Another Cleaning Schedule

This one has no monthly tasks, apparently; all housework is divided between the days of the week. It also suggests that laundry should be done once a week instead of a load every day (the American system):

 Whether you’re balancing a busy career, managing kids, or caring for pets, this plan will help you stay on top of your home cleaning without the overwhelm!

Read the rest over here

Well, what do you think? 

So...A Homemaking Post

 Let's talk about ironing for a change. Do you do any ironing? My mother-in-law was very proud that she ironed everything, including socks and underwear. My Granny used to iron bed sheets (non-fitted). I usually iron t-shirts, pillow cases, napkins, tablecloths and tea towels. The younger generation women don't seem to do any ironing at all (not surprising). What about you?

Laziness Is Not A Mental Health Problem

 One YouTube lady made a video about overcoming laziness as a housewife and mother. She got a lot of negative comments where people (women actually) accused her of being harsh and unloving because she suggested that they should stop being so lazy and actually get up and do some housework. In fact, she didn't try to upset anyone, but just wanted to provide motivation for cleaning the house. 

All these lazy females were telling her how they have "a mental health condition" preventing them from doing anything. Of course, some people are legit handicapped or simply too old, but usually they will be able to get some sort of help from social workers so I do suspect that those enraged commenters  just didn't want to bother.

I can sympathise a bit, because honestly, housework can be repetitive and boring. I have actually come to the conclusion that I like cooking, shopping and doing laundry, but there are some things I absolutely detest, like folding the said laundry afterwards. But you know what I like? I do like a clean house, and that motivates me to get up and clean when I'd rather chill on the couch with a smartphone.

And if I can do it, you can, too. I actually heard an interesting thing in another YouTube video. A body which is in motion, stays in motion. A body which is not in motion, will just continue doing nothing so to say:) So just get up and get going, and the house will be clean before you know it. And if you have children older than a certain age, they absolutely should help, btw.

Having a clean house is a class issue, too. Ever watched Keeping Up Appearances? Yes, it satire, but there is a grain of truth in it. If one's house looks like a pigsty all the time, those people may think they are some sort of aristocracy "too good to clean", but in the reality they belong to an underclass.

If your house is a mess, so is your life. Have some pride. Be a real woman, clean your house:)

The Housekeeping Schedule That Actually Works

 I tried one from Darla Shine's book Happy Housewives which I reviewed on my blog several years ago, with some changes to adapt it to my situation. So far I'm content the way it goes and decided to share it with you:)

Monday

the floors. For me it means I vacuum all the 4 levels and wash the floors everywhere, plus the cats' feeding bowls when I clean this area and then I do the kitchen sink and working area, too. 

Tuesday

I start with one load of laundry, and clean the bathrooms.

Wednesday

This is my main laundry day, when I change the beds, tablecloth etc. Plus, I get to fold Tuesday laundry, too. I usually do 2 loads.

Thursday

If there is some extra laundry, I finish it this day. For the rest, it's dusting/area cleaning.

Friday

This is the day to take it easy:) Laundry is all done by now, and I fold the rest so that the house looks neat for the weekend. You see, we currently don't have a dryer, and my husband dislikes laundry racks in full sight during weekends. Then I do a short vacuuming, only two floors instead of 4. And some shopping.

Saturday

is the principal shopping day in our household, we take the car and go to Aldi. That's about it.

Sunday

the day of rest. Only necessary stuff like making beds etc. Hope it may be helpful for someone. 

 

Another Example Of Weekly Routine

 

 

I just don't get when she is doing her zone cleaning. 

If You Want Something Done Well...

 Do it yourself! After my help got a burnout and quit some time ago, I have re-discovered my hidden homemaking talents and since I started trying a new housekeeping schedule  my house looks much better than it ever did before. Consistency is the key. 

It took me 2 hours to clean this cupboard yesterday (it's only a part of it as it's quite big). I don't have a before picture, but believe me, it looked horrible:) 

I'm actually quite proud :) I have come to the conclusion that it's better not to rely on anyone unless it's absolutely necessary. Cleaning could be boring but the results are more than worth it, imo!

A New Housekeeping Schedule

 I'm currently trying this one. 

What about you?

If Your Home Is A Mess

 so is your life, said someone famous (I think it was Darla Shine). As we are being busy in my parents-in-law house, I once again have realised the importance of regular decluttering, but as usual, I'm running short of time. We are officially in a semi-lockdown right now, and it'll probably get worse after the school vacations are over, as of now you can still visit a zoo, for instance, though all bars and restaurants got closed.

However for me, life is pretty hectic at the moment, though I have done an attempt to organise my own household, which in combination with all the other things I have to do, nearly cost me a burnout. Anyway, I turned to FlyLady for ideas and that's what I would like to talk about. Is there anyone of my readers who uses her system? What do you think about it?

In my opinion, she has some great advice and her detailed cleaning lists and the concept of zones are very helpful tools, however...

However, you can't really clean your house well in 15 minutes blocks. In her schedule example, she suggests that on Mondays you should vacuum, mop AND dust your whole house in 1 hour. Well, if you live in 1 small room, it's doable, but otherwise...It would take me more than an hour just to vacuum mine, for instance. 

I found a more realistic schedule example over here, but it's a lot of work, and some ladies were complaining that even FlyLady is too much for them to accomplish, and I can sympathise:)

Well, how about you? Feel free to share in the comments!

Tradwife Stuff

Last several days it was like 30+ *C outside. I made some ginger beer. I think technically it's more like ginger ale, because beer has to be fermented, doesn't it? Anyway, I was visiting a local health store on Tuesday when I found this:

A mix to make ginger beer. My husband and I both like it, but the supermarket brands have lots of sugar and other unsavoury things added, so naturally, I was quite excited to try making my own.

I added water to it (1.5 lt) and then I had to cook it until reduced in half:

After this, it needed to be strained:

and sugar had to be added, too. I tried to reduce the suggested amount (150g), but believe me, you'll need all of it to make it taste more or less decent.

After sugar got dissolved, I let it cool off a bit, added some lemon juice and poured it into the same bottle. You need to add (sparkling) water to taste, to serve it. The instruction says to dilute it 1 to 1, but we all found it too strong, so it's more like 1 part syrup, 7 parts water:

It still has a very strong taste, but is great for a hot summer day! Have you tried some new project this summer? Feel free to share!

Keeping A Stiff Upper Lip

So we are all trying to do our best, though the circle is narrowing. There was a suspected case in the next street, and a friend's daughter had a contact through her work with an officially confirmed case. My husband has had a cold for more than 2 weeks but is still going to work, well, somebody has to keep industries of the country going I guess:)

The official advice is to stay home and only go out to work or store or walk your dog, with no more than 2 people at once. and as I have heard they are preparing a total lockdown including the German and Belgian borders (Germany still hasn't closed its border with us). So there is nowhere to run, either, it's just keep calm and carry on.

A relative of the relative in France sent an email saying that no one over 70 is offered any kind of treatment. A la guerre comme a la guerre, I guess. After all, that's what Macron said, that we are all fighting in a war:)

One could think that since I'm chiefly staying home, I must have lots of time and the whole house is shining...I wish it were the case but I'm getting constantly distracted by calls and messages from family and friends some of whom are close to a breaking point. At least, I still manage to sleep at night which is more than can be said of some others.

About cleaning, a pro-government newspaper actually ran an article about importance of good housekeeping to prevent spread of diseases. Apparently, microbes live in dust and dirt, especially household dust.Btw, I heard advice to wash everything with bleach to decrease the viral load. Naturally, folks in comments were asking how are you supposed to do all the regular dusting and cleaning the article suggests with both spouses working.

Makes one think that there was a good rationale between the traditional labour division, doesn't it?

Woke this morning thinking about that story:



While the situation on the ground isn't quite as desperate yet, there is a certain truth to it, it's only when you come face to face with eternity that you realise how much you love life.

P.S. I think the bit about removing veils makes the nature of their relationship quite evident, something which they knew how to express in those day without getting too explicit, unlike now. If they made it into a modern movie, we'd see close-ups of them in that garden! 

Laundry Detergent Substitute

Have you ever thought about natural substitutes for the modern laundry detergents? You could try baking soda. Not only is baking soda a universal cleaner, but it works just fine for your laundry as well. Plus, it's inexpensive and environment-friendly. I hardly ever use regular washing powder any more, and I'm satisfied with the results, more or less. I still think it's somewhat weaker than a regular detergent, but at least, it has no toxic ingredients as it's actually something you can eat:) If you have any experiences with baking soda, feel free to share!

Good Kitchen Manners

Do you have good kitchen manners? I used to, but they got somewhat rusty of late:) I turned to Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson to refresh my homemaking knowledge. She devotes a whole chapter called Kitchen Culture to this very topic.

Her advice is simple and common sense: keep your kitchen clean all the time! Clean as you go. Wipe all the spills immediately. Frequently sanitise your sink and working surface. Take out the trash.  Don't let dirty dishes pile in the sink. Change kitchen towels regularly, etc etc.

She is really big on this whole sanitising thing, and while I agree that food safety is important I sometimes have a feeling that she takes it somewhat too far - we aren't really as fragile as to drop dead because of contamination caused by a spill, and I haven't heard of epidemics starting because some lady had a wet counter top:)

Cheryl reminds her readers that kitchen appliances have to be cleaned regularly, too. For instance, she says that you should clean your fridge every week. Other cleaning guides suggest doing it once a month, or even less, but I guess the cleaner, the better.

Inspired  by all this I went and cleaned my fridge yesterday. I also went back to vacuuming three times a week, as two times  appears to me not enough. How often do you clean your fridge and your kitchen? Do you have any special tips? Feel free to share!

P.S. There are some among us, mostly of the baby boomer persuasion, who scoff at the idea of women trying to learn more about housekeeping or improve their domestic skills. Yet, Home Comforts was a bestseller and the owner of FlyLady made millions out of it and had 550 000 followers  on Facebook. Sneering online is hardly an achievement, compared to that...

A Really Important Question

How often should you vacuum? There appears to be some controversy on the issue. A housekeeping manual I possess states every day, while Darla Shine suggests doing it twice a week. Now I've always tried to do it three times a week but started thinking recently that may be, it's too much. (Vacuuming has a nasty tendency to interfere with your social life:)

The internet isn't really helpful. I found everything from once a week to every day, twice a week or depending on how many household members you have (but having pets means you still have to do it every day apparently). They also make distinction between high traffic areas and low traffic areas, but in my house, most rooms are high traffic and I have pets, too!

It's all very confusing. I found two detailed cleaning guides which sound very similar to each other. One from Good Housekeeping says once a week (but sweep kitchen floors every day), the other one from Housekeeping Trends says every day (with the distinction made between high- and low-traffic areas). My vacuum is kept in a closet upstairs, so if I have to take it downstairs everyday to vacuum "high-traffic areas" which incidentally includes my whole 1st floor since it's an open living/dining area, I can as well take 10 minutes to vacuum the bedrooms. Where is the time-saving then?

How often do you vacuum? Feel free to share!

P.S. Take some time to study both cleaning check lists. Housekeeping will start looking like a full-time job to you!

Housekeeping Resources

One of the most famous and comprehensive ones is FlyLady. It tells you precisely what to do and when to do it (and how long) and in general, reads like something out of the 1950s (or, at least, 1970s). Though I have little doubt that some "working women" use it as well, it has nothing about "going out to work" in its daily routines.

I wonder, do any of my readers use it?

P.S. We are going away tonight till Sunday, to try out our tent. I'll be online, but "less". Have a great weekend!

Housework Takes Time

Here is something to ponder on - housework takes time and planning to be done properly. Many women (and men) who disagree with the whole concept of a housewife, will tell you that you don't really need that much time to clean the house. Of course, when you dig deeper, you'll hear how they vacuum once in 3 weeks or less, how the bathrooms don't need to be cleaned every week, how windows are better washed once a year, etc etc.

That's not the only point, though.Generally speaking, a young, high-energy person with a relatively small family and high standards and working less than 40 hours a week can still cram a lot of housework into her day. The problem is, first, as you get older, you get less energy than when you were 20, and second, if you don't give enough attention to it, you are bound to forget things which need doing. Trying to juggle too many activities also leads to higher than normal levels of stress.

When you start viewing household management as a job, not just a number of unrelated chores which can be divided equally between different family members, but as a whole, complex enterprise, you'll realise that even when at times you do delegate some tasks to others, things work much more smoothly when there is one person in charge.

And it's usually the wife. I could give you arguments from the Scriptures, or point to women wanting to take the kitchen back. I know that for some ideologically committed individuals it won't matter what I or someone else says on the issue, and honestly, I could care less. For those interested, here are some statements from DailyMail:

...from the moment he gave up his job, Richard says Louise, 47, failed to see him as a "man".


In short, having a man whose primary function is not as alpha male breadwinner, but domestic drudge just ain't sexy. 

Divorce lawyer Vanessa Lloyd-Platt says that in her experience, the decision to allow the wife to be the main wage earner will have a detrimental effect on as many as half of these relationships, and that divorce statistics in these cases have risen by at least five per cent in the past two years. 

Here is one more:

 I realised with horror that I'd lost a sizeable chunk of respect for that man behind the door, the one with stubble on his chin and dressed in a scruffy, old pair of tracksuit bottoms, picking two-day-old lasagne off the front of a child's jumper.

With women it's nearly always what we do and not what we say. Many divorces aren't caused by the husband's infidelities but rather by his inability to hold down a job/earn a decent paycheck. But, to return back to the point I was trying to make, sometimes old ways do work the best. If your house is always a mess and you are all stressed out and stretched to the maximum, why not try housewifery for a change?May be you'll like it!

Housekeeping Basics

With Grandma Griffith:

Making the Home A Pleasant Place

A new great video from Lydia Sherman:

Housecleaning And Class

Below is a link to an interesting episode of a 2013 TV series called

Britain On Benefits.

The idea of the reality show was to compare the benefits that are available now to what folks could get in 1949, when that whole government program took off. This particular episode features 3 cases, two of which are rather obvious: a single mom and an jobless immigrant. The third case is an interesting one.

We see a blended family, the wife with a couple of kids from the previous relationship, her new husband and their baby. The guy has been unemployed for several years prior to their marriage (if they are officially married), and  apparently never bothered to clean or to maintain his house in any way, and the new wife enthusiastically joined him in trashing the council property.

So they and their four children live in what could only be properly described as squalour, yet get rather aggressive when it's pointed out by the social workers. It's rather obvious to anyone that the problem with these so-called "poor people" is simply that they are both incredibly lazy and entitled. The guy won't work and won't do anything around the house, and the wife doesn't encourage him to, and does nothing herself, apart from minimal child care.

The 1949 solution is to temporarily place them in a correction home, where they are taught, among other things, to eat properly at the table, as a family; something which many modern families, who have middle class aspirations don't bother to do any more.

Now compare their way of life with a more traditional British couple, where the mother is at home with their three kids while the father works (though with the popularity of her channel she probably makes quite a bit on advertising, too):

Daily Morning Cleaning Routine

They are apparently well off, and their house is clean and organised. The truth is, that living in what amounts to a pig-sty, never cleaning and never cooking isn't a sign of how progressive and emancipated people are, whatever they are telling themselves. It's a sign of degradation, of poor work ethics and of belonging in a lowest tier of society.

Of course, we all know that both parents working isn't particularly friendly to regular housecleaning, but even in this situation, an effort should be made to maintain at least some semblance of a standard. It's definitely worth it.

Fat Thursday And Other Things

Too many things to write about, too little time:)

Anyway, today my husband's Polish colleagues are celebrating Fat Thursday because Lent begins next week (this weekend the Carnival will begin). Apparently, you are supposed to eat sweet breads filled with jam. So even though we aren't Polish and are, in fact, Protestants, I baked this:

The recipe is a modified version of the one published in a 2006 issue of Taste of Home, an American cooking magazine.

To make 12, I used:

ab.1/4c soft butter
ab.1/4c  of lard
4tbsp of sugar
2eggs
ab. 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
some lemon peel
1c white + ab. 3/4 c mixed rye + wholewheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
ab. 1/2 tsp baking soda
ab. 1/2 c creme fraiche (a bit like sour creme but with 30% fat)

For glaze you'll need lemon juice and powder sugar to taste.

Here I'd like to point your attention to how sugar is overused in modern baking, especially in American recipes since the original one called for 1c sugar and even reduced amount that I used made the muffins sweet enough.

Cream the butter, lard and sugar, add the eggs, the peel and extract, mix thoroughly. Add salt and baking soda, then the flours alternately with creme fraiche. Fill paper-lined muffin pan cups (or separate cups) approximately 3/4 full, bake at 200*C/400*F for ab. 20 minutes or until done, cool a bit, remove from the pan and drizzle the glaze all over. Serve warm or cold.

In the picture, my kitchen is dirty. I cleaned it afterwards and it took me more time than making the muffins which brings me to my next point. There are currently lots of homemaking videos on YouTube which is fine, I guess, but some of them give advice on how to clean your house in 30 minutes. My house isn't that big but I never could manage to really clean it in 30 minutes, in my opinion this time is just enough to maintain some semblance of order but to clean mine more or less thoroughly takes me about 3 hours.

What about you?

The Pill And Cleaning

Hormonal contraception remains rather controversial, because of its documented side effects, for instance, hypertension, heart attack and blood clots; tripling the risk of suicide; and bumping breast cancer risk by 20%. (Here I just wonder why isn't WHO worried, like they were in the cause of bacon?). It's apparently bad for the environment as well.

These risks are well-documented and can be more or less objectively measured, but could there be  other, less obvious side effects of being on the pill?

As we all know, the pill prevents ovulation, which is probably the most important part of a typical female cycle. I found a very interesting article which explains how your cycle influences your mind and body. It's a bit New Agey, but still well worth reading.

By suppressing ovulation, hormonal contraceptives interfere with female sexuality, which is acknowledged by Wikipedia. Typically some women on the pill report a lower libido, and don't we all know how men often complain that women aren't into it? (Another reason for lack of female desire is stress, as in work stress, but that's a topic for another discussion).

Yet somehow somewhere I heard of a theory which attributes modern bad housekeeping to using hormonal contraception. Apparently, the urge to clean house is connected to the natural female cycle as well. I agree that it may seem rather far-fetched, however, I found another article which at least partly validates this claim:

Before your period, your progesterone levels also drop, which combines the impulse to clean with an instinct to "nest." We see this tendency manifest itself more dramatically in pregnant women, who in their later months of pregnancy have low progesterone levels — which often lead them to go into a frenzy of cleaning house and nesting in order to prepare for the baby.

The PMS-related drop in progesterone is a less-intense version of the same phenomenon. In her fascinating book, Moody Bitches , Dr. Julie Holland explains why this happens: "Every month, when your body prepares for a possible embryo implantation, progesterone levels are building and causing a smaller form of nesting," she writes. "Toward the end of the cycle, a woman might become dissatisfied with her environment and obsessive about making changes in order to make sure the setting is appropriate next month for the burrowing of the embryo into the uterine lining."

"When estrogen levels drop before our periods, that veil is lifted ... It's time to clean house."

Of course, these changes are much more pronounced (and potentially only noticeable) when you're not on hormonal birth control, so don't expect to see these shifts in mood and behavior if you're taking it.
(emphasis mine). 

Well, what do you think? All in all, it looks like the pill makes women generally less feminine which is probably one of the reasons it's so popular in modern society.