How do you clean your house?

I clean the Fibro one day at a time. Which means that it's rarely all clean at the same time. I do the bathroom one day. The bedrooms the next. The floors as rarely as I can get away with. Every day, the living room gets a general tidy and the washing up gets done. But sparkling from top to bottom is not something the poor old Fibro gets to experience that often.

Unless we're having people to dinner. Or to stay. Then it's all hands on deck for a thorough cleaning frenzy. We even remove the Scalectrix-style race track from the dining table for the guests. We have standards.

I do wonder if I'm going at it all wrong with this piecemeal effort. But it makes it all feel less arduous. A bit here, a bit there. Squeezed in when I'm trying to avoid work through my writing. Much better than four hours in a row.

And, yes, I could get a cleaner. But I just know that I'd be one of those sad folk who clean for the cleaner. I'd rather live with the knowledge of that than the reality.

How do you clean? Bits and pieces or all in one hit?

[image: Tumblr.com] 


PS: Maxabella has been nominated in the People's Choice Awards for the Sydney Writers' Centre's Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition - she needs praise and love and votes. Go visit her. She'll tell you.

How (not) to clean out the pantry

ANPNF343ZH3E Some people like to Spring Clean. Others (crazy people) clean the house from top to bottom every single week. I'm a Start of Year clean-out kind of girl. Dump a whole lot of stuff, and then spend the rest of the year re-filling the cupboards.

I remember having regular conversations with a Feng Shui expert for several CLEO features (it was the late 90s), who advocated taking the 'seven things for seven days' approach to bettering your life. Her theory was that if you threw out seven things a day for seven days, you would clear enough space in your home to free your chi... or was it your chakras. Something.

As with most things in life, I tend to take the 'binge' approach to this theory. I throw out 49 things in one day and then rest on my laurels for the rest of the year.

Recently, I approached the pantry. With caution. Pantries are a running joke in my family, mostly because my parents have never met a Use By date they couldn't beat. I used to laugh a lot at the contents of their pantry, complete with three-year-old tin of beetroot. I'm not laughing any more.

In cleaning out the pantry recently, I discovered not only the requisite three-year-old tin of beetroot (which I'm thinking my Dad put in there just to befuddle me), but nine bottles of vinegar. Nine. To be sure, there was Cider vinegar, Brown vinegar, Malt vinegar, White vinegar, Rice vinegar, White Wine vinegar (times two), and Red Wine vinegar (times two). But seriously? Should we ever be facing a siege, Fam Fibro will be in an excellent position to pickle...

We are also well-equipped with baked beans (13 - count them - tins), flour (three kilograms), and several tins of Bundaberg Rum fudge. Yep, all the food groups covered there.

A quick survey on Twitter helped me draw the conclusion that I am not alone with my lone, faded beetroot tin (though there was a late charge by the Tinned Bamboo Shoot brigade) - but that nine bottles of vinegar probably qualifies me for some kind of hall of fame. Well, I've always wanted to be an award-winner ("You like me, you like me!").

The truly sad part of this tale, however, I have saved for the end. That tin of beetroot? Still there. I couldn't bear to throw it out. You just never know... and those tinned things never really go off, do they?

Mum and Dad, I understand now.

'Fess up: do you have that tin of beetroot? Or some other random tin that you bought years ago and still resides at the back of the pantry? Or, like me, do you buy strange things - like vinegar - in bulk? Share the Hall of Fame with me - it's lonely in here.

{image: inspcollection.com}