Clean to live, live to clean

I am approximately half way through this book. I am both amazed and disgusted at the things I am learning. The author has excellent tips and time-saving ideas that make perfect sense, but that I never would've thought of on my own. They're not all directly related to cleaning, per se, but also to time-saving. For example, he advises one throw out all of his socks, and go buy new ones that all match. This, in theory, saves time doing laundry because all socks match. Who needs 43 pairs of socks? he reasons. I chuckle here, because I probably do own about 43 pairs. And it does take an unreasonable amount of time to match them, especially because I have at least 4 different types of athletic socks alone. Time.

Okay, but here's the gross part: in the same chapter (the laundry chapter), it tells me that every pair of underwear worn only one day has approximately one tenth of a gram of fecal matter, or if you prefer, poop. He teaches that most washing machines only heat water to about 120 degrees. Most people wash their clothes in water even colder because of energy conservation. However, it takes water at a temperature of at least 190 to kill the bacteria. SO, essentially, if you wash your other clothes with your undies, you are spreading poop bacteria onto all of your other clothes. EWWWWWWWWWW!!!! Germaphobes should definitely not read this book. In case you're wondering, yes, I will be washing our bloomers separately from now on.

Despite the disgusting things, it is a great book that I highly recommend. It's really more of a reference book than anything else. It hasn't exactly inspired me to clean more, but I have houseguests coming next Monday, so if I clean a little bit each day, then it won't be so shocking all at once.

My houseguests are some of my future in-laws. They also stayed with us last summer for three weeks. This summer's three weeks won't seem as long because we'll be leaving for our honeymoon after they've been here for 12 days. They stay so long because they are from TX. Pat's brother is a fireman and he compounds his vacation time to one month in the summer, so he and his youngest daughter (he has five children, and at 18, she is the youngest; the second youngest is the 20-year-old who lives with us) can come "home" to Minnesota. What bothers me is not that they stay, I'm a generous person, and he is my favorite brother-in-law-to-be, but we are one of four siblings in the metro area, AND we have the smallest house. I don't understand why we alone have the kindness to open our house to family. Did I mention we have the smallest house? Our two-bedroom house has both bedrooms occupied, thus my living room becomes someone's bedroom for three weeks. Not to mention I have to worry about feeding five people every day instead of three. And I'm planning a wedding. But I'm not at all bitter. I am a kind, caring family member who will do whatever is necessary to keep peace and harmony in my new family. Sigh.