More List Love (from my home to yours)

I absolutely adore listmaking in all shapes and forms. The wrangling of chaos into one finite area, the neat handwriting (in my world, lists must be made with the most perfect handwriting you can muster), the check beside each task as it is completed. I've even given you a glimpse into my private world by sharing these listmaking sites with you in the past: Listography and Day Zero.

Recently (Tuesday) I decided to take my love o' lists to a whole new level and make a housecleaning schedule/list, and after my supreme productivity last night I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of it before! I'm not really a Suzy Homemaker (at all), and I'm not super neat or organized, and I surely don't sweat it if I didn't clean the house top to bottom before guests arrive (gasp!). Oh sure, I don't live in squalor or anything. If you came to my/Tom's house you would see that it is quite clean and looks pretty average I would say. No, I take that back. It looks slightly above average, because the housecleaning gods just so happened to place me with a guy who's pretty serious about housecleaning. He's the first person I've met who regularly cleans his baseboards and blinds, and this sort of cleanliness just gives me pause at times. So while I by no means have/want a messy house, I also haven't gone to any great lengths to put serious housecleaning on my schedule. But I've recently realized that while I have very little inspiration to clean for other people's joy, it actually makes me feel calm and peaceful and in charge when the house is clean and everything is in its own spot.

Enter Operation Housecleaning-List-Slash-Schedule (to the rescue!). Wednesday is bathroom day, and I tackled that task right when I got home. And I do mean tackle. Not content with the regular bathroom-cleaning regimen, I actually completely took apart our sink handles to clean them from the inside because some buildup was making them look less than stellar. This included turning the water off underneath the sink, using a screwdriver to take apart the handles and using an old toothbrush to clean the insides. I wish I'd taken some before and afters, but my bathroom-cleaning self could not be stopped for even a moment to go get the camera.

To make a long story even slightly longer, I'll just say that this little schedule of mine is going to revolutionize the way I feel about housekeeping. Goodbye "chore"! Goodbye "societal expectations"! Goodbye "dust bunnies"!

Hello order! Hello neat handwriting! Hello checkboxes!