About HPC

I will explain about "Hour of Power Cleaning" or HPC.



First, why I had to start it.

Well, I suck at the whole housewife part of life. Cooking, cleaning, organizing, all of it. Don't get me wrong, my home isn't dirty. A little dusty and cluttered, but not gross.

Anybody remember Red Bull Fridays? I used to drink a Bull on Friday afternoons and stay up late cleaning the house all at once. Well, that really didn't work out too well. Hubbs would either try to help and get in the way or he would sit on World of Divorcecraft and bitch about how loud the music was or how loud the vacuum was or even that the dust was getting on his precious computer.

So I gave up trying to do anything extra at all. The house would get it's daily quick pick up. I would mop when it needed it, the dishes would get done when I had a half full sink, the bathroom would get cleaned when it needed it, I would vacuum once in a while. Nothing but the basics got done.

So Sunday, after the madness of cleaning for the Houseparty, I was sitting in the living room watching Monk Man play the PS3 and I decided that I was sick of looking at all the crap everywhere.

We have a lot of shit. And it is all over the place. Nothing has a "set spot" really.

So I decided that as a family, we were going to reserve an hour every day to do major cleaning. Hubbs has decided to use that hour to actually HELP me clean but stay out of my way. The kids are having to pick up ALL their shit that they scattered all over the house. The only rule is: once the HPC is started, no one gets to be distracted. It HAS to be finished.

I am focusing on 1 area of 1 room at a time.

For example, on Monday, we have this antique buffet that was piled with all kinds of stuff. That is what I tackled. I cleaned off the shelves above it (which were also piled with junk), organized it, got everything that didn't belong there in the room it did belong in and even dusted.

Last year I decided that the boys needed fish. I don't know why I thought they needed them, just that they did. Well, MIL brought us Hubbs' childhood fish tank all the way from Colorado and I put it on the buffet. And it sat there, not filled with fish but filled with decks of cards, marbles, Wii controllers and other odds and ends. Nunk (my little brother) inherited a turtle (named Timmy) recently and it was living in a teeny plastic tank. As it turns out, he stopped by right as I was finishing up cleaning everything out of the tank and he got to take it home. I killed 2 birds with 1 stone. He got a new to him fish tank for Timmy and I got a clean buffet.

Wednesday, while Hubbs was cleaning somewhere in the kitchen, he discovered a diaper box full of games that had been taken away from the boys who knows how long ago. I had forgotten about it of course. So yesterday I tackled the games. The correct game discs in the correct game boxes. Our extra consoles got put away in a box to be put in the yard sale, our controllers got untangled and were put in a basket next to the TV.

I finally feel like I am getting something accomplished. Yay!