Do you struggle with it constantly. Do you find in some areas its easy and yet in other areas its the hardest thing to do? Whichs areas are struggles for you?

Homekeeping use to be a constant struggle for me. I was never happy with what I was doing. I was constant struggling to keep my home like others. Then about 10 years ago it hit me. I can't keep it like my friend or my mom. I have to do it so that I'm comfortable with it.

Now I can honestly say I've never been more content in my home keeping. I still have a ways to go to get organized and to do some things better (like scrubbing the floors), but overall I love homemaking.

How about you?

Ugh....I'm still struggling. I don't sweat over it anymore but I'm always longing for it to be more organized and cleaned deeper..... .

I am generally happy with my cleaning standards - unless company is coming and then I go into a panic (mostly when it's the in-laws). What's crazy is that I don't know why I react that way! I never go to anyone else's house and look for dirt or dust....(heck, if I want to see that I can stay home!). I couldn't care less how messy someone else's house is...in fact, I always feel more at home if it's messy - then I feel like I'm not doing so bad after all! I wish I could be more at ease about how our house looked and focus on the conversation when guests come over. Maybe as I get older I will 'arrive' at that point in my life.

For me, it's more the clutter than the dirt that drives me crazy. I can't stand things being piled up and out of place. But when things are clean and organized, I love my home!

It used to be a source of real frustration and confusion for me. Mum died when I was 14, and while she kept it clean, I don't know how it got done. My sister and I struggled with clutter for years, not even aware of how that impacted our ability to clean.

till one day. I'd been praying (and my dk's were 5 and 2 I think at the time, now they are 24 and 21 so you can tell how long ago that was) for help.

The answer came in some funny ways. First there was the SideTracked Home Executives book. That was great, I started doing card file routines, but it was too complicated, and all that happened was the clutter was now neat and clean, some of it boxed up, but all of it with me. My sister tried that too.

Then my sister shared about Don Aslett's CLUTTER'S LAST STAND book. We suddenly had one of those aha moments in both our lives.

You mean we could get rid of this stuff and the universe wouldn't cave in? We had absorbed a lifetime of packrat philosophy expressed in such timeless words from our packrat dad like "better not get rid of that, you might need it some day" and other bites of depression era wisdom.

Trouble was someday was a long time coming and in the meanwhile we couldn't find what we needed under the avalanche of stuff, so we were both guilty of buying new stuff because we couldnt' find the old one.

We both began to toss the junk, then found that as we cleared out from under, we were finding the good stuff again, able to make use of it.

And something else happened.

It got easier to keep clean.

At first we didn't really make a connection. Then in another aha moment we had while discussing it, we realized that less junk and clutter to shift, clean around, take care of, meant it was easier to clean.

Then came another answer to that original prayer. This was about 2 or 3 years later.

My sister again (bless her heart!) found a book by Jeff Campbell and The Clean Team called Speed Cleaning.

It revolutionized our lives. Both of us had gotten a bit better using some of Don Aslett's janitor cleaning methods but this was something far beyond.

Much of that Speed Clean method is why I was able to keep my house clean during the health problems I had a few years ago where I was only able to work about 5 minutes before resting for 20 minutes. Much of what I learnt, I'm sharing in my thread on the lady of the manor prefers to garden.

Cleaning has gone from being something I was ashamed of, to something that feels like I found the ultimate shortcut, something that feels like I won the lottery.

I still can't believe I like it, it feels like I'm getting away with murder or something. It's so good it's criminal!

I feel sort of a guilty pleasure, because people that visit think I actually work at that. I don't. I rest most of every day. I don't do a lot, but I get big results.

I struggle with it...because I realize I just hate it...but I know we have to do it...but today, Margery, you give me hope! :) I also read Side-treacked Executives, De-junk your life, even Fly-lady and I've been trying so hard all these years, but I just don't do it like I wish it could be...so now that I've been reading how you do it, I am inspired to give it a try! :) I also think I'll see about reading that book you mention--book by Jeff Campbell and The Clean Team called Speed Cleaning. It sounds good!

try little bits at a time. a tiny little habit, one at a time, not all at once is easiest.

I was thinking this morning how I wash my hands. I hold the soap and rinse the little soap keeper (the kind with little plastic nails sticking up to keep it dry) clean. I hate it when that gets dirty. Takes a second because I do this daily and oftener as needed.

Then I put soap on my hands, put the little soap keeper down, rest soap on it and I

Run my hands round the sink bowl to rub off any spatters with my soapy hands, and up around the rim, and over the 2 icky soap holder spots by the taps. Taps too if dirty.

Then I rinse my hands and repeat the action, taking rinse water all round.

Dry off on hand towel

Use hand towel to rub the counter, rim, sink, taps and chrome all dry and shiny. Ditch towel if too damp or it's been around longer than a day. Hit the water spots that landed on the mirror FIRST!

Put fresh towel out, and

put hand lotion on.

Do once a day even and your sink always stays pretty clean.

Same time as washing up pretty much. You don't have to do it every single time. Just as needed. One tiny habit, one big happy result.

It's a real struggle for me at times because of my health problems but I do what I can and try to at least keep up with the simple things {laundry, dishes etc}