How I didn't clean after the holidays, but still had a clean house!

You might remember that I won a 100$ gift certificate to Amazon.com from The Parent Bloggers Network. Well, now I am trying to win a 250$ visa gift card, something I could really really use right now. PBN has SC Johnson, Right at Home on their site letting us know that there are tons of different cleaning and other type tips on the site... PBN is curious, how we cleaned up or didn't clean up after the holidays...

In my case, I didn't really clean up. On Christmas, the girl and I went to her best friends home for dinner. I helped cook and cleared the table of dishes, but I didn't really do much more than that...

I then left for Phx the day after Christmas, which is the day I usually take the tree down and pack away all the Christmas stuff. It was just the boy and I that went to Phx, leaving the girl here at the house. Her best friends family looked out for her and her BF was allowed to stay at the house while I was gone. Before I left, I asked the girl to please clean the house up a bit. Do the dishes, wipe the counters down, make sure her dog didn't leave presents for us in the living room and if she did, to pick those up immediately, vacuum every day, just keep the house in some sort of decent order so I didn't come home to a house in complete disarray. It was bad enough that I'd have to come home to Christmas decorations, I didn't want to come home to a huge mess too...

I came home to a spotless house. My tree and Christmas stuff were all put away, the walls had been cleaned, the fridge was cleaned out, the microwave was cleaned, the kitchen counters had been scrubbed, as had the floor. The one bathroom was spotless (the other one is mine, it was left alone which was fine) I mean it, seriously, the house was spotless.

It turned out that the girls BF called her mother and asked if she would help clean up my house as a gift to me, to alleviate the stress I was already under having to go to Phx again... and she did! Along with her other daughter, the four of them cleaned my house!!

I was incredibly grateful to them. Sent a thank you note and hope to get together with the mother sometime, she was a nice lady, I'd actually had a good time on Christmas at their house, we played a game called Partini that was hysterical and the conversation was good.. a little more small talk than I like, but it was okay and I didn't really have to do much, but help her out in the kitchen which I didn't mind at all.

So, that's how I didn't clean after the holidays, yet my house still got cleaned.

Now, cross your fingers I win that 250$ visa gift card!