Cleaning

I have a love-hate relationship with cleaning. I like it when I'm doing it and don't have distractions (which is not often). This is the Type A and extremely organized part of me. Simultaneously, I dread starting it and there are certain specific tasks that I hate, namely mopping floors and the bathtub. For a long time, I passed most of this off on a cleaning lady every 3-4 weeks, but now it's back to me. I've stuck pretty well to an every 2 weeks schedule and, thankfully, since the kids still nap I've managed to do it in 2 chunks on my weekday days off from work.

I feel like there is no good way to mop. Am I crazy or do you just move the dirt around the floor no matter what kind of mop you use? I'm only ever really happy with it when I get down on the floor and use a big sponge. Plus, in addition to having a WHITE vinyl kitchen floor (I don't know under what scenario this ever seemed like a good idea to the previous owners), my house is almost completely wood floors (dining room, living room, stairways/halls, and 3 bedrooms). We have an attic/3rd floor that has 2 rooms that I pretty much ignore unless we have guests coming - both of those rooms are wood floors also plus the additional staircase.

I cannot state how much I hate cleaning the tub. There is nothing more exhausting and irritating then having to get half-naked to get in there to really scrub the grime out. That is the ONLY thing keeping me on this 2-week schedule...hoping that the grime doesn't really build up to begin with. We do have a slow drip that we haven't fixed. Fixing it will require we pull out the whole mechanism and replace it (thereby also removing the disgusting vanity that is wedged in there and a chunk of the ugly tile while covers the entire room and would have to be replaced). Our 2nd bathroom shower is out of commission so we'd have no back-up and we really want to re-do the working bathroom in some way, so this project is shelved for the foreseeable future. Therefore, I have that annoying pink water stain buildup from the drip along with a REALLY annoying drip sound that is slowly driving me insane. Plus, my shower head needs to be replaced and is not currently the kind where the head can detach to rinse out the tub which would make things easier.

Finally, I really want to move over to homemade or environmentally safe cleaning products. I feel guilty just throwing out the toxic stuff I have so I'm trying to use it up first. I did try the olive oil trick on the wood tables yesterday but am still working out the right amount. It was fine on the dining room table, but I think I used too much and left our coffee table a bit greasy. Oh well. If the cats start licking the tables I guess I've gone too far.