Cleaning

Oh goodie!  A post on the joys of cleaning!  You know what really gets me riled up is that one cleaning commercial where the mom, because obviously dads don't clean, says, "I feel like a better mother when I have a clean home," with a particular product in her hand.  I think that bothers me because good moms don't necessarily have clean homes.  Sometimes other things are important.  Men can clean too and we don't need commercials reinforcing the stereotype to kids that men read on the couch and women are scrubbing the floor and making him a martini at the same time.  Okay, that's my two cents on that because I have something else that I was going to write about.....

I thought I would do a follow-up post that I did a few months ago here.  I've always been a person that enjoys a clean house, but not necessarily the work that it requires to get there.  I get sidetracked with other things, especially after having kids this multi-tasking thing is hard on my brain.  My mom would laugh at my zealous approach to cleaning the bathroom when I was  teenager, using about half a can of comet to get the tub sparkling clean with a thick film of residue.  The more product the better!  Kill the germs!  I think I took that approach for many years until I was introduced to these microfibre cloths.  They boasted being able to clean without products and leaving our home free of chemicals.  I was a bit sceptical, but since I wanted to be a support to my friend who was having the party, I bought a few of the cloths.

I had them in my linen closet for quite some time until I had a conversation with someone who used them and LOVED them.  Well, I sheepishly admitted that I had some, but felt more comfortable cleaning with chemicals.  She challenged me to try them, so I did.  And then to make my scientific mind more at ease, I got some agar plates and actually swabbed different parts of my house before and after using those cloths.  Well, let me tell you that organisms, and the lack thereof, growing on those plates sold me.  I saw it with my own eyes that those cloths actually work!  When we moved to California, I told another friend about them and she got so excited that she joined the organization and started up as a consultant.  There was no one in the area that had heard of an earth friendly way of cleaning and now there are a number of consultants.  She told me just when we went for a visit, "Boy, I'm sure glad to you told me about these; in fact all of the central valley is glad you told me,".  *Smile*

Except for a little hiatus when we were in Bolivia, I have been cleaning without chemicals for the last number of years.  Cheaper, definitely.  Better for the environment, for sure.  And I can happily teach my son about cleaning the bathroom without having him either use the entire bottle of product on the counter, or getting a chemical burn on his hands.  Because boys will clean too.