Mindy quipped that some people wipe their feet when they come in the house, but she used to wipe her feet when she left! Also, when she was first married she called for help because there was a raccoon in their bedroom after the window had been left open in their third story apartment. The help that came remarked,
"Boy that raccoon did a lot of damage!"
We do have critters in our neighborhood. A possum died in the backyard and Kenny said leave it alone and a vulture would get it. Sure enough--the the corpse disappeared leaving a backbone. Won't leave a window open for a critter to come in! I have enough evidence of paper clutter still to deal with!
Mindy said simply that she was housekeeping impaired. She writes detective stories, so, determined to change, she looked at the messes as a detective. She examined the evidence--those messes always seemed to happen the same way. Her house changed. Her popular book, The House That Cleans Itself, is now in its second printing. You can order it from my widget at the right.
When my family from Alabama came for the Thanksgiving week, I was pleased that my sister-in-law noted some changes in the house because I had been implementing a house that would clean itself. (They also saw paper clutter of course in the den.)
Mindy wasn't going to change, but the house would have to change, she said in this interview.
I am not done applying her book. I still have changes to the house to make things simpler. The workshop is next. Hate to even show you the "before" picture of the workshop. Trying to be very careful what comes into the house now this season. This especially important because I never got around to the yard sale.
I got to take a look at that book. I definitely need a house that will clean itself and a house that would change because I too am not going to change. We moved into my in-laws house 3 years ago come this January to a mess of their stuff, their hoarding tendencies, their massive quantities of stuff (they were in assisted livng by now). It has been a disaster and caused a lot of resentment on my part with hubby for not going along with what we agreed to when we agreed to make the move (decluttering their stuff, which we had permission to do before we moved in, only to find afterwards his parents were reluctant for him to get rid of any of their stuff) so I went on strike against house cleaning, figuring the house wasn't mine, still had their stuff in it, I was working 40 hours a week, hubby had quit his job to move down here to be closer to his parents and was only working 10-15 hours teaching music so I figured why should I clean house when I was working twice his hours? I haven't cleaned in pretty close to 2 years. Hubby will occasionally clean, son who lives with us will occasionally clean. So I definitely need a house that will clean itself (and a better attitude about having a roof over my head). Seriously though, I will look into that book and maybe a change of heart in 2014.
ReplyDeletebetty
Sounds like a room by room after communicating with hubby and son would be in order, Betty. Mindy says to never tackle the whole house at once. I started with our two bathrooms. If you click on The Room That Cleans Itself under labels at the right on this blog, Betty, you can find all the blog posts that I put up when I started applying her book.
DeleteI enjoyed the book and made a few changes in my home as a result. I have more work to do and hope to throw out more stuff after the holidays. The author's method is similar to the way my mother taught me to set up house.
ReplyDeleteYou are so lucky, Georgene, that your mother taught you how to set up the house. My mom had messes with the resulting clean up for company strategy.
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