Rock The Housework Chat

[BogRollBOGOF]

www.rockthehousework.co.uk/

Anyone else rocking the housework?

My housekeeping was always somewhat chaotic, and since these were launched, my house is far more functional and a podcast away from actually looking rather orderly, even at short notice.

I tend to pick what I need each day rather than following the tradtitonal TOMM, but do refer back to that to help get some jobs done if they're in danger of being neglected.

I think my most used tracks are the "Calm Laundry Put Away" the "Bitesize Bathroom Blitz" and the "Quick Kitchen Turnaround"

Is there a post-holiday unpacking crap one? 😃

I think it's just the packing one (styled by Susie). On the website it's in the keeping you company zone.

I'm awful at finishing off unpacking.
At least packing has some urgency to it!

In recent years, I've kept lists in my notebook of packing, so that short cuts a bit... at least I'm now consistent in forgetting to pack the same things each year

I subscribe to rth, have done on and off for ages, but for some reason can't get it to stick. I may be a bit overwhelmed at the number of different cleans and what to pick. I just can't seem to get going.
I've got more than one bathroom, how does everyone keep on top of all of them every day? When do you get the deeper stuff like mopping done?

I tend to do a lot of multi-room cleans which tend to have bathrooms in.
There's a 5 min "bitesize bathroom" session which is also good for keeping up.

We've got 3- downstairs toilet, en-suite and main bathroom. It's the downstairs that gets most abuse from the DSs, so gets most attention.

I'm not the best at mopping. The kitchen floor is regularly swept, but it's a pita for it to dry out. I tend to wipe around the toilet zone of those floors when I clean the toilet.

Not a Rock the Housework, but a nice little victory none the less...
Yesterday I did a review of my work clothing and had a bag of clothes that I will not feasibly shrink into or wear again, including a suit.

DC's school has a "business dress" policy for 6th form so today I rang and asked if they wanted a donation which they did, so it was out of the house in 24 hours. (They were already asking for outgrown uniforms as they have significant deprived catchment)

I thought school was worth asking for first dibs as it fits their policy and was small sizes (oh my 2000s size 6-8 self 😂). Probably more useful there than to a general charity shop.

In good news, I held onto the suit for long enough that boot cut came back on trend again!

I have officially accepted that I am not a suit person. Not even for job interviews- I much prefer dresses for being formal, and have done for many years.

There is an unpacking one! Here’s the link if you’re on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/86279896?utm_campaign=postshare_fan

I think Gemma said that she mops the bathroom on Thursdays as that’s when she already has the mop out for the kitchen floor. I do a lot of multi room cleans too, I don’t really stick to TOM while working full time with kids - I find level 1s are my limit. I do do clean sheet Tuesdays though! Nearly kills me every week changing 4 beds. But I love that my children are always excited about having fresh sheets on their beds. A small inexpensive pleasure to carry into adulthood!

Housework has been slipping a bit but I’ve had a burst of HRT-fuelled energy and did the 30 minute classic TOMM bathroom clean which was LONG overdue. It wasn’t too bad actually although all of my bathroom cleaning products were running out at the same time so I was frantically squeezing the bottles trying to eke out the last drips 🤣

I hate nearly-empty bottles. Especially if the packaging is sealed so you can't tip the dregs into a new one.

Main project of the day has been ye olde Dreamy Kitchen.

Deep purge of DS1's bedroom done.

He's not a fan of daylight so it's easy to overlook the dust bunnies developing in there.

Plus navigating the Lego minefield...

Holiday has been and gone, the washer, dryer and line are in overdrive, and the 1 hour summer reset posted earlier in the summer has got the house remarkably decent for back to school mode.

I'd like to get some deeper cleaning/ clutter busting in in those pesky corners and easily ignored rooms (like the never ending dead fly collection in the conservatory), but this is a good start ready for term time.

It's my 3rd summer holiday with TOM Rocks/ Rock the Housework, and those 3 years I've been so much more on top of it and not had a week of intense clearance to restore order. OK the kids have grown up, and mainly game when in the house and many outgrown toys have been decluttered, but still, it's been so much easier to maintain some order with the podcasts.

My SAHM days are now in single digits, but the thought of keeping the house functioning is not nearly as daunting as it otherwise would have been. It was so hard to keep afloat while working when the DCs were young.

As always I haven’t done half the tidying/cleaning/decluttering that I wanted to during the holidays, but we have been away for two weeks out of the three I had for annual leave. I did the latest dirty thirty on Sunday and that helped, and I have a few bags of clothes to take to the textile recycling bin at school so that will make some space 🤞🏻

Hello, can I join? (Hi @BogRollBOGOF - I seem to bump into you a lot 😆)

I signed up to the app about three weeks ago. My mum was coming to visit for the first time in years so used it as an excuse to deep clean. My DP is a bit of a hoarder and we live in a pretty small mid terrace cottage with no kids but two greyhounds and two cats, and we have far too many hobbies between us, and we both work from home, so the house is always a mess. DP thinks he's a modern man who does his fair share but all he does is move things around. I've realised if I want a clean house I need to forget about the idea of equality and just do it myself. He's very good at DIY so I might just put together a list he can work through at his own pace.

It's actually been very manageable using the MOM method once the declutter took place (DP went on holiday for a week so I used the opportunity to get all my trips to the tip in without him pulling everything back out of the bin!). So far the only thing he's noticed gone is a ten year old bottle of blemish cream which he was quite upset about but I pointed out it was unhygienic and I had an alternative on hand that was less than a year old. That man hangs on to everything!!

I have a few cupboards in the kitchen that still need a deep clean and declutter, under the eaves in the loft really need tackling too, and our bunkers in the garden. Might tackle the bunker this weekend if the weather is still good.

I'm pretty easy to find on MN

The method makes it so much easier to break down. I struggle with the actual routine, but the ethos of it and the podcasts have been life-changing.

I'm naturally hoardy. DM has slipped into hoarding disorder with age, and I now accept that I can not keep everything forever. Things exist to serve a purpose. To be useful. To bring "joy" (borrowing from Marie Kondo). I can't keep every artifact of my children's childhood. They won't want most of it in 20- 30 years, so it's better to release the good but not special stuff to let someone else use it while it's still fairly current. Keep some special things (favourite clothes tend to be too knackered to donate), and accept that the rest has served its purpose and let go.

DM was a war child and had a tough war, so I get the "waste not want not" values and the trauma reaction of her holding on to things, often illogically, and those values were passed onto me in childhood. She hasn't had strategies to deal with stuff, and by my 80s/ 90s childhood, her values didn't equip her for a consumerist society of abundance. So I've had to learn it all as an adult, which was pretty hard to do before influencers as society just expects you to pick it up by osmosis.

DH is self-sufficiently tidy. Not the most pro-active at family tidying, but doesn't add much to mess either. He works long hours, so while I'm about to go full time, 37 hours still seems relatively short hours compared to when I was a teacher and the hours he works. The brunt will still fall on me, but should be decently managable now rooms can normally be refreshed in frequent 10-20 min bursts rather than escalating to termly deep-cleans.

Yeah it’s funny how our childhoods shape these things. I moved around a lot as a kid and have moved countries a few times, so pretty much had a suitcase level of stuff until I bought my house aged 35. My parents have moved house a lot separately (divorced). I’m not sure we even have photos of us as kids, let alone stuff from school etc, sentiment doesn’t run strong in our family, with me too. I’m happy to keep useful stuff but anything emotional gets binned! I have my grandmothers wedding ring and that’s it. Whereas my DP has kept every flyer or ticket from every gig he went to, has multiple copies of the same records, t-shirts, about fifteen broken mobile phones, every outdated cable known to man, a whole pile of empty cardboard boxes for ‘potential returns’ etc. We’re very opposed on these spectrums! He has lived in the same city all his life, we’re very near his parents, and his dad still lives in the house he grew up in (which is also bursting at the seams with all their childhood stuff - that I’ve banned from entering our house). I guess opposites attract.

Really enjoyed the September Resets this week. I love the multi-room cleans anyway but these were good for the things like the French doors that tend to get missed out but need an occasional blitz. The house was looking great for back to school mode which made the logistics of getting back in routine flow better.

Although my glow of feeling the house was clean and order was swiftly, literally blown away... I was using the hair dryer sitting on the hall floor and it wafted air under the radiator, and giant dust bunnies short out 😂
Annoyingly, I couldn't vacuum them either because I'd washed the vacuum filter and it was still drying off 🤦‍♀️

I tried to start the September reset the other day but got side-tracked by demanding children, so instead I did a declutter of the cutlery drawer and an annoying section of the kitchen worksurface which started off as just a bit of clutter stored in a party bag and grew to a massive Heap Of Crap. I've been putting it off for ages but as usual it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be once I'd got stuck in, and I binned a whole load of utter rubbish.

I've added the new TOMM Lite sessions to my favourites but haven't had a chance to go through them yet. I also see there's a couple of new pre-and-post school run cleans which I might have a go at when I'm working from home.

There is a section of worktop with a basket in full acceptance of the inevitability of a "pile of crap" happening.
It's not worth fighting.
And when the basket is full, it tends to be about 15 mins to deal with. It's one of those jobs that my brain inflates.

I could do with the scurryfunge session, but my legs are knackered and achey with start-of-termitis. I'm keeping up with the dishwasher daily which is a big win.

We’ve been on holiday. It was nice to come back to a clean house! And DP seems to be seeing the benefit and making a bit more effort. His laundry pile is significantly reduced. Washed all the dogs bedding from the house and car while they were in the kennels, and they’ve dried while we were away.

Still nothing more than light maintainence done, but we're not drowning in mess one week in and chaos is being kept at bay.

I'll need to do a multi-room reset type session at the weekend.

Hopefully my energy levels will adjust and perk up to make mid-week maintainence easier, but my legs have been knackered all week.

I did the Take It Slow living room clean on Wednesday and have managed to keep it looking pretty nice, which makes me feel much calmer. The clean corner of the kitchen I did last week is remaining under control... for now.... I've also been doing a timed five minutes here and there on the laundry pile which is slowly reducing.

I am keen to get sorting the outgrown summer clothes but we are going on holiday at half term so will still need this summer's shirts, shorts etc. I want to try and take the things which will be outgrown by next year and can't/won't be handed down so that I can bin them at the end of the holiday and come back with a little less washing 😬

That's a good idea.

My teenager seems to have growth-spurted again, or at least noticed that he needs new clothes.
Which would be less awkward if he didn't only wear shorts and tells me when shorts just went out of season in the shops.

Another time I find good is when all the good stuff is in laundry mountain and it's easier to weed out the redundant stuff that gets left to the back of the drawers.

I need to get back to the habit of clearing out a bag per week as it's stacked up again.

In need of a good reset session.

Little 5 min maintainence bursts had been holding back chaos for a few weeks, but really I needed a catch-up session last week... but DM had been in hospital and I ended up losing a chunk of last weekend to go and visit.

It's all really unravelled this week as DS has been off ill from school and DH has been WFH to be in the house with him. Unlike typical WFH MNers, DH has never mastered the efficient "multi-tasking" that means he can work productively and load a dishwasher...which is awkward when there's more people in the house than usual. The lounge needs a proper de-clutter, but it's constant gaming youtubers on the TV so I've been swerving in the name of sanity.

But in good news, my legs are 90% adjusted and not in that horrible tired, heavy crampy leg mode that they were for a couple of weeks which was why I hadn't done much since the start of term.

Sounds stressful @BogRollBOGOF !

I have similarly fallen off the wagon. Work deadlines and three mini holidays in one month means I also need to start again next week. I’m away for a few days without dp so I know I will go home to chaos. The most he can manage is feeding and barely walking the dogs while I am away so will need to do a full house clean. Ah well, guess it is good exercise.

I had a good catch up at the weekend; about 3 hours on Saturday. I used various sessions. The kitchen got quite a good deep clean. I started with dreamy kitchen, then overspilled into a few random sessions.

The house feels much more controlled now, even a few days later.

Before the guided sessions, it would have been so much more stressful and a much bigger, more frustrating issue in my head.