Cleaning and Living without Papertowels for a Change

I spent the day cleaning the house. I cleaned because family from the UK are arriving for a two-week stay.  Six hours worth of cleaning. Although, some of the time was invested as it was spent organizing, and that I'm happy about.

The cleaning part itself seems more like a waste of life energy, especially if it goes over 45-mins.  The first 45-mins once or twice a week are finely spent. Because the return on the investment is a nice looking home and the pride of being the maker of said nice looking home. It even gives my ADD a little thrill. But time beyond an hour or two a week cleaning house is just loss of life in my opinion.

Also, using old cloths to clean was FUN. It's much more encouraging than the bygone era of cleaning with paper towels (can you believe I did that? Oh, it's sad to think of it now.) Cleaning with paper towels uses LOTS of them, and is just unpleasant. 

So the guests arrive and life starts happening, water is spilt on the kitchen floor, a small pile of crumbs missed the trash bin, and my dog ate a steak bone, which the remnants of then needed picked up off the floor. In the past for all these occasions, a paper towel has been the go to weapon and the convenience. And in the frenzy of the moment (with guests) and not being "used to" dealing with these little issues in another manner, I felt somewhat helpless. I wanted to reach for the old familiar wasteful piece of paper towel. But I didn't. What I did was grab a lightly used piece of cloth (cut up old clothing) and attempt to remind myself that while this feels wrong...even wasteful, it's not. The reusable cloth towel *feels wasteful* --isn't that strange? My mind is so used to thinking cloth = use 1-time, then it's dirty and needs washing. And that process feels wasteful. But the reality, and I'm still telling my mind this, is that the cloth is not only not wasteful, but it shouldn't be used just one-time before washing. That's why I've created a gently used towel space in the first place. But I need training and repetition, lots and lots until I can create my new normal. But that takes time. And I won't lie, it hurts a little. I could see it in my husbands eyes. He wanted to reach for a paper towel more than once this evening. The stress of being thrown off your routine by outside factors, while also attempting to incorporate a new lifestyle change--ain't easy. But we did make it through. And we didn't use the PTs (we still have some in the cupboard awaiting a time of real need--like a gallon of oil being spilled).