Our house is pretty much always a mess. For the life of me, I don’t know how this happens, but it always does. Today I decided to take pictures of our big problem areas at various points during the day. I am trying really hard not to cheat much by cleaning up more than I usually would.
The cleaning people were here yesterday, so this is as clean as it ever is.
The suspected perpetrators:
The Living Room At 8:30 AM
This is as clean as the living room ever is. You can’t see a big box of toys behind the chair, but they are sitting there waiting to be strewn about. The things on top of the TV are two remotes and a pair of sunglasses. The white thing at the bottom is a box of outlet covers laying on the floor.
The Living Room at 1:00 PM
M is now home from school. She is watching TV and somehow the living room is slowly working its way to ruin.
The Shoe Area 8:30 AM
We have shoe storage in the closet that is about 2 feet from this area, but shoes are usually all over this stupid rug. Today there is also a stuffed pink bookmark and one of Mr. A’s green flip flops.
The Shoe Area at 12:45 PM
My shoes are now on the rug, but so far not too bad.
The Table 8:30
I kind of cheated on this one and put away the breakfast dishes before I took the picture. They usually lay there until lunch time. I think that thing laying there is a rubber band.
The Table at 1:00 PM
Box of blueberries, newspaper, bib and sippy cup, wallet and mail.
The Breakfast Bar 8:30 AM
This is the worst mess in the house. It is where all the mail ends up, along with any other random small things that don’t really have a home. The mess ususally builds during the two weeks until the cleaning people come again. There is a pile of crap near the window that has been there for several months. We throw things away, but any mail without a home languishes there for freaking EVER There is also a small radio there and a bowl that is supposed to hold keys but really just holds more junk. And the phone base is there.
In this picture, you can see two sets of keys not in the key bowl, Mr. A’s phone, a silly putty egg, and headphones from our trip to china. I have no idea who put them there.
The Breakfast Bar at 12:45 PM
The only real difference is that I had to fish some of the mail out of the trash when Mr. A called and requested it. It is wet and covered with coffee grounds. Eww.
The Kitchen 8:30 AM
Our cabinet doors never really end up being closed. In this pic you can see (from left to right) muffins left from dinner last night, a can of formula, L’s vitamins, brown bananas to make banana bread, the fruit bowl and another bag of organic bananas that didn’t quite make it to the fruit bowl yet.
The Kitchen at 12:45 PM
Lunch begins the degradation. Muffins now eaten, but pan still on the counter. Juice bottle, pizza remnants, cup, Mt. Dew Can and now a papaya also laying on the counter.
The Kitchen Sink at 8:30 AM
This isn’t too bad because I actually put the breakfast bowls in the dishwasher. The green thing is a soapy sippy cup. YOu can also see our big knife, a bottle ring and a bottle cleaner.
The Kitchen Sink at 1:00 PM
Mr. A does all the dishes, including those we dirty during the day when he is away. Here they are waiting for him. Yes, I really am the world’s worst housewife.
The Playroom at 8:30 AM
On the table you can see a rubberband and an old price tag. Why I didn’t just put those away, I will never know.
The playroom at 12:45 PM
Still not looking too bad.
I am going to post updates throughout the day, as I get time. I am sure you will be waiting with bated breath to see just how messy we can get.
Uh, this is dirty?
riiiiight.
[Seriously, when I visit my friends with the weekly housekeepers, I feel like the biggest slob in the world. When I visit my friends who have a year's worth of old magazines tottering in the corner and several piles of unfolded laundry above the cat-hair covered couch, I think I'm the second coming of June Cleaver. And then there's my internal, Mom-stoked voice of reasoned criticism of my housecleaning skillz. Or, more to the point, Calder's, because he's point-man on the kitchen. I get that dirty is a relative term. But seriously, you're looking good to me.]
i actually thought this post was very fun.
i can’t wait to see what it looks like after the “tornado” hits. i’m so anal that i have to clean the kitchen and the living room/play room after peanut goes to bed, but before i do. although lately, the time between the two is getting shorter…
I really don’t want to discourage you in posting pictures, because I *really* like it when you do… but, is there a reason you aren’t resizing them before uploading them to your site? Each picture is ginormous and then resizing in the coding of the webpage and it’s throttling out even my high speed connection. For example, if your picture was really resized, when you right click and view image, you will see how really big each picture being sent to everyone on the internets and then resized to a smaller picture.
Plus it must be guzzling up your webserver’s transfer allocation! ;o)
you’re going to have to get a lot messier to impress me! That still looks company-ready as of the noontime photos.
Not bad…really…specially considering you have two little ones who are not really old enough to do much helping but old enough to create lots of chaos.
Now…the part that got me was the fact that your hubby does the dishes when he comes home….lucky indeed!LOL Even when mine was a stay at home dad for a while the dishes, somehow, always waited for me!!! (to my hubby’s credit, he does do a mean bathroom and god knows I HATE doing bathrooms!)
I’m waiting for the messy photos because right now your house is cleaner than mine is when I declare it clean.
I have to say, these look good, and we don’t have kids. But if you find the secret of not having mail clutter hotspots, I will pay you.
I read a UK adoption forum and one of the foster parents said how childless prospective adoptive parents come round and sneer at her house because theirs are all tidy and hers is messy. I think I missed out on the childless tidy house allocation when they were round giving them out.
I have to second Michelle — I’m waiting for the dirty pictures because right now it’s easily 50% cleaner than my house is at it’s cleanest . .
I love that play kitchen.
[...] -Thanks to the glorious Figlet and her recommendation of the super-effective grout cleaner from Home Depot, I spent part of today scrubbing my kitchen floor’s grout. Remember when certain people thought my house wasn’t dirty enough way back when? Well, let me assure you, if there is any question that we in the AmFam household are filthy, dirty people, it was 100% confirmed today when I started working on that grout. I think I have only cleaned it once since we moved into this house 3.5 years ago. That grout cleaner worked like magic though. [...]