2020, Family, home, Uncategorized

Husband’s Dutch Fit

45 Comments

Husband and I have a pretty equitable division of labor when it comes to housekeeping.  He decided yesterday was the day for him to clean his bathroom.  He organized all the shelves, tossed out unnecessary stuff, and then gathered  all the cleaning supplies he thought he would need. You can see them on the counter below.

It is a small area, but it took him all morning.  Lots of rags were used in the cleanup. Different cleaning products were used to clean different parts of the room.  He had what our family calls a Dutch fit, an episode in which you go over and above regular cleaning.  He still needs to wash the floor. That will happen today.

I am grateful he cleans his own bathroom.  Housework has mysteriously gone by the wayside since the virus and the increasing election nonsense.  There have been few Dutch fits. I think we have been too exhausted to put energy into much cleaning. I am hopeful our house will shine and gleam after the election and the virus subsides.

What are your favorite cleaning products? What are your least favorite  cleaning projects?

45 thoughts on “Husband’s Dutch Fit”

  1. WP being difficult from my computer again lately. Won’t let me Like the post or the comments. Anyway I do.

    I don’t understand all the cleaning products? I have one for toilet, and there’s a glass cleaner, and counter top cleaner that I’ll use for just about everything else. I supposed he needs something for the wood shelving…oh, and something for the floor, but what are the other bottles?

    Do I have a favorite? I grew up with Lava soap. There wasn’t anything like a ‘facial cleanser’ in the house. Moisturizer?? I washed the milkers every morning in ‘Sepko’ powdered soap from the dairy. We had some pretty heavy duty cleaning products down in the barn. No one worried about moisturizer. “But some bag balm on it”… Dad would use gasoline for really heavy grease on his hands. that would burn a little if you got it under your watch band.
    But then I found ‘Gojo’ waterless hand cleaner. That’s good stuff.
    I have a wall dispenser in the shop. when I put it up, they came in this gallon size dispenser. Now I can’t get those anymore, just these little pint size jar. I just scoop it out with my fingers.

    John Deere makes a container that has paper towels but are also a degreaser and they’re really handy to have in all the tractors. If I work on something in the field, you can use these to clean your hands. They also work pretty good at wiping off machinery. I’ve got several of those around the farm shop.

    In the house… I don’t know. I like foamy stuff. What ever Kelly has in the cabinet I use. I clean my mudroom too.

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      1. I was just going through the list of baboons, trying to decide who the ABD was. First I thought it was Clyde, of course, but then you got to the workshop part, so I eliminated him. PS, I still use Bag Balm on my hands—it is the only thing that helps at all.

        WP has been obstinate lately—it must be having a Dutch Fit and it thinks it is cleaning up.

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    2. He got out all those bottles so he would be ready for anything, especially for the shower. I thought it was a little extreme, but it is his bathroom.

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      2. Sandra is very brand dedicated. And wants cleaners that say what they are for. Especially shower cleaner. I just use cleansers. But shower cleaners are not available in stores. So I ordered her second favorite brand from Amazon, sold by a company that sells through Amazon. Two week delivery time came and went without a delivery. UPS said there was a delay and they were fixing it. I did not have a tracking number. Finally managed to force the issue through Amazon. Damaged in shipping. Now out of stock. They refunded $1.08 less than I paid. Sandy is in mourning.

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    4. We did a 45 mile loop out through farm country. Pretty ride. Went by about 100 ferns, only 5, the best l could see had messy yards. They were like bad junkyards. Farms not abandoned.
      Clyde

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  2. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I Love the Dutch Fit! Please send Chris to my house, since I have given up on getting myself to clean. I am sitting here looking at gardening dirt on the floor and dried leaves which blew in, then stuck on the door mat. The cleaning lady comes on Wednesday (masked and sanitized).

    As a kid I grew up near Renee in NW Iowa where there are two specific Dutch settlements, Orange City and Sioux Center, Iowa, then many people of Dutch origins scattered throughout NW Iowa and SW Minnesota where Renee’s family is located. The Dutch were famous for their scrupulous cleanliness. This extended to farmyards. The Dutch farmyards were easily identified because the ditches were mowed, and fences were trimmed to the point that there was no wildlife habitat left. Fence rows that are left I trimmed provide wonderful habitat.

    We also would take our German or English surnames and make them into Dutch versions by adding Dutch prefixes or suffixes or both. Van, Vander, Van de, —sma, a—and on and on. Therefore, my surname, “Stratton” would become “Vander Strattonsma.” The most unfortunate Dutch name around was “Weirda.” You can guess what that became.

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    1. Oh, the shame of having your farmyard described as “messy”. I remember that very well, Jacque.

      One of my dad’s cousins married one of my mom’s cousins, and they had the messiest farm yard imaginable. It was right along Highway 75 in Pipestone County, just over the Rock County line. Dad’s cousin Oscar used wrecked cars turned on their sides as a snow fence. It looked awful. The house needed painting and there was machinery and machinery parts all over the yard. None of the trees or shrubs were ever trimmed. I guess that’s what happens when a Boomgaarden marries a Hellwinkke.

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      2. Renee, been meaning to ask if you knew Roger Skattum, who died about a month ago. His daughter Laura is married to Mark Boomgaarden.
        Roger was brother to my friend Paul (whom I wrote about with the ladder incident yesterday) and occasional contributor here.

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        1. My, the name us familiar. I think your friend Paul is from Hills, which is about 10 miles from Luverne. There are Skattums in Luverne, too. I believe I am related to Mark Boomgaarden. He showed up on an Ancestry DNA announcement the other day. Anyone with that name from down there is most likely a relative.

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  3. I knew we were going to be fighting over Chris. I’m in line right behind Jacque. I can’t think of one single cleaning process that I like. And I would have to say the only cleaning product that comes to mind is something that I don’t even remember the name of. But it’s green and I use it to take the varnish off my hands after I have shined up Ukrainian eggs every year. In fact I keep this bottle of green goop in the box with all my Ukrainian egg supplies. So I don’t lose it. But I love it.

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  4. Today my goal is to finish wiping out the kitchen cupboards, and start cleaning the cupboard fronts. We cook so much that the cupboards are pretty crusty inside and out. We will use Murphys’s oil soap on,the wood.

    Vinegar water is my go-to cleaner. This year we are hiring someone to wash the windows.

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  6. I like to use things that won’t hurt my lungs. They are already so damaged. I like Dr. Bronner’s peppermint castile soap for dish and handwashing, but I do use Dawn on greasy pans. I use vinegar on lots of surfaces. I only break out the chemical cleaners if I want to kill germs – like in the bathroom. I use vinegar on the windows to get the grime off. Sometimes I use rubbing alcohol to get rid of streaks. Rubbing alcohol also works to kill germs. We used rubbing alcohol in the nurses station in the hospital where I worked in the 80s and 90s. We all loved the smell at the end of the day when we wiped the surfaces down and started charting (old school, paper documentation, hand-written). It smelled like the day’s heartaches were being sanitized away.

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  8. For the first 7-8 years of my retirement we had a perfect fit of tasks. The story since then is a dementia story, not worth telling the details. I am having to take over more of her part, not that she asks, but things she leaves undone making sure I am aware. I am not objecting. With her back and pain issues, she cannot do them. Then there is dusting.
    She loves dusting. Did do it every two weeks. Loved dusting all my carvings and bird houses around this crowded apartment. The second bedroom–office, TV room, eat-in-front-of-the-TV room, coffee room–is mine to clean because of how crowded it is. Every day for two weeks she tells me she is going to dust, not that I am raising the issues. But she does not dust. I think she has put the ball in my court. I may just burn the carvings and birdhouses instead of dusting them.
    Here is an odd one. She usually pushes me to dust that bedroom because I do not do it every two weeks, the only thing she pushes me about. A week ago I apologized and said I had not dusted in 5 weeks. She said, and this is telling, “don’t worry about it. It’s only dust.”

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    1. I hate dusting, mainly because I was taught that the only way to dust is to use the vacuum with my mom’s special dusting attachment that has soft bristles that don’t scratch wood surfaces. Dusting any other way just pushes the dust from one surface to another without getting rid of the dust. I just despise hauling out the heavy vacuum. The special brush doesn’t fit on the hand held small vacuum that we have. Sigh.

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  9. We don’t have his and hers bathrooms and our bathroom is very small. Still, bathrooms have a lot of different surfaces, so cleaning one properly takes a while. I’ve taken on cleaning the bathroom as one of my jobs. Extra points, I figure. For scouring out the tub and sink, I use a soft scrub cleanser. The soft scrubs have been diluted from their original consistency, so you have to use more for the same effect. I’ve thought about adding powdered cleanser to the soft scrub to return it to its original state and I bet if I looked online I would find that someone has already done that. For mirrors and glass and some of the porcelain—like the top of the toilet tank—I use window cleaner. I scrub the tile floor with a brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap.
    I confess that often the impetus for cleaning the bathroom has been the prospect of company coming. With Covid, the bathroom has not gotten the attention it should.
    Robin and I often argue about who should do the dishes. She insists she should do it because I cooked and I insist that I really don’t mind. I do most of them while I’m cooking anyway.

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  10. Don’t know that it would be accurate to say that I have a favorite cleaner, unless you count Barb of Meadowwild Farm’s wonderful goats’ milk soaps. That’s all I use on my own skin, and they make wonderful gifts as well.

    For cleaning around the house I much prefer cleaners that don’t have a lot of toxic chemicals. Vinegar, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide are among the ingredients I use most often. Mrs. Meyer’s Green Day products are among husband’s favorites. That said, neither of us are cleaning fanatics. If it weren’t for Deanna who cleans for us every two weeks, this place would be intolerable. From the middle of March until middle of September we muddled through without her, but it was tough. Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending how you look at it – that coincided with a period where my vision was impaired due to cataract surgery and no new glasses. I really didn’t see well enough to spot all the cobwebs, pet hair and dust that undoubtedly was cropping up everywhere. Of course, it also coincided with a period of no visitors to the house, so any embarrassing situations involving visiting friends were avoided.

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  11. For those how remember stories about my son waiting for his renal mass surgery, which will require a kidney removal, 80% chance of cancer. I finally forced some answers. They have been waiting 2 weeks for 2 things from him, which he gave them 2 weeks ago. Walked it in and handed it to them. She found them in his file. He was told two clear lies in his two previous calls to get information.
    Clyde

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  12. I use mostly the vinegar/water, biodegradable soaps for laundry and dishes, and I own some Murphy Oil Soap but have never gotten the hang of using… I like goo-gone for getting off labels when I want to reuse jars, etc.

    Bill’s right – a lot of cleaning happens because people are coming over! No wonder cleaning has fallen through the cracks… we may have to just pretend!

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    1. I think “What if Petra and Wilhelm , my cousins from Neddenaverbergen, Germany, come for a surprise visit?! What would they think? There are water spots on the lid of the French Press coffee maker! There are crumbs in the drawers!”

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  13. A favorite cleanser is one called Bar Keeper’s Friend. It contains citric acid and is really good as removing stains, especially rust. I also like to use denture cleaning tablets to whiten the bottom of my cast iron bathtub.

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