Boogers on the Wall

I never thought I would be excited to mop my kitchen floor. I don’t know, it must have something to do with crawling around on all fours wiping up crusty food stains and muddy shoe prints.

Sounds like a great way to waste a half hour, right?

Not to mention the fact that I naively laid 12-by-12-inch white tiles throughout my entire kitchen within the first six months of home ownership. I know the black-and-white checked floor looks really cool – like I have my own little pizza parlor – but I seriously wish someone had warned me about that one.

Especially now that I have kids.

I recently broke down. I spent $47 of my hard-earned birthday money and bought a wicked steam mop. Honestly I don’t know why I didn’t by one 7 years ago as my own housewarming gift.

I guess I held out because I thought steam mops were a lot more expensive.  I borrowed a Shark Steam mop from a friend a while ago and thought it was nice, but the pump-handle action coupled with the price tag kept me at bay.

I ended up buying a Eureka Enviro Steamer from Amazon.com. It was less than $50. And now I no longer need to buy floor cleaner. The steam is supposed to be a lot more sanitary anyway.

Why didn’t I do this earlier?

Not only is the new mop extremely quick and efficient (I can mop my kitchen in less than 5 minutes) it has also helped me relax a little in the kitchen.

In a way feel like that crazy lady on the old Resolve carpet-cleaning commercials. You know, the one who said, “That’s okay,” when her son spilled grape juice on her cream carpet, or her dog tracked mud throughout the living room.

When my kids shed food from their plates onto the floor, I almost smile and say, “That’s okay.”

Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. I still snap at them sometimes and the control-freak in me still pours their Kool-Aid and grape juice into sippy cups.

But in all seriousness I am extremely happy with my new mop. I’ve decided that I need all the help I can get when it comes to keeping my house clean.

And although I’ll probably periodically drop to my hands and knees to scrub those darn 12-inch white squares with bleach cleaner, I definitely won’t do it on a regular basis.

Now if only I had a vacuum that didn’t suck.