our apartment smells like murphy's oil soap

There's something about Murphy's Oil Soap. My mom used it to clean when I was growing up. The scent just kind of stays around for a bit. You get used to it while you're cleaning, but when you're done and you walk by something that you've cleaned with it, you catch a whiff, smile, and go, "ahhhhhh." I think it's so you can be reminded that you've spent quite a bit of your precious time using it to get things clean. Cleaning is not my forte. I'm not bad at it, but sometimes (especially during school) things just don't get done. Like, you might have to dig through a pile of junk mail to get to the actual table. Or, the bed isn't always made. Or you can write "dust me" on the TV screen. I don't like it that way, but I can live with it. Especially when I've got a three foot stack of papers to grade and I'm doing good just to keep up with the laundry. But now that school is out and my parents are coming in less than a month, I've got some work to catch up on. So this week my goal is to move room to room and really hit the dirt hard. Knock it off its feet. Disengage the dust. Remove the rabble. Feel good about the freshness :)

Today was the dining room. I made myself do the worst job of all. The one I hate the most. The mini blinds. First, it's a pain just to take the things out of their brackets. Then I do it the only way I can really get them clean. I haul them off to the bathtub and start scrubbing. Both sides. With rubber gloves on, of course. I learned the hard way that even plastic mini-blinds can be quite sharp. Most of the windows in our apartment are a good 4 feet wide. Almost bigger than the bathtub which is a pain. And bending over the tub is hard on one's back and knees. But I got two done today. Only 3 more to go for the rest of the week. And our dining room is squeaky clean.

So then I figured I might as well move on to the kitchen. One of my goals was to wash down all the cabinets. I climbed up on top of the counter and took a peek at the very top of the shelves. Oh my word. I seriously don't think anyone has ever cleaned up there. It is so gross. I'm almost embarrassed to even blog about it. I got about 1/3 of the way done and had to stop because my hands were killing me. Repetetive motions (including wringing out sponges) = lots of Aleve for me.

Tomorrow there will be more cleaning, but not til I get back from spending some birthday cash that just came in the mail today. Our stimulus check arrived today as well. Good thing. Now I can go buy some more Murphy's Oil Soap. You know with the price of gas these days, they've probably raised the price of that wonderful bottle of cleaner too and I'll need that whole stimulus check just to pay for it.