Prevention website reports the following:

Every time you flush with an open lid, bacteria spray into the air around your toilet. And some of these germs could pass along symptoms of diarrhea or vomiting.

Scientists at Leeds University tested the air above toilets and found that the germ, C. difficile, which causes violent bacteria and vomiting, can be spewed up to 10 inches above toilet seats with every open flush. These germs were found on the sides of the toilet, on the top, and on the floor — even when the toilet wasn’t in use. In other words, even an unoccupied, open bowl can spread bacteria.

Although the highest levels of bacteria were found right after a flush, even 90 minutes later, between 15-47 contaminated water droplets were detected on nearby surfaces.

Right then, I’m just off to chuck out my toothbrush and gargle with bleach–right after I put the toilet lid seat down. Image

1. Surface clean living room and kitchen (pick up stray items, dust, vacuum, sweep)
2. Clean bathrooms (toilets, showers, floors, walls, mirrors)
3. Surface clean bedrooms (put away toys, clothes, dust)
4. Surface clean “extra” rooms (basement, office, play room)
5. Surface clean living room and kitchen
6. Clean bathrooms
7. Clean all interior windows (white vinegar and newspaper works great and is cheap!)
8. Sweep and vacuum all floors in the house (don’t forget stairs)
9. Surface clean bedrooms
10. Deep clean living room (mirrors, baseboards, dust artwork)
11. Clean bathrooms
12. Clean out closets (hang up clothes, mittens, jackets, hats)
13. Surface clean “extra” rooms
14. Deep clean bedrooms (organize drawers, check under bed, tidy closet, dust artwork, fans, lights, mop)
15. Surface clean living room and kitchen
16. Deep clean bathrooms (clean inside drawers, inside of trash cans, tops of mirrors, tile, mop)
17. Clean all door knobs, phones, entertainment equipment (remote controls), switch plates, banisters and other things that are repeatedly touched.
18. Clean out the refrigerator, take stock of food, organize pantry
19. Clean entryway, sweep porch (if you have one), clean out car (because they’re often our home away from home)
20. Surface clean living room and kitchen
21. Surface clean bathrooms
22. Surface clean bedrooms
23. Sweep and vacuum all floors in the house
24. Clean linen closet, straighten towels, sheets or regular closet if not applicable
25. Surface clean living room and kitchen
26. Deep clean kitchen (scrub appliances, wash trash cans, base boards, wipe down and straighten cabinets)
27. Surface clean bathrooms
28. Surface clean bedrooms
29. Clean one item you’ve been meaning to get to and haven’t (deep clean your stove, wipe down all light fixtures, tackle a particularly unruly area)
30. Sweep and vacuum all floors in the house Image

That all said, I admit to having a cleaning lady, but she’s a bit old and forgetful and she often doesn’t do stuff like clean the toilets and wash basins. So I do it when I come home from work. She does brilliant ironing though. I’d rather clean the toilet than iron. I really hate ironing. And she’s really sweet.

Anyway in a non-judgey way I realise that some people are a bit challenged when it comes to the cleaning department, sort of in the where in the hell do I start department, so I’ve found this info from the delightfully named Apartment Therapy that might help those of you who’ve made keeping the house clean a resolution. I’ll run the rest of it tomorrow.

• Deal with what comes through the door Set up a small area by the front door to act as a landing strip for incoming items into your home.
• Do your dishes after every meal This will help you stay on top of your kitchen instead of having it turn into a monster! No one really wants to do them (after all, you probably cooked dinner to boot). But waiting for another meal or until you have enough to fill the dishwasher just makes things feel overwhelming and easier to put off. The same goes for take out rubbish as well. If you need to take the rubbish out, place it by the front door to go out in the morning or dispose of it that night so it’s over and done with.
• Laundry If you have a washer and dryer at home, do a little bit each day. Spread things out so you don’t feel bogged down by 200 towels and stinky socks. If you take things to a laundromat, sort clothes as you go so things are easier to load up into machines when you get there. Fold them before you come home so you aren’t dumping baskets out on your sofa or bed and they can go straight into drawers and closets.
• Whistle while you work: Those who are happiest when cleaning are few and far between. Singing, humming, whistling or turning up the stereo are all great options to keep the beat in your feet and have fun while working. (Sadly I do not do this as everyone laughs at me and who can hear over the sound of the vacuum cleaner?)
• Set a timer: Most items on the list below should take no more than 20 minutes total. It’s easy to rationalize 20 minutes, but it’s also easy to get distracted by phone calls, emails, children and other projects that call your name as you tackle each chore. Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes (which ever works best for you) and that way when it sounds you know exactly how much time you have left. If you find yourself off task it’s easy to get back on track.

I’ll add the following.

• Chuck out the newspaper and junk mail every day. Do the same for bottles. You don’t want your mother to think you’re an alcoholic when she see’s all the wine bottles lined up on the bench. Likewise for chucking them out en masse. Your neighbours will think you have a little problem.
• Deal with bills as soon as they come in if you can. Bad karma all those bills lying around the place. Pay them, file them. Get them out of sight.
• Put your clothes away before you go to bed. Put them in the laundry basket, hang them up if you’re rewearing them. Your floor is not a wardrobe. Same for shoes, find them a home and send them there.

Now if only I could get my family to read this. Image

A while back I wrote that I was getting one of those robot vacuum cleaner things. A few people have asked me what I think of it so here’s my review on my robo-vac (that’s his picture here).

• OK, we named it. Well my daughter named it Vinnie which I think makes it sound a bit gangsterish and doesn’t really suit it at all, but it’s stuck. I was after something a bit more The Bold and the Beautiful like Vance or Vaughn. But Vinnie it is.
• The dog hates it. He particularly hates that it makes quite a bit of noise. He really hates that I talk to it. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say I actually talk to the thing. I ask it what it’s doing in the the cupboard, tell it go and vacuum the hallway, say hello to it and tell it it’s time to go to bed. This morning I told it it was clever. The dog looked at me in disgust and went to his own bed. He’s still not talking to me.
• Robo-vac (aka Vinnnie) has a mind of it’s own. No matter that I lift it up and take it to where I want it to go, it makes it’s way back to where it wants to be. It is a defiant teenager of a vacuum cleaner.
• It is a really good topic of conversation. I had a houseful of people over on the weekend and every single one of them wanted to see the vacuum in action, stand in front of it to make it bounce off them, play with the remote and comment that it was the stupidest thing they’d ever seen. Jealousy among friends is a terrible thing.
• When it runs out of power (after 80 minutes) it docks itself for a recharge. I like to praise it for doing the cleaning and then putting itself to bed. So intelligent.
• The cleaning lady hates it too. She asks in her thick Italian accent, her tone hurt “why you want that thing for when you have me?” I spent a cup of coffee and half an hour reassuring her that I needed them both and like her much more. She spends a lot of time glaring at Vinnie the vac as she goes about her work.
• It cleans OK, but if the cleaning lady didn’t come once a week, then it wouldn’t be good enough. It keeps up with that little day to day dirt and dog hair so it saves me having to vacuum at all–so yes, I guess it is.

For the record Vinnie is a Clean-Mate 22QL. I paid $200 for it via a Scoopon voucher. That’s all it’s worth.

Be warned girls most of it is bullshit and was compiled by someone who has spent far too much time watching chick flicks.

1. Multitasking is a foreign word to them. If they just change the kitty litter, they need a beer, then a nap.
2. Their idea of cleaning the house involves wiping their feet on the doormat.
3. They don’t get why you need to talk on the phone for so long with your mom/sister/best friend/all of the above. Especially since you did it last night, too.
4. They love gossip just as much as you do. Two words: Charlie Sheen.
5. Their hearing is perfectly fine. Their listening skills? Not so much.
6. They will never get excited about the new shower curtain. Unless you’re behind it, naked.
7. When they take out the trash, they need to announce it. Every time.
8. They always go for the biggest slice of pizza in the box.
9. When they get sick, they’re sure no one has ever been sicker. Every cold is the flu, every headache a migraine, every pain a life-threatening condition. They need sleep, soup, love—and the remote, please.
10. Few realize that the toilet seat can actually be put in the down position. Image

I like my dunny roll to emerge from the back, under the roll. This is another bit of useless information that you now know about me.

But apparently I am in the minority. I know this because, whenever I have visitors, who kindly place a new toilet roll on the toilet paper dispenser roller thingie, well they do it wrong. Well wrong according to me as I have to change it to a under roll instead of the over roll. Anal retentive much.

Thirty per cent of the population are with me on this. Well me and Ann Landers (wise woman whoever she is). She’s the celebrity endorsee for under roll TP. We’ve got cool psychological characteristics too. We’re laid back, dependable and artistic. A confirmation from TP that I am cool.

Where do you sit on the great TP roll roll debate? (click on the picture below to enlarge)  Graphic

Via: Engineering Degree

But a Kate Middleton/Princess Kate/Duchess of Cambridge Barbie–now that would be huge. Anyway, as usual I’m behind the eight ball, for already there is a Princess Catherine bride doll available–right now. And for the grand price of $150. Gosh that’s a lot of money for a doll. Here’s the link if you’re hankering for you own PKate doll.

Still not convinced? Well let me sell her to you. She’s fully poseable. That seems a little unseemly to me, but whatever floats your boat. Me, I’d link her onto the arm of my favourite Ken doll (if I had one). Not as nice as sweet William, but I don’t think anyone’s made a doll likeness of him. Actually there’s a thought. A Prince William action figure. You could have a helicopter, dress uniform, fatigues, crown, throne. Gosh it’s a marketer’s dream.

Sorry, I’ve digressed. Now back to the PKate doll or do you think KateCam might be better (Kate, Duchess of Cambridge)?

Anyway, here’s what they say on the website (I could never replicate such verbose and thorough description).

• This lifelike doll portrait is handcrafted in fine bisque porcelain, hand-painted to capture Princess Catherine’s radiant, regal beauty on her wedding day, and is fully poseable
• The Princess Catherine wedding dress and ensemble includes her sparkling royal tiara, her bridal bouquet of Sweet William and lilies, and her elegant, 8-foot train, carefully recreated with elegant precision

Do you really think that the doll has an eight foot train, or is to scale? Gosh it would take up a lot of room in the display cabinet if it really was 8 foot long. Actually she’s going to take up a lot of room anyway as she’s 16 inches high. She’s going to need a whole shelf. She might even get a whole cabinet if you buy other royal wedding crap like plates, coins and other dust collectors.

Anyway I’ve been thinking. Do you think Kate would buy her own doll? It would seem quite narcissistic, wouldn’t it, to have your own likeness sitting on a shelf in the living room. Nah, don’t think she would. Do you? Image

If you’re one of those slacker Gen Y girls (because this is a female skills study) well only 20% of you can perform in the lammy-making department. My Gen X counterparts, well 45% of us can whip up a dish for a lamington drive at the drop of a hat. So Gen Y–epic fail.

Well it would be if the ability to make a lamington really is part of the basic female skills set. Personally I think making lamingtons is a great big pain in the arse. All that cake cooking, icing dipping, rolling in coconut, blowing your diet when you can just as easily buy a Tip Top six pack of them for three dollars.

Want to know what else you suck at Gen Y? Probably not because you don’t care, but for the curious amongst you I’ll share.

Only 51% of you can roast a chook. Really? Is that right? 82% of we older women can do it. It’s not hard to roast a chook, you put it on a roasting tray, turn on the oven and leave it for a couple of hours. Then you eat it and spend the rest of the night scrubbing the roasting pan and cleaning the splatters off the oven. I actually believe that Gen Y girls can cook a chook, they just can’t be bothered. With Chicken Delight just down the road isn’t it easier to buy one?

Only 40% of Gen Y girls can drive a manual car. I, and 70% of Gen X women, can drive a manual car. I occasionally drive my husband’s work truck. I mostly drive my nifty little automatic car. I hate driving manual cars–too much work and all that clutch balancing–ahhh! I don’t think Gen Y have missed out on much. It’s called progress, you know like automatic washing machines or dishwashers.

Just 23% of Gen Y girls can grow a plant from a cutting. Really? Is this a life skill? Well according to this study yes. More Better Homes and Gardens for you Gen Y’ers.

Gen Y also don’t know how to iron a shirt or hem a skirt. That’s a shame isn’t it. Because I think ironing is one of life’s truly worthwhile activities. Spending ages ironing wrinkles out of cotton only to have it looking like shite two minutes after you put it on. These Gen Y girls don’t know what they’re missing out on.

And to think there was that little thing called Women’s Lib in the 70s. What a waste of time that was. All we’ve got now are Gen Y women who’ve forgotten their place. Get out of the board room and back into the kitchen. There’s lamingtons to bake, shirts to iron and ovens to clean. Image