My husband has the rather stunning power of being a force of entropy in the world (he jokes that we are arch-nemeses because my superpower is returning everything to its original state.). I literally cannot keep our apartment in order for more than a day (if that)! He somehow manages to make it more disorganized without seemingly having done anything! Just this week we were scheduled to have friends visit on Friday, so I gradually got our apartment in good order for having guests. It stayed that way until Friday evening...and somehow by the time our friends got here we had accumulated dishes in the sink, a coat and plates in the living room, and clothes on the bedroom floor.
Saturday, after cooking breakfast I cleaned the dishes, ran the dishwasher, and wiped down the counters: all was clean, and well, and good...or so I thought!
Over the course of Saturday (just those 24 hours) my kitchen went from this:
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| The stove after making homemade Kahlua, and late night breakfast |
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| My sink and the pile of dishes from the last part of the evening |
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| My cluttered countertop |
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| The dining room table post game night and late night breakfast |
To this:
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| My pretty stove, |
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| Sparkling sink, |
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| Cleared countertop, |
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| And lovely dining room table. |
It went between these two sets of photos about three times over the course of Saturday...holy cow...I put in a lot of effort and work into cleaning it up, but my husband is an absolute whirlwind of entropy! I also ran the dishwasher 4 times in a day and a half, which is more than I typically run it in two weeks!
These are some more pictures of how my apartment looked after this weekend:
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| My "landing pad" became a hotspot |
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| Our makeshift guest room |
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| Our bedroom...is almost never this bad |
But after this afternoon, and three loads of laundry, it looks like this:
The trick to keeping it looking this way is actually not to kill yourself over the course of a day, but to clean 15-30 minutes a day in short bursts. It really helps! So even if your husband's superpower is that of entropy, you can successfully battle clutter and triumph!
What about you? Do you/your significant other have conflicting "superpowers"? What are your tricks for accomplishing difficult/large tasks?
omgosh--i simply loved your post--and i have to tell you that your "messy" pictures didn't look bad to me---great tip about the few minutes of cleaning each day!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I have to say that maybe they weren't "that" bad, but it was that messy about 3 times and got cleaned up 3 times and went back to that state lol.
DeleteTo be fair, he had some help in some of those messes :P I noticed you taking pictures of your kitchen that morning, and was curious as to what they'd be incorporated in lol.
ReplyDeleteBut lol I had some of the same problems all week -- except for the dishes, because Jonathan is actually really good about cleaning them up. It's sort of an expectation in my house since I have three roommates. But keeping the bathroom and bedroom picked up was like an ongoing thing for both of us.
I have to tell you, I love your dining room table. If you get a sewing machine, a fun beautifying project is making pacemats! They're pretty easy and it makes it easy to keep tables clean. We've got like 5 sets, it's ridiculous.
My biggest problem with housecleaning is managing laundry. Keeping it in one place, getting it all washed, and getting it put away. For some reason, it just seemed so much easier when I was in the dorms. O_o
Love it.
ReplyDeleteOh, goodness. I hate the fact that 2 seconds after I have frenziedly attacked the house making it as perfect as a perfectly perfect house in a magazine on perfect houses... it somehow degenerates into a tip worthy of one of those programmes about old people who tunnel through newspaper piles and cat hair.
ReplyDeleteNow the children have left home it IS much better. but have to admit - I am untidy. It is my fault!
Visting from A to Z challenge. I do the short bursts of cleaning. When I get tired of sitting in front of the computer for my day job, I will occasionally take a ten minute break and work on a project, whether cleaning, crafting or otherwise! :)
ReplyDeleteMy husband is my enabler when it comes to sneaking snacks, although since we gave that up for Lent, it's not been so bad. However, we only have a few days more of Lent...