Slackerday, and Welcome Quinn!

Damn. Even a mellow Thanksgiving can wipe a mama out. While y'all were slaving over pots and pans full of festive foodstuffs, I was busily scrubbing down the stove and everything else in the house.

Then there's Black Friday. Lord help us all. I will never understand why anyone but the Duggars would get up at 3am to buy socks for 50%. The only other real deal is 5,000" tvs, so there's that. Reilly likes to spring awake and head straight for the free coffee and donuts while my eyeballs burn out of their sockets and I pray no one I know sees me try pass off a hat as a shower. Thank god she got Bella yesterday, so she let me slide a bit.

In other news, the lovely Quintarsa, better known as Quinn, which makes it slightly awkward when we flirt online since my son's name is Quinn, has been poking around Moxieclean hoping to fold herself into the mix. Rather, I'm going to have to yank her in. As I've been telling our Moxlings since day one, our primary objective is to stretch every effort as far as possible so that no one ever wakes up again crying, "OMG my entire house is a shit hole!" This is something I used to hear often, and my general response was simply to go clean it. Alas, my weeks were filling up fast, and people started inquiring as to my passion for cleaning.

A) OCD. I can't help it.

B) Our house is small and I will suffocate if I don't throw everything away and make sure everything I can't lift isn't sparkling. I never even walk from here to there without grabbing something, dusting a surface, because dust is an insidious effing bastard and the war will never end.

C) It's important to me that my kids (with whom I only flirt within legal limits) have excellent hygiene and cleaning habits. I never really trained them per se, they just learned certain things through repetition and some yelling. While I have always tried to shield them from the extreme demands of OCD, I am really proud of their tidy sensibilities.

Okay Quinn, don't hate me, but as I explained in my maiden post, I require very little sleep and have naturally high energy, so cleaning doesn't wipe me out. Also, my kids are older and they're home schooled, so our schedule is flexible. Clean first, everything else next, and lessons when we run out of excuses, lol.

I typically post what I've done that day, what I plan to do, followed by a list of assignments for you all, which you dutifully obey. (Read: disregard and throw pencils at the teacher in the form of doing everything except what I list, but that's okay!) Being able to list what (you've) accomplished evokes support from others, and brilliant praise from moi.

It looks like this:

Today I have:

-Woken up in all my clothes with the tv on, two hours late, dinner untouched next to me, freaked out about Moxieclean, and grabbed the laptop.

Hence the title, which, Quinn, typically reads: Manic Cleaning Saturday, signifying the one day a week I drink coffee and kick some major ass, and try to inspire the rest of you to as well. The tradition of Manic Saturday originated from a day of frenzied cleaning followed by going out with friends. This way I spent the whole day with my kids, and left the house shining, and thus, I could be guilt-free.

That said, and assuming many are still somewhat overwhelmed from Thanksgiving,
I advise attempting the following tasks:

-BASICS! (Quinn, this means always keep the dishwasher and washing machine running, as dishes and laundry are tied for number one most maligned task.)

-Clean up the dining area.

-Check kitchen for flour, drips, anything crusted onto the stove top, change the hand towels, and if you love me, bleach the sinks, wipe out the microwave, and sweep and Swiffer the floor.

-Take three wipes into the bathroom and give a cursory wipe.

-Have your kids pick up their stuff throughout the house.

-Rearrange and/or clean your refrigerator. Eh, eh, just do it!

-Strip/wash/remake bedding.

-Vacuum.

That's a start to getting your life back together before the upcoming monster holiday.

Brew that coffee, crank up some P!NK, and get those asses up and at 'em!

(PS-Quinn, I typically post the night before, so readers in Kent, Egypt, and Minnesota have it upon waking, as I know it's the most important thing in the world. Today was a fluke. Welcome!)

Friday Frenzy

Greetings Moxlings. I hope you all had a splendid, delicious, merry meal, with your favourite fixins and favourite folks. (And favourite alliterations.)

I took the selfish route and took advantage of an empty house, and went ballistic with the Lysol, bleach, Ajax, and everything else I could find. Got all laundry done and folded, swept out the laundry room, wiped down the washer and dryer, put all my clothes away, cleaned all mats, swept bathrooms, cleaned all sinks, toilets, swept/Swiffered the kitchen, wiped it down to its bare bones, de-cluttered, dusted, burned hella music, cds, dvds, and wiped down both computers, desks, and cords, all baseboards, Windexed all mirrors and windows, all appliances, scoured my kids' room, all doorways, lamps, table tops, stove, stove top, removed stove knobs, cleaned out microwave, and most joyously, I GUTTED my closet, with help, and shed 1/3 of my wardrobe, freeing space i never thought I'd have. I'm so excited.

Most of you will still be reeling from the holiday, so I won't be brandishing my cattle prod. I will simply encourage you to keep the kitchen tidy, ridding it of all evidence of how you slaved, keep laundry going, and do whatever it is people do with leftovers. Like picking bits o'meat of the carcass. (Gag! But no judgment!)

For those of you who think you will beat me to Black Friday treasures--ha! I am omnipresent and will be cleaning up this town!

So relax, unless you're getting up at 2am. In which case, I'll see you there, suckas!

Happy day after Thanksgiving.<3

Tryptophan Thursday

To all Moxlings from Salem to Egypt, Happy Thanksgiving!



Love,
-Cheyenne

Whip it Wednesday!

Naturally, the laptop died just as I was about to get you all ready for tomorrow's festivities. But I couldn't help laugh when I rebooted it just now, and it said, "Well this is embarrassing, Windows didn't shut down properly..." Lol.

So, sorry for the delay. Put on the coffee, turn up some music, even christmas music if you're ready, don that do-rag, and get ready to work some double-time.

Hopefully the dining area is starting to take shape, so the most vital areas, particularly if you're having company, are:

-Finish your dining area.

-Clean up after yourself as you cook, pre-cook, overcook, cook-cook, and give a final scrub down tonight.

-Clean guest bathroom. Ajax in sink, tub, toilet, wash bath mat, sweep/mop the floor, cursory wipe down, clean towels.

-Entryway! You know what to do.

-Vacuum carpeted areas and sweep non-carpeted ones.

-This is fancier than I typically get but light some candles. It's surprisingly soothing, and apparently, I was the last one on earth to discover this.

-Have the youngins pick up errant debris.

-Wipe down knobs/handles.

-Have anti-bacterial gel handy.

YOU'RE READY!

Get your camera ready and have a wonderful feast. Don't forget to have everyone talk about what they're thankful for.

Tuesday Turkey Countdown....

Time is ticking ladies, and Dobby, until the week culminates in a grand feast for which we slave and sweat, only to be left with one hell of a mess and more leftovers than will ever fit in the refrigerator. Is my paper-thinly-veiled Thanksgiving hype inspiring you all? Then let the lovely matriarch martyr pictured above to find our inner indefatigable domestic sides and clean our ever-loving asses off for what essentially amounts to dinner on steroids. Though let it be noted that I would never discount stuffing, as long as it didn't live inside the turkey. Okay.

Depending on the grandiose or casual scale of your plans, cleanliness is on everyone's list, as well it should be. Yesterday we (hopefully) addressed our dining rooms a bit, and cleared the kitchen to make way for cooking as an extreme sport. I am skipping Thanksgiving this year in favour of some much-needed attention to other matters, so I am only struggling with my usual impossible, haunting standards. But I had some thoughts for y'all to ease into the big day:

-Set your dishes aside, including silverware.

-If there is anything you can pre-make, DO IT! Crusts, breads (too early?), centerpieces, anything.

-Keep up with the basics. Get all your clothes washed and then watch a movie while you fold.

-Clean mirrors and windows.

-Dust.

-Get any guest quarters prepared.

-Assign which dishes will hold which foods.

-Pick your outfit, if outfits matter to you.

-Charge your camera batteries charged, if pictures matter to you.

-Check back tomorrow for more whip-cracking and cheerleading. :)

Mega Monday

Seriously, is this the cleanest drain you've ever seen or is this the cleanest drain you've ever seen? This pic was submitted--successfully!--by Dobby, one of the rare Y-chromosomes who steers the cleaning ship at home. Rarer even than the chupacabra. What i appreciate about Dobby is his earnest appreciation of the blog, his incessant, er, enthusiastic texting, and complete and total disregard for the assigned tasks. I say vacuum, he polishes his toothpaste tube. I say clean your bathroom, he cleans an air filter. I think he may have Asperger's. But it's cool. Clean is clean.

I did today's cleaning last night because Mesina is calling me in the morning--after she cleans--and I will be consumed for six hours.

I:

-Mopped five floors.

-Vacuumed 5,000 sq. ft.

-Wiped down half a kitchen.

-Cleaned 1.5 bathrooms.

-Gave miles of baseboards the what-for.

-Cleaned up some unmentionable debris.

You should:

-Bust out the basics.

-Bust out the broom.

-Bust out the Windex.

-Bust out the Ajax.

-Bust out your inner anti-clutter side.

-Bust out a round of applause for yourself.

Get serious people, that turkey's getting restless.

Slacking ScarJo Sunday, By Request

This stunning lady wearing the closest thing to a black cami I could find, comes by request from one of our male Moxlings, the unsung hero dads who kick ass at home too. I received a message asking if only the female readers were rewarded with scintillating clip art bribery and said no way, name your poison. Besides, a lot of my female readers are in love with ScarJo too, lol.

Since the comment conundrum continues, I'm not as aware of where everyone stands these days. With the holiday coming, I want to help encourage a little prep each day so as to avoid the Wednesday night pandemonium. I don't cook so I am utterly useless on the stove top, but I can clean, and I can tell you to clean!

So clean:

-Let those appliances work their magic and hightail it into your dining area. Start by surveying the room and isolating anything you would not want guests to see nor to appear in pictures, and remove them from the room, anywhere.

-De-clutter the area.

-Wipe down walls, shelves, pictures, and finally, the table and the chairs, with something good-smelling.

-Find two things that you do not need on your kitchen counter and put them away.

-Get out some of the items you will need for the holiday and stack them neatly in the corner of your counter, again, getting you one step closer to commencement.

-If you're having guests, consider rearranging your living room furniture a bit to facilitate easier conversation, a.k.a. drunkenness.

In non-Thanksgiving news:

-May as well organize your pots and pans, since you'll be digging in them soon.

-Visit your bathroom and attack that porcelain, followed by mats, counters, re-stocking, etc.

-Windex any three mirrors.

I've gotten some sweet traditions, but try posting them too, the comment thing is starting to piss me off.

Okay, she's pretty, get over it and hit the suds.