it doesn't bother me as much as a cluttered counter and toothpaste spit in the sink.... So I have those disinfecting wipes and take like 30 seconds a few times a day to do something in the bathroom- wipe the sink out, wipe the toliet seat and lid down, swipe up something off the floor. Put the hair brushes and things that get left on the counters away. I don't have to do that nearly as much now that one of the kids has bathroom duty everyday of the week (except on my major clean day). But if you don't have that kind of system maybe it will help you keep it feeling cleaner without spending so much time doing it- the same applies for the kitchen or whatever room bothers you the most or gets the most cluttered.
As for laundry- that is never caught up. At any one time I have 4 or more baskets of clean laundry that needs to be put away. I hate putting laundry away. And about the same that still needs done.

secret rooms for sure! Bathroom is rarely beautiful, and the laundry is constant, but the kids are fed, and healthy, and they have a mom and dad who take them outside on a beautiful day! I hope it gets easier as they get older, but not going to sweat it. Sure I'd like a neater house, but working FT outside the home, juggling PT daycare etc...NOT my priority.

I love the IDEA of a super clean house, but in reality, cleaning is near the bottom of my list. Haha! I always have the goal to make my house always clean and organized and do the "one day when this house is put together, once the spare bedroom is done we'll have more room for..." that type of thing. I do get anxious about people stopping by, which I hate, but I will take a day out in the sun over cleaning any day of the week. We have a spare bedroom for just those occasions. I just have to tell myself that my friends who really are friends will love me no matter what my house looks like. Maybe we can mesh our attitudes about cleaning together and become one "normal" person. :)

This is the hardest thing to manage in life I think. I am a neat nick person but have zero desire to waste my life away cleaning, which seems to be a necessity for a family with three kids and one on the way.

I put my overwhelmed request here on Mamapedia a year or so ago and had a woman come back and tell me to look into the site called FlyLady.com. Basically, the site helps you set routines each day and a cleaning schedule that keeps your house in a good working order all the time. Now it is not perfect but livable and not embarrassing to have someone randomly stop by and no closed door rooms to house the junk you need to stash! would say my house is always about 15 minutes of quick pick up away from company-ready almost all of the time and I don't feel like a freak that is left out of life.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

We have a cleaning lady that comes every other week. We keep up on dishes and Laundry and let her do the rest.

i run a tight ship, but i am always a slave to it. Ive picked up some tricks along the way that help with things. you gotta have junk drawers and ottomans boxes, as catch alls. a file cabinet is a must, and a hutch for the mail. swiffer dusters, swiffer wet jet, mop shoes, and a carpet sweeper. I suggest looking for more easy solutions to your mess, time savers. Then you will be more likely to do it.

I'm a SAHM, but I still feel like I can never catch up with it all! I don't think there are any good answers to this dilemma, but I think most every mother feels the same way you do. I try to find a balance between totally overrun with mess and undone chores and nice and clean but I never get to do anything but clean, but it's never a perfect balance.

I've also subscribed this last year to the "Totally Together Journal" blog (you can sign up for RSS feeds or have emails sent to you whenever she makes a new post at www.totallytogetherjournal.com). She has some interesting ideas on how to keep up with the daily messes that we all have cropping up in our homes. I specifically like her ideas on keeping up with the bathroom (http://totallytogetherjournal.com/the-daily-7-for-a-highl..., although I've altered it to fit me and my life.

I guess I don't have anything more helpful to offer, but I have to believe that most moms feel the same way you do and when it comes down to it, will understand about those items that just haven't gotten cleaned up yet.

Personally, I think you should give yourself the day off and go outside and enjoy the nice weather (and maybe your son's company?) while there's still good weather to be had! Soon enough you'll be stuck inside with nothing to do but look at the piles of laundry and messy bathroom....

Best of luck!

I'm on the tidy side....I can not let it go either. Then again, I DONT envy woman that CAN let it go...I am generally uncomfortable in their messy houses.
I have read this type of question on here before...I have a theory. I think it does have a lot to do with how you were raised. It is just a theory.
I actually pull my fridge out and mop underneath it...its a little "mad" I know. dont clean all the time though....I just keep up with it. :)

hello
try and just do a little something every day. this way, it doesn't get out of control... I do a deep cleaning once a month and in the in between time, definitely vaccum most days if not every other.. dishes are always cleaned up asap.. bathroom I clean as I go along.. however, I might add that we aren't pack rats in any way , so things don't have a chance of piling up... but again, something every day ought to lessen the burden...

I'm late reading this but I would third the suggestion to check out FLYlady.net. Keeping your house clean and enjoying your weekends are not mutually exclusive! Yesterday I was on my way home and found out that 30 minutes after I got home, a mom from school was stopping by to review the PTA budget and my parents were popping in to see their grandchildren. Because I have systems in place from being a FLYbaby I knew exactly what I had to do to get the entry, kitchen, bathroom, and family room tidied up in 15 minutes (without doing a "stash-and-dash" of moving junk from and open spot to a hiding spot LOL) and I even had time to have lunch and put on a pot of tea. We don't have enough rooms to have a whole room into which to stash junk but pre-FLYlady my closets were always full of stashed surprises and now they have just what's supposed to be there!

We have four kids, a dog, DH and I both work FT and I have an evening/weekend tutoring business and we both volunteer or coach various activities and Flylady is the only way we keep things under control. Right now is a great time to check out the group - we are working on decluttering over the next few weeks and in late October we'll start getting ready for the holidays. Seems nutty to start that early but your Thanksgiving and anything you celebrate in December will run so smoothly after preparing 15 minutes at a time over several weeks. Glad that you got to enjoy the afternoon yesterday - we have to take advantage of this great weather while we can!

Oh my gosh. Answer to that question: it is not clean, never was, never will be. It is a home that we live in. I have friends who have immaculate houses. One of my friends is a shakey nut. She is constantly screeching, cleaning, dumps out her purse with the dust in it. I hope she never comes to my house. It is not very bad, it is just not immaculate. We have a cousin who comes over and we can see the fireworks over his head as he walks through. We always have delicious food cooking, clean toilets, and you can still see him with one of those alarms going out of his brains. We imitate kind of like a fire engine. Bleep, bleep. Good grief. Do we want lives or do we want immaculate germ free houses. Listen, I had uterine cancer last year and after spending many a sunday inside trying to catch up I realized you don't get the time back. So push the dust bunnies further under the beds, and grab hold of the one you love for the ride of life. Can't get better than that. My friend, the nut, she will continue to be that way, but I really don't want to have her in my house and I seldom will go to hers. I am afraid to sit down.

I started out as a work-away-from-home mom, with a 40+ hour week and a 1hr commute between home, childcare, and work. I never got the cleaning done to my satisfaction because I was trying to cram it into the weekend when it should have been family time. After reading dozens of websites and blogs, I learned a few things.
First, you have to decide what level of clean you AND your family members can live with. Second, decide how much time you are willing to clean DAILY. And third, determine how often things need to be cleaned to meet your #1 and then schedule your tasks to meet #2.
I literally have a calendar with cleaning chores listed each day as well as a daily list and try to adhere as much as possible. I can tell you that my daily list and the frequency of my chores increased significantly when I became a SAHM. It is amazing how messy a house gets when there is someone "using" the house 24/7.
I do one type of laundry per day Mon thru Fri in the following order; kid clothing, adult clothing, towels, bedding, adult clothing. I clean my toilets every Monday and my tub every other Monday. The baseboards get cleaned every three months but not all on one day. I space them over four weeks of Saturdays. My house is mostly company-ready (with the exception of toys strewn throughout the house. And if it isn't clean because of sickness, too many outside commitments, etc, I simply smile and say "excuse the mess. I am behind on cleaning today/this week" and make sure they have a clutter-free place to sit.