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Three days to go and we will be back to our normal routine—bringing kids to school, back to work or business (others started it yesterday), etc. I bet almost all moms out there is planning to do a general household cleaning and dispose unnecessary things in the house making it even more spacious. So here’s a simple checklist I made (though some of them are commonly being practiced or may be done weekly or monthly) that may be helpful to you.
✓ Kitchen
This area is on top of my list because as a mom this is the place where we do most of our chores. Look into your kitchen cabinet and you may get a lot of discolored plastic wares, collected ice cream canisters and disposable microwaveable lunch containers and bottles, which should not be at that place in the first place as the term “disposable” suggests. Others may not even have any lids or covers any more.
Some glass wares or other utensils might have slight cracks unnoticed for years and some old non-stick pans that haven’t been used for so long because it’s sticky already when you use it, it’s time to remove them together with traces of those cockroaches residing there!
Note: Don’t forget to throw expired canned goods or other packaged foods from your grocery cabinets and expired medicines, including those you held back within the electric refrigerator.
✓ Living Room & Bedrooms
Those curtains and other linens that have irremovable stains and holes would be a great idea to turn into rugs and those outgrown clothes or even those out of fashion already be sold to second-hand stores or what they call “ukay-ukay“ shops (or a garage sale would be another brilliant idea too!).
Old and unreadable bills/receipts and CD’s; old newspapers, booklets/catalogs and flyers; old books and magazines that you contrived to read ahead, but not yet had the time to browse it and when you unfold it you can’t help but sneeze, it’s time to convince them into cash through those junk shop peddlers passing by and be free with those dust mites that might be causing allergy to you and your children!
Instead of using a vacuüm cleaner, save energy by putting the carpets, rugs, mats, mattresses, pillows under the raging sun. You may use a toy cleaner or baking soda to clean the stuff toys and sun bathe them for at least an hour or two instead of taking them to the dry cleaners.
✓ Computer Room
Clean your computer table and desktop by a personal computer cleaner and if possible, organize them with your printer and scanner in one big computer table for easy access. Remove tangled wires and put a wire clip organizer to avoid mess and tripping accidents.
Time to clean up and organize your files, too! Get rid of unnecessary files, make a virus and disk cleaning, empty the recycle bin, bump off the cookies and caches, and defrag as well; this greatly helps your personal computers, laptops and tablets’ performance.
Classify and create different folders according to your preference for easy find, storage and back-up.
Note: If portable hard drive is not available for backup roles, you can archive files you rarely use to compress them and keep a great deal of space.
✓ Backyard and Service/Laundry area
Safely throw all broken glass and remove accumulated water residues from the gutter or anywhere to prevent breeding of mosquito and other insects.
If you have some paint leftovers, you may want to apply even at least one coat just to hide rusty drying cages, clotheslines and even old pipes.
In addition to the checklist above, this does not limit to physical things alone, but for our spirit as well, time to get rid of unwanted baggage so that we can start the New Year with a positive mindset.