QUICK THINGS TO DO TODAY:
– Quickly tidy up before you leave the house (or if you are a stay-at-home mom) so you start the work week off fresh: Put dishes in dishwasher (or take them out and put them away), wipe kitchen counters, vacuum the most trafficked room in your house. You might think you don’t have 2 minutes to vacuum before you leave, but I challenge you to try it!
– Make menu plans for the week.
– Did you do your refrigerator maintenance cleaning over the weekend? One shelf, one drawer or two door shelves.
– When you get home tonight, Shine and freshen bathroom sinks and mirrors, empty wastebaskets in bathrooms and replace toilet paper if needed. Remove any soiled looking bathroom towels or rugs to the laundry room if needed and replace with clean ones.
– Take vitamins and drink some fruit juice or eat fresh fruit (I am enjoying an apple right now!)
– Laundry finished over the weekend? I’m doing a load with a comforter, washcloths and hand towels we used this weekend.
– Light candles tonight. I know so many people who own cupboards full of candles but yet forget to ever light and enjoy them.
TODAY’S PROJECT: Living Room
Tonight I’m doing a thorough cleaning on our upstairs living room. It got a bit messy during my last dinner party (people tracked in wet leaves from outdoors, dropped candy wrappers, ate food and left crumbs, and set wineglasses down here and there).
This is the most light-filled room in the house so it’s my favorite. I use this room in the mornings sometime to sort mail, pay bills, and do big work projects where I need to spread out. In the afternoons I watch Oprah up here when I’m taking a break from my work, simultaneously doing cleaning projects or reading magazines.
In the evenings, it’s often used when I’m entertaining. When guests are over, I spread appetizers and drinks on the coffee table, light a fire, and welcome them into this room while they wait for dinner to be served. Or I watch TV up here if someone else in my house is watching something different on the downstairs TV.
Because I do entertain so often, I need this room to always be in fabulous shape. (I will admit freely to rushing upstairs sometimes before a cocktail party to hide the coffee table’s pile of papers, mail and magazines I was working on earlier that day).
There’s some things I struggle with (my overloaded bookshelves, and a hard-to-reach ceiling with spiderwebs and candle soot). But keeping the room maintained constantly in a clean manner makes it a lot easier to go through and do a full cleaning today.
I’ll clean out the fireplace, and scrub my glass fireplace doors. All the better to show off the warm dancing flames of the next fire I light! The living room windows need to be washed and have the tape from the Halloween lights removed. This should take less than fifteen minutes. I can watch Oprah while I do this, or listen to music. I’m in the mood for some Puppini Sisters.
I have a fireplace mantel and three windowsills to dust, plus two huge bookshelves and all the room’s baseboards to dust. I’ll move the couch, coffee table, mail table and end tables and vacuum under them. The upholstery on my couch and two chairs needs to be vacuumed. The curtains were laundered during Spring Cleaning, so I may just Febreze them and leave them alone.
The two lamps in the room need to be dusted, and I have some wax to dig out of a candleholder so I can wash it and replace it on the mantel with a fresh Cinnamon Orange candle to burn later tonight.
For a finishing touch, I’ll put a bowl of apples on the coffee table. I’ll fluff the pillows and be ready to settle in with hot cocoa (perhaps with a bit of rum in it) to catch up on my Tivo’ed cooking shows tonight!
LOVELY BLOGS: A New York Girl
This blog by a girl who recently moved to New York got my attention because of her helpful tips she shares. Her “how to save money” and “effortless style” type posts are really useful, without being condescending or bossy.
I skip over her fashion inspiration posts with pics of celebrities because I’m not all that interested in fashion. But some of you might enjoy reading those. I’ll bypass them in order to see more of Hayley’s ideas on “How to Transition to Fall” and the posts she shares about what her life is like and what she’s struggling with as well as her successes.