To the outside eye, my house looks relatively neat and clean. You might get the impression that I run quite a tight, orderly ship around here.
But under the surface of any peaceful home, I believe, are a series of small cheats that allow us to feel like we’re getting away with something even as we chip away at cemented bran flakes on the counter. Here are a few of mine:
1) I never put the twist tie back on the bread.
I got into this habit when I was trying to make sandwiches while bouncing a baby on a hip. Putting twist ties on bread, it turns out, is not something you can really do one-handed.
But now that my hands are free again and I could technically twist those ties, I just don’t see the point. We house our loaves in a metal box, which offers a bit of extra protection from the air, and anyway, with my big, ravenous family, bread never even has time to get stale. I would even venture to argue that folding the bag snugly under the loaf (my hack) does a better job of keeping trapped air out of the bread bag than those annoying twist ties do.
Just don’t tell my husband it’s me, m’kay? Bread without a twist tie on it makes him nuts (even though he rarely eats bread) but he seems to be convinced it’s one of the kids doing it.
2) If the milk cap rolls away…I let it go.
This also stemmed from the days when I had a baby permanently on my hip and couldn’t figure out a way to go crawling around on the kitchen floor looking for a wayward piece of plastic. Now I just feel like I’ve got better things to do than spend my life retrieving milk caps from under the fridge. And, as a klutz, I drop them at least once every couple of weeks or so.
I know that technically milk without a cap can take on flavors from other items in the fridge, but so far nobody’s complained about the missing caps. Except my husband, who doesn’t even drink milk. Are you sensing a pattern here?
3) Noodles or rice on the floor? Leave ’em.
I learned this one before we got our dog, Moxie, who incidentally will snarf up noodles off the floor, but not rice. If you let noodles, rice, or anything sticky sit on the floor overnight, it’s way easier to sweep it up in the morning. Just make sure you warn anyone who might be walking through the room in socks. You know, like your husband. (Because is there anything worse than getting a noodle stuck to the bottom of your sock?)
I asked my Twitter friends to chime in with their not-so-shameful housekeeping confessions, and got an awesome list that includes beauties like this:
Head over to Babble to check ’em out – but before you go, leave your own housekeeping shortcuts in the comments!
photo credit: Dinner Series, via Flickr
I thought I invented #1 and #3!
I never put the twist tie on bread because I can’t be bothered. My daughter thinks it is funny to throw food on the floor so like you I wait till it is dry in the morning to sweep it up.
When I do the laundry, I do not fold it right away. I will remove it from the dryer and lay it out neatly (on the couch, a chair or in a basket) and do it at a later time. At least this way, the laundry is clean and can be found if needed. By the end of the week (when I, uhem, get around to it while catching up with a friend on the phone, or on my Tivoed TV shows) there is less to fold.
I don’t fold kids pajamas at all – just stuff ’em in the drawer (often still inside out!). And like Kathleen, above, we very often choose our outfits from a strategically placed pile of clean (sometimes folded but not put-away) clothes.
I agree! I never fold pajamas (daughters or ours). Just toss them in the drawer and you’re good to go! I also don’t fold my daughters bathroom towels. Just have a bin under the sink that holds them and once they are out of the washer and dryer, I just toss them in the bin. Saves lots of time and they are out of sight!
I have tried explaining to my husband why it’s better to leave sticky noodles & rice & cereal & mushed up crackers &…well you know on the floor. SO MUCH EASIER TO CLEAN. And here I was thinking I was some kind of genius for figuring that one out!
Go you!
I totally do the water thing! I have some high-minded reasons about it with humans drinking other species milk not being necessary and so on but really I just cannot even deal with non-water spills – and even worse LOST RANCID SIPPY CUPS. They get chocolate milk when we go to restaurants as a special treat and lots of other dairy (yogurt/cheese/etc) but no I shall not ever give them anything but water at home.
I use the ‘sweep it up tomorrow’ trick with Play-Doh too.
Ha ha ha. My shameful ways of slacking off involve, wiping the bathroom down quickly with a hand towel/dish towel just before I toss it in the washer (they get washed with whatever load I’m doing) that way the bathroom always *looks* clean. I also whip out a baby wipe and give it a wipe down if I know that someone’s coming over right after I gather all the stuff that may happen to be laying around and tossing it in our room! There tidy.
My husband very prim and proper grandmother always advises to lay a pretty dishtowel over you dishes stacked in the sink when company is coming on short notice. It doesn’t really fool any one but it does look a lot better.
I may stop folding PJs after reading these comments. I don’t fold the kids underwear. Just stack them up.
These are so benign it pains me to read them! I always look for ways to make me feel better as a slacker, these are not it. (I hope this is coming across as humorous and not mean…I really mean these in a playful sort of way!)
Whew! Feeling MUCH better now! I totally do the bread thing, which drives hubby crazy and yes, he thinks it’s the kids! I still have laundry in the living room from Monday, darn kids didn’t bring their baskets upstairs. Now they’re lighter, so it should be no problem, right??
Don’t fold. Best trick. My kids each have a basket next to the dryer. Their clothes get sorted right out of the dryer into the basket. (Mom and Dad have one too, as does the kitchen) Sheets get put away immediately or back onto beds and towels get put into kitchen for downstairs bathroom or whoever gets the to put them away that day. Kids put away their clothes periodically or when I ask. If a baby is sleeping in the bedroom they can always go to their laundry basket and possibly find what they need. My two year old and 5 year old can’t or sometimes can’t always put their clothes away. After their morning routine (teeth, hair, making bed, folding PJ’s, piano, breakfast) each child comes to find me for his/her “morning job” I make up something right on the spot- whatever i need done that minute or day. Could be dusting, vacuuming, water plants, garden, emptying dirty clothes bin, picking up a room, sorting clothes from the dryer, moving clothes to the dryer, or sweeping floor. Lots of times it’s “helping your sister- fill in the blank” and that’s how I never put away laundry. The really fabulous part about this system came in 2010 when I had my third kid and I realized that kids (and myself for that matter) can pretty much wear the same clothes all week. It cuts down on laundry TREMENDOUSLY! I still end up washing lots of potty training pee pants or yogurt shirts, but they are so tiny it’s not the big a deal. They fold their PJ’s in AM and put them on the dresser and in the PM they fold their clothes and swap for PJ’s. They do change underwear every day, but again, not much laundry there. They use the same clothes each week for soccer, gymnastics, climbing, etc… Those are the “workout” clothes and are separate from the daily clothes.