It's been over a Year!

I have neglected this blog mainly because all the Google settings changed and I was having a hard time getting into my own page, although I knew it was still there. And then today when I tried it again, Google kindly linked me to this new page.  I have a week off and decided to devote some of my free time to decluttering and cleaning. It was two weeks ago  when I walked around and realized that some things were really dirty. For example, a plant had spilled, and although it had been cleaned up halfway, there was still dirt in a corner that hadn't been swept. I looked at the bathroom wall and realized it was sticky, and a lot of areas needed dusting. Since I started working full time again, there are less hours to really focus on detail cleaning. I try to keep up with the main areas of the house-kitchen, living room, bathrooms. I always do laundry, but sometimes it doesn't get put away right away. I always clean the dishes but the kitchen had some things out that should have been put away. Around this time I was googling for ideas as I tend to do for inspiration and found the site, How Jen Does It and started watching her cleaning routines. The fact that a person can have gads of followers watching her clean the house tells me that there are a lot of people in the world like me. People wondering, "how do they do it?" First I watched her whole house cleaning routine. It seemed like she didn't have a lot of things in her house and had a lot of empty spaces. I later found out that she had just moved into a new house and completely renovated it. I felt a little better when I saw her old house cleaning routine, because it seemed a little more "normal" than cleaning a completely minimalist and pristine home. I then watched her morning routine and her evening routine. Made a lot of sense to me. A lot. Then I started watching her cooking and food hauls. I have to admit, I learned a lot from those too. It is truly amazing to me that her videos, and others like hers have thousands of views. But she does it really well.
So then I started doing some things to my own house. I cleaned out a cabinet so I could put more things off the counter and into it. I started wiping down the counters each time I used the kitchen, and put up a sign for my children that instructed them how to not leave a mess. As I cook, I am cleaning up. If I see anything out at all, I put it away. If I see a dish, cup or water bottle out of place, I bring it to the kitchen and put it away, or recycle it. I moved everything off my end table and dresser, and dusted the bedroom. I have been vacuuming sometimes once a day. Now, can I keep this up when I go back to work? Yes, I can. So that part's ok. The other parts, such as dusting, the floors, baseboards, etc, I might never be able to keep up with. I dislike mopping but maybe if I schedule it for once a week, I could do it. The walls and baseboards, I could probably dedicate a room a day until the entire house was done. It would take me about 12 days to do every area. But I think I could do that-dedicate one room a day to the walls and baseboards and then once that was done, get on a more regular schedule doing that. I still am dealing with a lot of paper clutter and my nemesis-the collection of shoe boxes in the corner. They have taken on a life of their own and need to be dealt with.