¶
We need a little grit in our house, you know? Like, the boys literally kept falling. They're running. Yeah. Yeah. I think they fell like seven times in that first, like, hour of them coming home. They need grippy socks. It's like, oh, man, this is not working out. Welcome back to Keep It Good. I'm your host, Emily. And I'm your host, Carly. So today's episode is all about the game you will never win. What game are we speaking of? That would be keeping your damn
house clean. It's a never ending cycle. That is so true. So what is, like, what do you do? What's your... Well, I do all the things and then it lasts for about 15 minutes until the kids come home like Tasmanian devils. You know, I could spend all day cleaning just for it to look like I didn't spend all day cleaning. But do you do that? Like, do you actually clean your
house all in one day? Oh, yeah. Yep. If I'm off from work, I mean, I don't go, like, deep clean, you know, windows and scrubbing the floor and all that, but, yeah, I can get it all done in a solid day. What do you... Do you have, like, a special routine? Um... Yeah, my routine is freaking chaos. I have absolutely no routine at all. It is ADHD at its finest. And I am all over the place. It's insane. I mean, are you like that? Or do you go room by room? First of
all, do you put music on? It depends. If I'm by myself, then yes. But I'm upstairs, downstairs, this room, that room. It's just like... music from our Alexa or something, but no, I'm a complete shit show cleaner. Like, it's crazy. I set the mood for myself. I will throw on some Creedence Clearwater and light myself a good incense, and then I just hit the town running. I start basically, you know, get a load of laundry in, so that's like... I'm all about multitasking. I'm very
big on that, so... Yes. That's right off the bat. If I can get like... four or five loads done throughout my whole cleaning process. Like that's cool. But yeah, I'll start with all surfaces, bathrooms, and then last, I'll vacuum. But like I said, it lasts for a good, I don't know, 20 minutes of like pure bliss. And I'm like, oh, this is a lovely, lovely home. No, everybody leave. We're leaving the house. Everybody get out. Nobody move. Yeah, no, I am like, do you
go room by room though? Like, how do you do it? For vacuuming? Yes. Do you? No. I would love, love to finish a room and then on to the next area. This is me. I'll start, let's just say I'm starting in the kitchen. Same thing though. I always start laundry because that takes a while, right? So something's happening. I like to think that I am good at multitasking, but I am terrible. I'm like by the seam of my pants with everything I do. But say I'm in the kitchen. and I'm like
spraying down the countertops. Now I've moved over to like where the sink is and I'm like, oh, let me put the cup in the dishwasher. Now I'm in the dishwasher. Then I realized that something has dripped. So now I'm wiping the drip that I see on the cabinet. And then on the floor, I see a headband. So now I'm putting the headband where all the girls' like hair stuff is. But then, you know, grabbing something that I see on that table and now I'm upstairs in the bathroom.
So now I'm cleaning a toilet. And then you have like a cleaning house scavenger hunt sounds like it's insane It's and I think like as I'm doing it, I'm like I'm getting so much done, but I'm really not I'm all over the house. Yeah, like
no one room is ever fully cleaned. Oh my god It's just it's it's insane and I'm sure there's other people like me, but I wish I was more methodical I am just not I am all over the place then I'm folding laundry then I'm like it's it's insane Well, it's hard to, like, I'm not totally methodical. I'm typically just very much with my vacuuming. I don't know why, but it's like, I have a specific
outline of how I vacuum my house. You know, like I'll start in the hallway, the living room, then the front room, the dining room, then I go around to my kitchen. Like, I've tried doing it in a different order, and it's like I'm cleaning someone else's house. Like, the angle's all wrong. vacuum doesn't, you know, work the same way. Like, I just feel like I'm on vacation and I'm cleaning someone else's house, and I'm like, what? This is so weird. Well, maybe that's kind of fun.
Maybe you should be on vacation. Maybe someone else's house. But I don't want to clean on vacation. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, no. Like, it's just the vacuuming. Like, it's very, I don't know, it's weird. I can't do it any other way. It just doesn't work. I can't be the only one who thinks like that. No, I'm sure there's... the two different, like, sides of it. I'm just a scatter. I'm a freaking disaster when it comes to it. But in the end, it does all get done,
but yeah. In the end, everything is done except for the laundry. All the loads that I just spent all day, like, by the time I'm done, they're just... They live in the laundry basket. And, you know, maybe one day, like, three days later, I'll get around to putting them away. But I just hate laundry. I hate it. It's my number one chore that I've never been a fan of. I just, there's, it's just never ending. It's a constant. No,
I feel you there. I do, I used to be really good and I would do a load a day and then fold at night once the kids were asleep. But as the kids have gotten older and we've gotten busier all week long, I do do the laundry. But then our guest room, has become just full of clean clothes through the week. And basically on Sundays is when I fold, which also ends up taking me hours. I try to do some if I can during the week, but it's just how it is. It's been like that for
probably the past two years. So that's just what I do. I don't understand like how we go through so much clothes, you know, like I did catch my kids, like they were lazy and they didn't want to put away the clothes. So they threw it in the dirty laundry. And I was like, it didn't take me a while. until I caught on and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why are these clothes folded? I'm like, we're not playing this game.
Absolutely not, no. We're not adding a whole other level to the cleaning fiasco as it is. So, I mean, we've kind of gotten my kids clothes. I have organized like so good. I organize my kids more than I organize myself. My closets, forget it. You'll be finding... an ice skate, and then a tampon, and then, you know, there's no organization there. It's got tax papers, like... Yeah. Well, you have a huge walk -in closet, and so I think that's part of it. When you have
more space, too, it's probably... It becomes the perfect hiding spot to all the random stuff. Right. So I'm, like, searching. I'm like, I know I have a gray tank top. I know it. I feel like it's over here. I saw it next to the ice gate last week, so I got up. I remember vividly, and then, you know, it's like horrible, but my kids are, I have them so organized. I wish I was my kid, honestly, but one thing we did start was like every Sunday, because the mornings are crazy
trying to get to school. I bought this organizer at Walmart that you hang in the closet, and every Sunday I do the boys' clothes. They fold it. I taught them how to fold it with like, do you remember going to the mall and like Abercrombie or something, and they would have those folding, it's like a paddle, but it was like, it looked like a - Yeah, oh yeah. I worked at Eblen's for two. I know how to fold a shirt on a paddle.
Yeah, so I give them a magazine or a book, right, and I taught them how to do it where you like fold it over, flip it, and then it looks like JCPenney's. They think it's a game, so they love folding their clothes now. I'm like, oh, lucky you. Ooh, that's a good idea. Yeah, it's fun. And so then on Sundays, we lay out Monday through Friday, school clothes, after school sports clothes, all of it. So it's ready. We're done. And it's literally so much better in the mornings because
we're like, we've already discussed it. We already know what we're... Because before it was like, oh my God, my kid, I love him. He's so cute. But he would come down with like a button up shirt with a tie and like... I'm like, honey, no. And it would be like, nothing matches, you know? Like, he has no sense of, like, anything matching. Or my other kid will be just, he'll throw on anything. He looks like a bum. You know? I'm like, no. Like, can we meet somewhere in
the middle, guys? Like, do they ever change their mind? Like, with what they had picked out for Wednesday? No. See, I'm lucky they're, well, no. I can't say that because something will come up. like this morning actually, we had our outfit laid out and my little guy was like, well, so -and -so said that he was gonna wear this sweatshirt today and I have the same one, so we're gonna match. And so I'm gonna wear this instead. And it's like, okay. Right, of course. I don't really
care. Pick your battles, right? Yeah. But for the most part, it's just so much better and easier in the morning just by doing that one thing. It was a game changer this school year, for sure. That's a really good tip. I love that. I'm gonna have to... I'm gonna have to do that, because that is one of our battles most mornings. And I let my little one dress like she's, she, you would die of what she had on today, but I don't care. It is just a battle with the girls, so
it would probably be easier. I don't know if they would stick to it, but it's probably worth a shot. Yeah. I could see girls being a little bit more picky, because for the most part, I let them pick it out, and then I'll go through and find Komet and be like, no, buddy, this... It's a lot of green going on with this outfit. You know, it's like head to toe. I'm like, you have 50 shades of green right now? No. So we'll mix it up. Do you have organizers in your drawers?
In my bathroom, yes, for like my hair elastics and stuff, but not... No, I mean, you saw my closet. It's a complete mess. I don't have like a dresser. Yeah, so that, we do that. And I started that when the kids were little. I didn't really have that in my drawers, but I do now for... you know, socks, bras, underwear, and things like that, but especially their stuff because it's so tiny. When they were babies, I bought like these collapsible kind of organizers so
you could like section things off. And that was super helpful. So I brought that into my clothes somewhat. But we just did that, too, with all the kids' stuff, like for their bathrooms. And we have this table in our family room that we used to keep diapers and wipes and things like that in, but now has become all the girls' stuff, like sunglasses, hair elastics, headbands. Oh, that's a good idea. Just the girly stuff that they want, like, to do right before we're heading
out the door. Smart. And you want to know that there's stuff in there. But we bought, you know, little plastic cheap $2 things at Target to just kind of keep them organized. And we do that, too, in, like, our finished basement or our playroom with baskets, which I think a lot of families do. because you're not going to keep everything super organized, but the baskets make it look clean, right? So you can just dump all the stuff
in there. And that's been super helpful, especially with the small stuff, or even just like all the dolls, you know? That you stuff them in this nice basket, and you can't even see them. It's perfect. Yeah. Oh, no, I loved the baskets when we had the playroom. I just switched our playroom to that yoga reiki room. because it was the first room in the house. It was literally always covered with Legos, things like it was a constant everyday fight. And ever since, we have not thought about
that room. Imagine that. Right. But I let them kind of have a portion of the closet in that room where we have a big tote with all their toys. And then I keep like three down in the basement and I kind of cycle them out. Because, you know, all of a sudden, you haven't played with this toy in seven months, and it's brand new when we pull up the tote, you know, and they're, like, more engaged with it versus it just hangs out on the floor. Yeah, absolutely. Scattered.
What about, like, I wipe down things all the time. The high touch points, like, I'm a little bit of a germaphobe, so I got to keep shit clean. You would think I'd be a germaphobe being a nurse, but I'm not. I'm, like, you know, I'm quite the opposite, really. I mean, I... I don't know. It's just, I feel like it builds your immune system. Totally. You know? I understand that too. I just, I can't do it. I know. Like we have like the stomach bug going around in the house.
Like yeah, I'll definitely up my game. But for the most part, I just kind of wipe down the counter and the kitchen table. And that's it. Like I don't do the touch points. I clean my bathroom. Otherwise we're just like roughing it here. That's like the one thing that I have like a plan with when I'm wiping down all those things, like the doorknobs and the kitchen cabinet handles and all that. Like I do have a method to my madness, but otherwise my cleaning situation is like,
ooh, to be a fly on the wall. I must look like a nut, an absolute nut. I mean, that's funny that you're like that on the inside, but like when I go out to do yard work, yeah, there's
no, there's no method to my madness. And so I'm constantly like, I'll make a pile and then I'm dragging that pile over to the other ones and then I see all these weeds in this area so then I start this one and then I go over and oh this needs to get pulled out and then you know Steve will come home and be like oh like there's like 17 different piles all over my yard. See if I help outside I definitely don't bounce around so that is weird. I'm crazy inside but outside
I'm not. I become one with the squirrels outside. I'm just like all over the place. I'm running with them. Yeah. Frolicking. On to the next, boys. Let's go. Does Steve help you like inside with stuff? Like how do you guys separate? So we are an unstoppable team together with everything in life. We just tag team everything. So the one thing that is designated to him, which I just needed it off my plate in the mornings, is He wakes up really early before me and he
makes his lunch for work. So he'll just make the kids lunch while he's making his. And let me tell you, I mean, I think I fell more in love with him for him doing that. But yeah, he took that over and like every once in a while, you know, I'll do it. And for the most part, he mows the lawn. And I just longingly look at him from the window, like, can we switch? Can you teach me how to ride that? Because it looks more enjoyable than... You look like you're having fun while
I'm in here yelling. Yeah, I think the same thing. They're writing and listening to music or a podcast or something amazing. Yeah, right? They're living their best life. Just some personal time out there. Yeah, in that lawnmower. Looks pretty fun. Maybe we'll learn something new this summer, and we can start mowing the lawn. We're going to be mowing the lawn. Yeah, I like that. That'll
be a new task to learn this summer. Yeah, I'll be like, hey, bud, you go clean the toilet, and I'm going to hop on that and just take an hour ride. I'll be like in the neighbor's yard. Like, it'll just be bad news. I probably shouldn't even be in the tunnel. Just practicing my lines. That's the thing. My husband would not let me because, like, Oh yeah. I feel like he treats it like a baseball, like a professional baseball field. I would be nuts. It's an art project.
Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah, men in their lawn can't come anywhere near it. Yeah, it's like a carpet. It's really nice, actually, I have to say. He does a good job. But he's more the outdoor guy. I do more of the indoor stuff. It's just kind of how it's been. And honestly, I'm really not good at the outdoor stuff, so I'd rather not anyway. Love I mean most of the time
in the summer. We're all outside. Yeah, cuz there's just so much to do and like So my house really doesn't get too clean in the summer, you know, I'd rather spend all my day in the garden then Dusting yeah. Oh, I feel you but one thing I did get that helps I have a lot of windows and they're weird windows. They like crank out You know, so it's like it opens. I don't know the casement windows or however you name it But so it's kind of a hassle to clean with like Windex
and all that. So my neighbor sells Norwex. I think I'm saying it right. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. So it's basically two cloths, right? And you just wet this one cloth that's like your designated wet cloth and you wipe the window and then you dry it with the other one. And it's literally cleaner than I've ever seen in my life. And it takes no time at all. It's
so easy to use. I was like, wow, this is... I'm not like a big, I don't know, I just don't like order a lot of stuff like that, you know, like Pampered Chef and like all these things. Like, yeah, I'll get like one little thing when I go to a party. But this, I was like, I will order 75 of these because in case they ever cancel this product, I'm gonna be heartbroken. Like this is a really cool thing. So it essentially is like a windex. You can use that in mirrors.
Oh, yeah, everything. But you're literally just wetting this cloth. Okay. And it's not like, you know those microfiber cloths? I can't even touch it. Oh my god, me either. That really tells you if you have dry skin. Oh god, I could feel it right now. I'm just gonna shiver. Same. I can't. I need to put on a glove to use those things. It's like instant ick. I don't know. So gross. But it's not like that. So I can touch
it, thankfully. I might need to try it. Yeah, next time she does anything, I'll let you know. Have you ever, um... Like, speaking of deep cleaning, when the boys were little, my husband was pretty thoughtful, and he, like, got me, like, a gift card to, like, this, um, cleaning service, right? Mm -hmm. It was for Mother's Day, and he was like, I just want to take off, you know, some of your chores for, like, the month of, you know,
May or whatever. And it really intensified my OCD because I came home, and I was like, oh, this is... This is not okay. I was like walking around rearranging everything. Like I didn't know that I was so particular, but I guess I am. How things are like laid out and spaced and like set to an angle or not set to an angle. So that was like, whoa. And then the reason why we stopped, like I could get over that part, but the reason we stopped was my boys kept falling
because the floors were so clean. Oh, she was so good at her job that my floors were too clean. Like, we need a little grit in our house, you know? Like, the boys literally kept falling. They're running. Yeah. Yeah. I think they fell, like, seven times in that first, like, hour of them coming home. And I was like, it's like, oh, man, this is not working out. Well, and we do have some help at our house, too, with that. We do have, you know, a cleaning woman who comes,
and it's amazing. But I am... like cleaning like a mad lady before she comes. Yeah, same. And sometimes, you know, I'll message her. I'm like, oh, yeah, don't go in the playroom. But, and it really just helps keep it like status quo. And my husband, I have busy jobs and you know, just the help of it. It started when I was pregnant because I had really bad hip problems. And as I got further along, it was just, you know, a
nice little help. And we love her very much, but there's still a lot to do even with her coming. It doesn't come every week, but. It is a nice help, I highly recommend it. Maybe I could try it again and just be like, don't wash the floors. I'll do the floors because I like to vacuum very methodically. Yes, kind of therapeutic for me, vacuuming. Yeah, oh it is. When you can scrub
down the house, it's very therapeutic. Yeah, but like having her come in, I was like legit cleaning my house to have her come and clean my house. No, I know. But that's so common because... other people who have, you know, shared with me that they have someone, they're like, oh, sorry, I'm late. I was cleaning my house because the cleaning service, you know, everyone's the same. It's funny. Yeah. It's just what it is. It's just part of it. It's like an oxymoron,
you know? It is. It really is, for sure. What about like, I know that you stage your home. Oh, I love it. Like cleaning it in a different way. That's like a different kind of cleaning, right? Yes. Mystical clean. Yeah, the magical mystical clean. Yeah, I sage it. I light incense.
I do simmer pots. It's I feel like cleaning the energy in your home is Sometimes more important than cleaning the dust off the mantle, you know, it's like oh It's just opening the windows even just and I just think of like letting in all the positivity and Letting go of all the negativity, you know, yeah cuz um, yeah, everyone loves a good Fresh air right in the house. I love opening
the windows. You're just taking it to another level Yeah, I've never done so I'm curious put a little intention into it next time, you know is everything I do is with intention to bring about positivity or abundance Prosperity like whatever I I do like cinnamon on the first of the month. Do you do that or have you ever heard of that? No What are you doing with cinnamon?
Oh, all right Next first of the month, I read that when you open the front door and you blow cinnamon into your house, with your, you know, you just pour a little bit into your palm and you just put into the intention like, please bring me prosperity, good health, abundance. Like you just want like a good, good vibe for the upcoming month. Then you blow the cinnamon into your home and you let it sit for 24 hours. Like you don't vacuum. And I've been doing it
for like the past two years. Like I love it. Cinnamon is really good luck. I burn a lot of sage or palo santo, santo, however you say it. And I also have like these little chimes, which I had bought to cleanse the energy that was just kind of like sitting stagnant. But I also use it in my reiki now, because it breaks up the energy in your body too. At least I think I like to believe in all the weird stuff. I like it. But it's fun, but simmer pots is like, oh, I
love, I love. But as we recently learned, you can't forget about the simmer pot. You cannot forget about the simmer pot. Yeah, don't forget. Because you have to keep adding water, right? I mean, that's basically. Yes. Yeah. So it evaporates. We got together last week and I had my simmer pot going and I totally forgot about it. And I had like burnt oranges to my pan. that literally took me three days to get out from the pan, and
my house smelled like burnt oranges. So I didn't really bring in the prosperity and abundance that I was hoping for. Well, I didn't mind the smell. I thought it was okay. You were not happy with it, but I came in, I was like, oh my God, what is that smell? I was like, shit, I have a simmer pot. Well, honestly, that was my fault too, because I put the water in it, and I probably didn't, like, we had filled it up, and then I probably didn't put enough. But lesson learned.
Now I know when I ever do a simmer pot, lots of water. Remember the pot. Remember that the pot is burning. But the simmer pot is so fun because you can do all different types. I gave away simmer pots for Christmas gift in like mason jars and it was like cinnamon sticks and thyme and cranberries and bay leaf. Like you can just look up different recipes and they all bring different little, you know. Just intention to your life. Yeah, I love those. And I love, I
don't know, just the idea. Whatever. It's the placebo effect. I'm all for the placebo effect. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Why not? Believe in something. Yeah. Well, at my salon, too, my husband and I purchased it four years ago. We had moved from a rental property and decided to buy after COVID. And there was just some weird happenings going
on there. coming back to the stage and Palisanto and stuff and Carly took our group of friends to this really cool spot near us and they saw like crystals and all that kind of stuff and I was telling the woman who owns the shop I'm like some of my staff thinks that this building is haunted or they hear things or like you know this machine goes off in this room but no one's even upstairs or whatever the deal was so that was kind of cool too because she gave me some
good ideas with like crystals and keeping them near our front door so when people walk in because it's just there's so much energy in different people right we have people in and out all day um and that was kind of cool so do you know much about the crystal stuff because i do not i just got what she said to get and we really don't feel like we have any of that right oh yeah i love crystals i have like a few scattered around my house but i don't really know like all the
meanings to them but Every time I go to Florida or to the Bell and Raven, that's the store that we went to. It's like my favorite store. I'll always look at the crystals and get like, oh, this one means positivity. Boop, I'm bringing you home. I don't know, I'm just very superstitious, I guess, with just wanting to surround myself with positivity and just good fortune and good health and whatever. One year, my in -laws were
like, what do you guys want for Christmas? And instead of asking for like the typical whatever, I was going to this shaman after COVID. And there was, she's just really cool. And like, it was like going to a therapist, but not really like, you know, I was able to kind of let go a lot of what I experienced during COVID. And, and she was just incredible. And so I, she offers like house energy clearings and all this stuff. So I said, I would love for Karen to come to
my house and do like an energy cleaning. And this was just a few years ago. And so my mother -in -law got me that for Christmas. And I was like, you would have thought I won the lottery when I opened that. I was so excited. She came to my house. She taught me all the tricks with like the chiming. I had never done that before,
but energy can be stored in your walls. And like, you know, so she She just helped me think of different ways to kind of rearrange my son's room, to help with his sleep, and she did a blessing on her house, and it was just so cool. That's really neat. I just love things like that. Well, it's just showing that there's different ways to clean. There's like the physical cleaning of getting dirt off, but then there's the energy
clearing, too. We spend so much time in our home, and I think that's a really... I never really thought about it like that. And... I'm going to implement the cinnamon for sure. That'll be my first try. We'll do cinnamon on the first. Cinnamon and some simmer pot. I love it. Because you think of all you see is the physical clutter, but there is so much other clutter that's just in your air. I don't know. I just love the idea
of, it's Wednesday. I'm going to sage the shit out of this house, and we're going to have a fantastic week. Yeah, I love that. It just keeps me kind of like up B and the kids love it. You know, I'll give them the chimes and they'll walk around the house and just make a lot of noise. It's basically just noise to break up the stagnant energy and like bring about movement. But yeah, it's just that never ending game. Yeah, it is. That was a perfect thing. It is true. It is a
game. You have to like psych yourself up. Yeah. I think if you're just mentally prepared going in that Your house will only be cleaned for like the 20 minutes before your kids get home. So enjoy it. Make yourself a cup of coffee. Sit and just relish in it and enjoy it. And then just be okay with it, you know, falling apart again, I guess. Well, I think that's all for today. I hope, yeah, just try the cinnamon the
next first of the month. Maybe do a little magic in your kitchen and try a little simmer pot and bring a little positivity and prosperity, abundance, good health, fresh energy. Try all the things instead of just dusting. I love that. Well, the quote for this week is, this house was clean yesterday. We're sorry you missed it. This is unknown to you, but I think that's the perfect way. Absolutely. Yeah, I love it because it's
so true, right? yeah well anyway we hope you guys have a good week and as usual keep it good