4 Things You Should Clean More Often But Definitely Don't
When I say “you” here, I mean “me.”
Spring cleaning is too real this year. My body finds or creates things to do in order to numb what would otherwise probably become a crippling anxiety regarding the state of the world.
My mind is like, “Ma’am, this is a global pandemic and you don’t really need to be doing [insert current activity] right now…” and my body is like, “Nah, it’s cool! I GOT YOU. I noticed you got just a liiiiittle bit stressed out after you scrolled past a news headline so I’m gonna get really wound up today and help you avoid all your emotions by weeding all the weeds, cleaning all the things, cooking all the foods and being all the busy.”
I hope I’ll eventually have some sort of words of… something (certainly won’t be wisdom) to write around the hermit life we are all currently living, but for now all I can manage is this half-earnest, half-satirical list of coping mechanisms.
Makeup brushes.
What is makeup anyway? Will we ever want to wear it again? Just in case, clean the brushes. You can use a gentle soap or regular shampoo, or you can get a special brush shampoo if you prefer.
Hair Brushes
Eek, you are supposed to clean them. Shampoo water soak + brushing ferociously with an old toothbrush will do the trick.
Car interiors.
Oh boy. Only two days after we were on stay-at-home orders, I went to town detailing the interior of both my car and my husband’s. It was a very satisfying project on a beautiful spring day.
Drawers.
I opened my silverware drawer the other day and it looked like someone had just crumbled a piece of toast on top of it and then closed the drawer. My toddler will neither confirm nor deny that this actually happened. It gave me a good excuse to clean out all the drawers in the kitchen, give them a good spray, swap out the contact paper (LOL YOU MEAN THE CONTACT PAPER MY MOM BOUGHT ME THREE YEARS AGO WHICH I NEVER PUT IN THE DRAWERS IN THE FIRST PLACE?), get rid of things we aren’t using and relocate things we use only infrequently. Highly recommend this if your drawers also look like the aftermath of a toast fight. When you are done wiping them out, organize the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom drawers like Marie Kondo with a million small boxes to keep things in their spots. You don’t need to buy some kind of fancy organization system for the drawers—just use boxes you probably already have or will have once your next online order arrives.
The couch
We are lucky enough to own a gray couch that masks our black and white dog’s hair pretty well (got it at Macy’s!<—affiliate link), but every once in a while I look closely and get grossed out by myself. Doing a thorough vacuum and using a squeegee (like the shower kind) works wonders for pet fur.
Cleaning machines and robots.
When was the last time you cleaned your cleaners? My answer was never… but you/I probably should clean the cleaners now that we’re actively trying to avoid feeling the pain of humanity. Wipe off the washing machine. Clean your dryer vents. De-grime that grody filter at the bottom of the dishwasher. Snip out all the hair that’s stuck in your vacuum cleaner brush. Change all your filters (car, Brita, air purifier, HVAC, etc.). Get a new sponge. Replace your mop heads, should you own a mop… we don’t (maybe we should own a mop?).