The worst thing about cooking...

Is the cleaning.

I do love to cook. And, I do love a clean house. Generally, I do love to be superwoman. Or, at least give everyone the impression that I am.

At the end of the '06-'07 school year, I felt bogged down. I was working a great number of hours doing "extra" things in the schools. I didn't have the time for the deep cleaning I really wanted. So, I started having my home cleaned once a month. By the end of this last school year, I was able to shed some responsibility, and found more time in my day. Moreover, the quality in the cleans that I had been getting decreased some. It turns out, than one of the women was very pregnant, so that explained some. Still, it was remedy the situation, or do it myself. I opted to do it myself.

Now, I'm a thorough sort of person. I like things done, and done well. The problem is, if I cleaned my house thoroughly every weekend, that's all I would ever be doing. So instead, I opted to create a "system." One where I maintained the more used parts of the home daily and weekly, but I only "deep" cleaned one "zone" every week. I've mentioned this once before, but I was able to break my home into 6 "zones" which effectively keeps things clean enough until I can rotate through and re-clean. It's really a great way to keep the house clean, if you can discipline yourself to do a little bit every weekend.

Zones:
Living/dining room: This is all one area of the house.
Bedrooms: Which includes office.
Family room and hallway: The hallway walls, doorknobs, and pictures all get dirty.
Kitchen
Bathrooms
Floors: so, steam cleaning carpets that are dirty enough to warrant and hands and knees thorough scrubbing of linoleum

Now, when I say "deep cleaning," I mean deep cleaning. Like scrubbing the trim along the floor, taking smudges off walls, all dusting, disinfecting all the toys that live in that room, etc., etc. Ceiling fans, light fixtures, and every other item not regularly cleaned is inspected. I don't always need to dust the items in the hutch when I do the living room, but I do need to make sure it looks okay. Don't forget windows!

I have to say, this organized approach does seem to keep my house very clean without any real extra effort. Before this, I would clean in a more haphazard fashion, cleaning whatever comes to mind without thinking about what is needed. This seems much better because nothing ever gets so dirty that it becomes a huge project.

If you're interested in trying this, take a minute to think how you could "zone" your home. Make sure you don't combine two areas that are big projects. Notice that I deeply clean my kitchen as it's own zone. That area takes enough time, I wouldn't dream of combining it with any other area. Divide it out in 4-8 areas that you could tackle, one at a time, every weekend. Keep in mind there are still "maintenance" cleans. Like, I wipe my bathroom counters down weekly with a vinegar spray. My kitchen needs a light clean weekly. I just don't break out the scrubbers more than once every 6 weeks.


Since eating and cooking are way more fun than cleaning, let me leave you with this:
Here's a picture of the parfaits that I told you about recently. Don't they look wonderful? They were. Here I added a couple of layers of banana to go with the raspberries and granola. They sure did hit the spot this morning.