Things I'm learning from selling the house

We're in the process of selling our house, since we're going to make a cross-country move in—eek!—less than a month now. The thing is, now that it's cleaned up and polished to show, I really don't want to leave it. It looks so beautiful, and feels so tranquil (as one potential buyer put it). But leave it we must, and so I'm at least trying to take something away from this: ways that work for me to keep the house clean on a more or less constant basis, despite having a toddler and two cats in the house. Here's what I've learned so far:

1. Just as Mom always said, picking up after yourself really works. If you get something out, put it away.


2. If you have any predatory pets, it's a good idea to go around your property before showings to make sure there aren't any nasty things like, say, bits of small furry creatures lying around the yard. As a purely hypothetical example, of course.


3. The best way to get rid of diaper pail stink is to not use a diaper pail. Just take the diapers out to the trash a couple of times a day (during the baby's nap and after he goes to sleep are good times, since you're in his room anyway). I don't know quite how you'd do this with cloth diapers, though.


4. Sweep every day.


5. At least wipe down the bathroom sink every day. To make it look really good (even 80-year-old porcelain, like mine) buff it with a flannel cloth after you clean it. It takes about a minute and looks sooooo good. Nice and soft on the fixtures, too.


6. Get the house completely clean BEFORE sitting down at the computer. This one is really, really hard for me, so I have to make it into a game: the One More Thing game. At the end of each task, I tell myself I can quit when I do One More Thing. At a certain point it becomes ridiculous not to just keep going until I'm done, and then I can sit down with a clear conscience and play Traveler IQ on Facebook till I'm blue in the face.

These are all things I hope I will keep in mind even after the house is sold and we've moved into our small rent house, and whatever house we end up in after that. They're really not too hard to remember; maybe I should make charts like Gretchen's to keep them close at hand. Hmm.

[NOTE: When I say "you" I'm talking to myself. You—and by that I mean anybody who might be reading this—knew that, right?]