Don’t Neglect Your House!

April 2, 2008 by Jai
Filed under Hogar

No descuides tu casa! I swear my Mami tells me that all the time. I always make sure that my house is spotless before my parents come to visit. They live in a different state than I do so I don’t see them that often. Well they come down every few months now that they have a grandson here.

But how does the modern Mami who is constantly busy with EVERYTHING keep her house “people ready”? When we moved into our house in June my house was NEVER people ready. I had a four month old and I couldn’t keep the house clean and organized. People would call me saying they’d like to come over that day and I would say no because my house wasn’t clean. One of my friends used to complain to me on the phone “Girl you’re house ain’t never clean!” LOL! So I got my act together. I went online and did some research and I found a nice site called The Household Helper. She’s also got a podcast I listen to faithfully. I learned that I can divide my chores daily instead of having to do things in one day.

My problem is that I grew up with cleaning on just Saturdays and I refused to clean at other times even though on Saturdays I didn’t have the four hours to spend cleaning anymore. But I was in denial thinking that I had to do things the way my Mami did them and that wasn’t working for me. I had to realize that yes maybe taking 20 minutes to clean one room in the house isn’t bad. And that using a Swiffer instead of a traditional mop, broom and dustpan was not going to kill me but make my house cleaner faster. So I typed up a list of what needed to be done daily. At the bottom I also did what needs to be done seasonally and monthly. It makes the tasks more manageable. Every day I have different chores that need to be done. One day it’s the living room another it’s the dining room and so on. And my house is always clean. Now that I’ve taken the initiative to keep it clean Hubby is actually doing his part. Should I be calling him Papi? LOL! That sounds funny.

I’ve tweaked my daily routine a bit to see what works best daily for me. Do you have a daily routine? Start one now so you can spend more time enjoying the beautiful weather that’s just around the corner! Or “Al doblar la esquina” like my Mami says.