Coming clean about cleaning

The time has arrived to come clean about cleaning habits. How many have rushed around the house -- with company soon to arrive -- furiously grabbing things and throwing them in your closet? Or even better, in the bathtub? Or the best, in the oven? I'll admit to the first two and prayed that no one peeked in the closet or slid the tub door open. I consciously avoid the oven because I'm the type of person who would turn it on without looking inside and end up with charbroiled tennis shoes. As anyone who has lived with small children, or with a teen-agers, or just with one other person knows, it's impossible to keep a house clean for any length of time. I dread those days when I'm away while my family is home because I know the house will be completely undone when I arrive home. Even though I'm not home, I can sense the oatmeal smeared across the counter and the clothes hanging from the ceiling fans. It's the same story for anyone who has left a teen-ager at home during the summer and arrives home after work to find the child in the same exact spot but with food wrappers somehow scattered around the house. At this point in my life, I no longer strive for cleanliness but rather unclutteredness. No, I'm not living in a pigsty, but it's a good day if I can walk from one end of the living room to the other without stepping on a lego or banging my toe into a remote control car. The move from cleaning to decluttering has evolved after picking up "The Three Little Pigs" book for the sixth time in one day; after wiping up the glass of spilled juice for the fifth time in one morning; after putting away laundry continuously all day.

My bookshelves are lined with books (and dust) about maintaining your house. They contain a variety of concepts and ideas to keep a house uncluttered and thus easier to clean. Many of these have been attempted, but there are always loopholes for failure. There is the basket by the front door to collect the shoes which have been removed upon entering. In an ideal world, all the shoes would be gently placed in the basket until they are needed again, where they could be found with a quick search. This works for approximately three days after which 13 pairs of shoes have filled up the basket and are overflowing onto the floor. (That's presuming the shoes made it the two feet from the door to the basket -- which I've learned is a difficult task in itself.) With a house rule to take off your shoes when you enter, a person also would  assume that a pair of shoes was always available to wear by the front door. This obviously is not true since every morning at my house is spent searching across the house for two matching shoes. How about the rule: If you get it out, put it away? I have tried implementing this rule slowly, but usually fall upon the second rule: It's easier to do it yourself.

The idea starts off simply. Leave the clothes/toys/dishes where they are until the appropriate person puts the item away. Nice in concept until the clothes are piled so high they reach the ceiling, the toys form a continuous layer over the carpet and the dishes are thrown away rather than pointlessly scrubbed. So I resort to second rule of doing it myself which includes throwing the clothes in the closet until he or she runs out of clean clothes and begs me to do the laundry; the toys are meticulously collected and carefully placed in a garbage bag, where they suddenly become the child's favorite toys; and the dishes are placed in the sink for their three-day soak.

When all else fails, you can try my solution for the kitchen. I would think the kitchen was clean with the counters wiped and the floor swept. Then the sun would rise and glare through the windows at the perfect angle. Every crumb was highlighted, every speck of dusk was illuminated. I avoided the kitchen during the early morning hours because the sun was so harsh and the kitchen so obviously unclean. My cleaning solution: Hang a curtain. With the shades closed in the morning, there were no more blinding sun, no more gleaming rays of light bouncing off the floor and the counters. My kitchen was suddenly clean, at least until I opened the curtains again.

-- Ronda Graff is spending the day "cleaning" her house, which means it will look the same at the end of the day as it does at the beginning.