My sister and her friend are coming to town on Thursday evening. My house is a little, shall we say, messy. I’m still working on getting our shared domicile into minimalist shape.
Last night I was out of the house, ordering a new couch (thanks mom and stepdad, for pitching in as a wedding gift!) and going decoration/craft supply shopping for a little bit of wedding flair. So I missed a day of cleaning. To my credit, I did get a lot of laundry done over the weekend!
Here’s what the rest of the week looks like.
TUESDAY: THEY WILL BE HERE IN TWO DAYS
Focus: laundry, bathroom, office
- Change the sheets on our bed
- Clean the bathroom
- Wash all towels, sheets, and shower curtain
- Bonus points: Start washing blankets
- Get all trash and recyclables out of office
- Bonus points: Remove rug from office, place in sad rug limbo on front porch where the rugs I keep forgetting to move to the curb live
- Sweep office
- Clear office futon of all mess and clutter
- Clean desk off
- Scoop basement litter boxes
WEDNESDAY: THEY WILL BE HERE TOMORROW
Focus: living room, Zoe’s room (Zoe is my cat, and she has her own room), laundry
- Take the “donate pile” in the living room to an actual donation place, for real, or just light it on fire, but stop ignoring it, Caitlin, just stop
- Sweep the living room (Bonus points: Swiffer or steam mop)
- Completely dump and scrub Zoe’s litter box and refill with new clean litter
- Change the blanket on the bed to one that is not covered in Zoe fur
- Sweep and swiffer/steam mop Zoe’s room
- Have important talk with Zoe about not getting hair on everything she looks at
- Brush Zoe
- Take all living room couch blankets to basement to be washed
- Wash blankets (after vigorously beating fur off them)
THURSDAY: THE DAY THEY ARRIVE.
Focus: kitchen and catching up on the things I didn’t do Tuesday or Wednesday
- Sweep the kitchen
- Wipe down the stove and counters
- Pretend like you live this way at all times
- Say to myself, “You are a domestic goddess” over and over again
- Evacuate ketchup bottles with 1/4″ of ketchup in them into one consolidation bottle; rinse and recycle empties (Goal: No Ketchup Stonehenge ever again)
FRIDAY: THE DAY I CAN MAKE THEM HELP ME
Focus: new couch
- Remove two couches from living room
- Hold a summit with the cats to discuss removal of the cat tree that is in literal shreds but they still worship; lose
- Same, re: two cardboard boxes; lose again
- Put away 14 cat toys that were under the couches
- Sweep and swiffer/steam mop couch outlines
Knowing I can DEFINITELY achieve 75% of this list and am SOMEWHAT LIKELY to achieve 100% of this list, I am really excited for my new clean house aesthetic. It’s sure to impress my sister who absolutely knows better.
I used to think being lazy was a character flaw but now I know it’s just a thing. It’s just a way people can be, when they’re not hyper motivated to do things all the time. I get really motivated about some things, and I am lazy about others. And that’s fine. Because when the stuff hits the fan, I can more or less clean my house with three days notice.
Happy cleaning, my sloppy minimalist friends.
Caitlin Liz Fisher 
This doesn’t seem like a lazy person’s cleaning list to me! This is how I’ve started doing pre-visit cleaning too. It just feels much better to spread it out over a few days versus dedicating a half- or full day to cleaning.
And I love the cat-related cleaning as I can relate oh so much!
Maybe I’m being too hard on myself! I usually clean up on the weekends but just couldn’t be bothered to do everything this past weekend. Wedding planning, even a small casual event, is a little stressful. That donate pile in the corner, though, that’s pure laziness on my part 😉 that’s been there since January.
Cat solidarity fist bumps to you! They’re so dang FURRY!!!!