Cleaning

Yesterday was a really good day! After getting up and moving I spring cleaned the oven/stove, microwave, and fridge. It’s amazing how much grease and grim builds up over time. I do keep things pretty clean but things really do need a deep clean every once in a while. What’s the difference between a routine clean and a deep clean? I look at it as taking a few steps farther into your cleaning routine. For the microwave not only do you wipe the inside clean but also the outside especially the underneath side. That’s where the grease from the stove likes to hide. I didn’t need to clean the vent this time but normally I would clean the vent too when I spring clean.

The oven wasn’t too hard because I had already cleaned the inside a couple of weeks ago. My husband, however, baked an apple pie in there this week and didn’t get it sealed all the way so there was a mess on the bottom. I just made sure to turn the self clean on the night before and was able to wipe it out the next morning. I did take the extra time to scrub the glass top and back where the dials are. Grease likes to settle onto that.

The last thing I did was clean the fridge. This is my absolute dreaded chore! I hate cleaning the fridge. I definitely don’t do it as often as I should. Last year when my husband and I went to Japan my mother-in-law watched our kids for us. To my surprise, and a little embarrassment, when we got back she had cleaned my fridge for me. I was super grateful but also pretty embarrassed that she had to see the yuckiness that was my fridge. So while I was cleaning it yesterday I was thinking of her and how it would be nice for her to do it again. I took out all the shelves and wiped both the inside and outside down. I also pulled the fridge away from the wall and cleaned the back(yuck!). So glad it’s all done. It took me about 3 hours to clean the fridge, oven/stove, and microwave.

It was such a nice day that I finally convinced my kids to turn off the screens and go outside. My daughter rode her bike around and my son and I played some basketball horse. It was really nice to get outside! To my dismay this morning when I opened the blinds it was snowing. So probably not going to get to go outside today. I think I may take a day off of cleaning today and maybe settle down to read a book. Who am I kidding the new game of animal crossing is coming out I’ll be the first to play it!

With the craziness that is happening lately I thought it would be good to keep track of what we are doing to keep busy. My kids school got cancelled yesterday for the COVID-19 pandemic. So far the plans for reopening are March 30th but who knows if we will actually send kids back by then. My mom who lives in Oregon told me their schools have planned to stay closed until April 28th! I choose to believe it’s an extended spring break for us in hopes that school will start up again by the end of the month.

This is what I’ve started to keep us busy. My kid’s first day without school was yesterday. I had them clean their bathroom and pick up their rooms. I spent the day scrubbing and oiling cabinets. That’s right we started spring cleaning a little early this year! I figured each day they are home we could do a little spring clean up and hopefully our home will be sparkling in time for them to get back to school. My kids aren’t excited about this little endeavor of mine but I figured it would be good for them to spend a couple hours cleaning instead of playing video games. Plus this will teach them to appreciate their home and maybe take better care of it. Who am I kidding they probably view it as slave labor.

Yesterday while doing the cabinets my back and wrist started hurting. I find that when I start a project I often overdue it and end up hurting myself because I don’t stop until it’s done. So today I enlisted the help from two of my three kids. We did something a little less intense. We cleaned all the doors in the house. It doesn’t seem like a lot but when you have 29 doors in the house it can be when you have to do it by yourself. Having my two helpers really made a difference.

The worse doors to clean were the doors to the outside. Go figure I mean that is where our homes meet the world right!? The interior doors were better and took less time to clean. To clean the doors all I used was a wash rag, bucket with hot water and some dish soap, and a magic eraser. The wash rag and soapy water help to get the dirt and grime off and the magic eraser is for the finger smudges and black marks. It takes a little elbow grease but we were able to accomplish the task in a little over an hour. It would have taken me twice as long by myself. Once we were done all the doors look amazing!