The Tools of A Clean House

There are several things that are necessary to having a clean house. Once you've located all the tools you need, all that is required is some ambition and a little elbow grease!

A Broom For obvious reasons, you will need a broom. You can sweep with it, you can dust the corners to get rid of spiderwebs (don't hurt the spiders, though!) and use it to bless your home. There's a lot of folklore concerning brooms, such as never taking an old broom to a new home, as it will bring the negativity of the old home to the new one. If you're interested in household folklore, read The Magical Household by Scott Cunningham.

A Mop Again, for obvious reasons, you will need a mop. You'll wash your floors with it, but you may want to use it to wash down walls, get rid of soap scum in your tub, wipe off the ceiling and dust those too-high places. A sponge-headed mop is best for this type of thing.

A Dusting Rag I had an old towel that was getting rather ratty, so I chopped it up into several rags, about as long and wide as my palm and use them for dusting and cleaning. This works fantastic, and gets rid of an old grungy towel you have lying around! With the help of two rubber bands, you may be able to attach a damp dusting rag over the head of your broom and dust the ceiling fan, the top of bookcases, and other higher places. Rags are washable as well -- with my old towel ones, they sides fray a bit, so after I've washed and dried them, I take a pair of scissors and snip off the frays, so they're ready to go again! Keeping them in a neat pile under the bathroom sink will enable you not to have to use paper towel as often!

An Old Toothbrush If there's one thing I horde, it's old toothbrushes. Once the bristles are starting to fray and get too old to use on our teeth to keep them clean and healthy, I take my toothbrush and store it. I've got one tied to my bottle of carpet cleaner, one under my bathroom sink and one under my kitchen sink (to clean around the taps), one to scrub my stove with, and one to scrub my silver with. They're always coming in handy!

Vinegar and Baking Soda Read this and remember -- Vinegar and Baking Soda will clean anything. Use a paste of baking soda and water to polish your silver. Vinegar will make your windows sparkle. It will also shine your floors. Use it on just about anything to clean your home.

Vacuum This is only if you have pets or have a lot of upolstery in your home. I have hardwood floors, so I don't often vacuum, but every month or so, I pull the old girl out and use it to dust my chairs, my futon, my matress and all the corners my cat can get into that I can't. That way, all his clumps of gray fur are gone and I'm left with a clean, dust-free house. With the little attachments, the vacuum is also great for dusting!

A Bottle of Corn Oil Now I know you're looking quizzingly at that and thinking, "Corn oil? What does corn oil have to do with cleaning the house?" Well, I use my corn oil for something very special. It's not for cleaning -- it's for polishing! Take a very soft, fuzz-free cloth and dampen it just slightly with a dab of corn oil. Then, use it to polish your wooden furniture. It's much healthier for your household than the abrasive chemicals used in polish. Besides, you can use your corn oil to bless your home -- corn is a protective food, so using the oil and thinking blessing thoughts as you polish helps to bless your home. I take my dampened cloth and draw a pentacle on my furniture with the oil, then rub it in. The oil doesn't harm your furniture or make it greasy, and it gives it a nice polished shine.

One Cleaner You know you've tried just about every cleaner on the market. So pick one you like -- and can afford -- and stick to it. Perhaps you just love the smell of that pine-scented one. Or maybe that one with the "super strength" works best for you. Either way, pick one cleaner, and use only that one cleaner. And use it sparingly. For disinfecting, for cleaning up greasy messes or those little "puddles" your pet might leave if she's sick. My one bottle of cleaner will last me forever if I use it properly and stick to my vinegar and water cleaning supplies!

And finally...

Some Ambition Flylady stresses this a lot -- you only need work for 15 minutes a day. Set a timer and work for fifteen minutes on one room. And when you're finished, you'll have gotten so much more done than you anticipated! It'll make you feel better about your home and encourage you to do fifteen minutes more the next day -- believe me!

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