Venting: looking for non-fundie housekeeping blogs

[AuntCloud]

Cleaning is a major chore to me. I have no idea where to start, I get tired and sidetracked easily, I get bored, I procrastinate. When I was mostly home I got little things done, one at a time. Now my life has become busy and the house gets messy, so I was looking for some cleaning checklists and step-by-step tutorials. Funny thing, my parents were so clean and organized they never had the patience to teach an organizationally-challenged kid how it's done. My mom enters a room and five minutes later it's tidy. To me, cleaning has always been magical.

I've found plenty of good cleaning advice online, but some of the best sites come with a heavy dose of evangelism. I discovered aslobcomesclean, read her intro about making her home and family the most important thing in her life, and was wondering - do fundies really think unsaved heathens like me don't want a clean house? That we feed our kids cheesies and pepsi for dinner while being glued to the Beast or, more recently, while everyone is transfixed on their respective electronic devices? I followed some of her links and they all lead to other Christian mommy-bloggers who would like to introduce you to their very photogenic lives. They have their little glitches to blog about - hey, their pantry doors sometimes don't close! - but otherwise it's all happy happy, joy joy, home and family and no evil work that takes them away from what's really important.

Same goes for quilting/crafting sites. Surprise - culturally-Jewish atheists like myself love to quilt, too.

On the plus side, most of these blogs are beautifully designed. This almost makes up for the choppy, one-line-at-a-time writing.

Fictitious example:

"I thought ceiling fans were designed to be dusty.

Right? RIGHT???

It's just the way ceiling fans are.

A lady at our church was making her kids dust the ceiling fans every day.

Isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard?

Anyhoo ... Guess what?!

You're guessing...

... YOU GUESSED IT!!!

I was having a difficult day dealing with negative thoughts. My heart was heavy.

So I grabbed a duster and a step stool.

Went at these ceiling fans like I meant it.

It was hard work, I kid you not.

But I was saved.

Saved from living with the dust of sin in my heart and on my ceiling fans.

I've been transformed.

And I've never looked back.

This is my little ceiling-fan story... send me yours and you may win a giveaway of the Blood of Christ mop!

Blessings,

Miss Used-to-be-messy-but-not-anymore"

[fun2beme]

I recently dusted mine so I'm smugly sitting in judgment of non-ceiling fan dusters. Granted, I've been in my house six years and it was the first time I did it, but still...

[NellieBell]

Flylady? If I remember correctly she's church-y but not super and not too annoying. The cleaning tools they offer on the product site are pretty good as well, but you certainly don't need those to learn some new tricks.

[thekate]

http://unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com/

[FakePigtails]

Some people really like FlyLady, but I find her annoying. My favorite is unfuckyourhabitat.com/.

Two others you may like are down---to---earth.blogspot.com/ and thenewhomemaker.com

Hope that helps!

[AuntCloud]

Ah, completely forgot about UFYH. Will go there pronto.

FlyLady is definitely church-y. I have to give her credit for helping me realize that something, even two minutes of work, are better than nothing, and it's a long process that needs to become a routine rather than a one-time big effort. Surprisingly, it's the same mind-set that supports weight loss.

I just find the automatic connection of believing = being keeper of the home = caring about your family = being organized and clean, disturbing on so many levels. It's this chain of paradigms that are linked to one another and it is so easy to fail on the cleaning and feel immense guilt, or believe that a clean house automatically means you're a Good Person.

This, and the hyper-focus on housekeeping. It's something you need to do, like flossing or filling up at the gas station. I'm looking for efficient ways to do this just so I'll have more time for what I actually enjoy doing, but some of these bloggers make housekeeping a goal.

[salex]

Cleaning is a major chore to me. I have no idea where to start, I get tired and sidetracked easily, I get bored, I procrastinate. When I was mostly home I got little things done, one at a time. Now my life has become busy and the house gets messy, so I was looking for some cleaning checklists and step-by-step tutorials. Funny thing, my parents were so clean and organized they never had the patience to teach an organizationally-challenged kid how it's done. My mom enters a room and five minutes later it's tidy. To me, cleaning has always been magical.

I've found plenty of good cleaning advice online, but some of the best sites come with a heavy dose of evangelism. I discovered aslobcomesclean, read her intro about making her home and family the most important thing in her life, and was wondering - do fundies really think unsaved heathens like me don't want a clean house? That we feed our kids cheesies and pepsi for dinner while being glued to the Beast or, more recently, while everyone is transfixed on their respective electronic devices? I followed some of her links and they all lead to other Christian mommy-bloggers who would like to introduce you to their very photogenic lives. They have their little glitches to blog about - hey, their pantry doors sometimes don't close! - but otherwise it's all happy happy, joy joy, home and family and no evil work that takes them away from what's really important.

Same goes for quilting/crafting sites. Surprise - culturally-Jewish atheists like myself love to quilt, too.

On the plus side, most of these blogs are beautifully designed. This almost makes up for the choppy, one-line-at-a-time writing.

Fictitious example:

"I thought ceiling fans were designed to be dusty.

Right? RIGHT???

It's just the way ceiling fans are.

A lady at our church was making her kids dust the ceiling fans every day.

Isn't that the craziest thing you've ever heard?

Anyhoo ... Guess what?!

You're guessing...

... YOU GUESSED IT!!!

I was having a difficult day dealing with negative thoughts. My heart was heavy.

So I grabbed a duster and a step stool.

Went at these ceiling fans like I meant it.

It was hard work, I kid you not.

But I was saved.

Saved from living with the dust of sin in my heart and on my ceiling fans.

I've been transformed.

And I've never looked back.

This is my little ceiling-fan story... send me yours and you may win a giveaway of the Blood of Christ mop!

Blessings,

Miss Used-to-be-messy-but-not-anymore"

Flylady.net she's more commercial, but helpful. Her husband is Jewish, so, I'm not sure how fundie she could be.

She uses her own variation of a system I've seen promoted by a butler school in Colorado. They have a book called "Setting Household Standards" (Mrs. Starkey) that I bought years ago when I thought I'd be hiring full time housekeeping staff... when that fell through (don't go into business with relatives ) I adapted the ideas to doing it myself.

I've also done Brook Noel's Change Your life Challenge-- I don't remember it being religious, but a good primer on overall organization and scheduling/housework, menu planning, etc. It was paperbased but don't know if there is a download. I don't know about a website/blog, I bought the download years ago, and I think it is now a book. Using her book, I developed a cleaning calendar for daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, biannual and annual tasks... I don't follow it exactly, but I did when I was unemployed and home.

Truth be told, the little chart that went around facebook is the short form for most of the processes.

Speed Cleaning by Jeff Campbell offers very specific cleaning routines. THe site is not bloggy, and has a lot of things they sell, but the book (library may have it) was a fast read and I used this technique for years in a smaller house I had years ago while I was in grad school.

housekeeping.about.com/ is also a housekeeping page with a form as well.

quilting.about.com/ quilting forum and pages.... not religious to my knowledge

I like a clean house more than I like cleaning.

So I'm on the look out for tips.

[AuntCloud]

Thanks, Salex! Will most definitely check these out. I can attest I like reading about cleaning more than cleaning itself.

[DarkAnts]

Its hard to find non-fundie blogs for practical things. I have been looking for recipes for yogurt and keep coming upon fundie blogs. There is usually a lot of misinformation about probiotics on their blogs too. It drives me crazy!

[NellieBell]

I've used Jeff Campbell's system as well but he's too just ambitious. I'm a lazy ass and don't want to "speed clean" :D I want to clean for five minutes then play on the net, then maybe wash the dishes and then play on the net for two hours. Seriously though, great tips from him as well and I have the cleaning apron (I KNOW you're all jealous of that!). Actually my husband makes fun of me when I wear it, so it only comes out of the cleaning closet when no one's here.

Fake Pigtails, I took myself off Flylady's mailing list cause she got on my nerves but she did get me up and moving. I also use her rubber broom (pretty sure you can get one just like it at Home Depot for probably less) and her water bottle is the absolute best that I've ever bought.

Thanks for the other sites. I need some new motivation/tips too. Oh and for someone to block my internet access.

[formergothardite]

Just never turn off your ceiling fan and nobody will know it is dusty.

[gypsygirl22]

Don't dust anything in October...that dust is really a Halloween decoration!

[lauraloralara]

My sort of saving grace housekeeping tip came from a fundie blog (KOTH) but it's been immensely helpful. Stephanie over at KOTH talked about making her kids do ten minute tidies during the day, which, as I practice it, is picking up whatever stuff is not where it needs to be and putting it away for ten minutes. I do one of those every day and then a separate ten minutes at the end of the day to do dishes and wipe down the counters/sink in the kitchen. I have also used Martha Stewart's printables on days when I need to do more deep cleaning: http://www.marthastewart.com/274764/cle ... checklists.

[formergothardite]

Don't dust anything in October...that dust is really a Halloween decoration!

We need to start our own creative housekeeping blog with hints like this!

[Loveday]

... I can attest I like reading about cleaning more than cleaning itself.

Just never turn off your ceiling fan and nobody will know it is dusty.

Don't dust anything in October...that dust is really a Halloween decoration!

:) This is my new favourite thread on FJ. :clap:

[Lainey]

Yes! I have found my people!

I also just recently discovered A Slob Comes Clean (weird), and I had no idea she was fundie.

[TrueRebel1]

Smallnotebook.org/blog

This lady specifically focuses on organizing and simplifying more than "cleaning"-- but hey, I've found than when you don't have too much stuff, it's so much easier to keep clean! :D I think the lady who writes this blog is religious, but certainly not the fundie type! She has really inspired me to simplify my home. Right now she's kinda seems to be on a blogging break, but there's still so many good posts in the archives to check out!

[theologygeek]

Hire a cleaning woman.

[ianthe]

For years, we had a housekeeper once a week, about whom my husband complained endlessly. When she retired, I had to take over, and I had only kept house for myself before. (Adding a husband made quite a bit of difference.) I found Sidetracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise to have a lot of what I needed, mostly lists of chores and the frequency with which they need to be done.

I got it used for pennies.

[SunnyAndrsn]

I never knew I was using a method, but I tend to clean/organize in 20 minute spurts, then take a break. I can keep going if I know I'm getting a reward. So the 20/10 thing works. I get a lot accomplished that way. When my husband gets home, he'll comment "wow, you were busy today" when it feels like I've been pretty lazy. I apply this sort of principle to yard work too. I'll weed around the plants in the backyard one day, then do the front yard a day later, which keeps me from being totally overwhelmed. It still takes about an hour in the front and the back, but then I know I'm done. Plus, it counts as exercise.

I hate those damn home binders the fundies are always talking about, but I admit I could use a system for when to clean the vents of dryer, stove fan, behind the fridge, cupboards, closets, etc. Fall tends to be the time I do this, but this year I feel like I need to be more thorough since we are hosting Thanksgiving.

Why does so much crap build up in garages?

[August]

Hey! I wrote my journal in that style...

when I was sixteen.

Thanks, Salex! Will most definitely check these out. I can attest I like reading about cleaning more than cleaning itself.

Ain't that the truth.

As a fellow yarn/fabric crafter, cook, baker, parent etc I often wonder how these women would parse me if they met me. Probably just think I secretly believed in their god but pretended not to for some reason.

[AnnieC 305]

I second Jeff Campbell

http://www.amazon.com/Speed-Cleaning-Je ... 0440503744

http://speedcleaning.com/

Not breaking links because commercial sites

Also, I know you said quilting, but if knitting or crochet is also an interest then www.ravely.com

[flubber]

I love this lady! (If you look deeper I think she's Mormon or something, but it doesn't show in her blog!) Her 20 day challenge was brilliant! Never had my house looking so clean...but it was only 20 days and the house has 'reverted!)

theorganisedhousewife.com.au/

[PennySycamore]

For years, we had a housekeeper once a week, about whom my husband complained endlessly. When she retired, I had to take over, and I had only kept house for myself before. (Adding a husband made quite a bit of difference.) I found Sidetracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise to have a lot of what I needed, mostly lists of chores and the frequency with which they need to be done.

I got it used for pennies.

I've done Side-Tracked Home Executives, too, and I probably need to get back to it. The SHE ladies were the inspiration for Flylady. I'll take SHE. It's funnier.

[flojo]

Flylady? If I remember correctly she's church-y but not super and not too annoying. The cleaning tools they offer on the product site are pretty good as well, but you certainly don't need those to learn some new tricks.

I tried her, but she drove me insane. Not as preachy as some, but still very clear messages about the housework being the woman's ultimate responsibility. My friends and I ended up instead enjoying texting each other the worst quotes from her book.

ETA: I do enjoy having a few other people who struggle like I do!