Regular readers know that I consider the endless pursuit of dust and dirt to be an obstacle to obtaining happiness, a one way ticket to frustration and despair. Often, the breakfast dishes sit on the table until I start preparing dinner. The dirty clothes get washed but may sit in fluffy heaps for a day or two before getting folded and put away. I'm fastidious about toilets and sinks but the shower? Well, sometimes I grow a little mildew in there before breaking out the Tilex and Doing the Right Thing. Once in a while I get my Righteousness up and yell at the kids to line up shoes, put up backpacks, and gather up their junk from the living room, but most days I roll with it.

Part of the problem is that this is a BIG house, much bigger than my house in the U.S. and there are many, many surfaces to clean. It's a beautiful home, rich in architectural detail but it's huge by my standards. Three stories and a basement. FIVE bedrooms (admittedly small ones, but still FIVE bedrooms.). THREE bathrooms. TWO toilet rooms. Ceramic tile floors throughout most of the house, hardwood in the bedrooms.

Unlike my house in the U.S., I can't thoroughly clean this house in a day or two. I'm not sure I could deep clean this house in a week. It overwhelms me. But this week, y'all, i've made a vow. This week me and my house are being born again! I am repenting of my dirty life by deep cleaning one room at a time from top to bottom. Just one room a day until I get it all done. Baby steps, people, baby steps. This is my own 12-step recovery program from a life of grime. Be impressed. Be very impressed.

Yesterday I did the foyer and downstairs toilet room. Sound easy? Ha! My foyer is the size of a small bedroom. This is the place everything gets dropped, including all the mud off our shoes. I had to go through the miscellaneous piles of school  papers and gather up random markers, crayons, Barbies, and candy wrappers which were all buried under book bags and shoe pyramids. No lie, I got rid of half the shoes in the pile because my children outgrow their shoes every few months.

I took the big basket of winter hats and mittens and filled it instead with visors and ball caps. I swept AND vacuumed and scrubbed the ceramic tile floor, going over it TWICE until the scrub brush and mop begged for mercy.

In the bathroom, I cleaned the toilet bowl inside and out, did the mirrors, dusted the toilet tissue holder, polished the windowsills and de-calced the sink. For some reason, there's a lot of soot and/or dirt in Belgium. I'm astounded that when I wipe down the tile walls, the rag is seriously DIRTY, not just dusty. Maybe our house didn't get like this in the U.S. because our heating and cooling system incorporated several air filters. Here we heat with radiators and live nine months out of the year with our windows thrown open. E says most Belgian cars run on diesel fuel and this sends a lot of particulates into the air.

Whatever the reason for the grime, I chased it all down yesterday. The foyer walls and switch plates were full of finger and handprints, and I got out the Murphy's Oil soap and removed every last mark. The stairwell was the worst and required the most attention. We have a long curving bannister with multiple shaped spindles, and I cleaned every part of it with Murphy's Oil soap and water. I used my Pampered Chef pot scraper to extract gunk from crevices and creases in and around the spindles. I left no speck of muck behind.

Today I'm tackling the dining room, a.k.a. my craft and stamping studio, tomorrow, the living room. By the time Rock Grrrl arrives at the end of the month, I will have redeemed myself and my dirty ways. My mother, who spent every day of her life cleaning with a vengeance, is undoubtedly smiling down from heaven and saying, "That's my Grrrl!"

June 12, 2007