Tidy and Neat. Neat and Tidy.

I'm watching "How clean is your house?" with Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie. Have you seen it? It is kinda gross but fun to see the transformation afterwards. The last show just had a poor mother with 5 boys. I so related to her explanation that "As I'm cleaning up one room, the boys are in another room absolutely trashing it!"

I grew up in quite a clean and organized household. We all had our jobs, and everything had its place. I like clean...but I must say I did enjoy hanging out with a friend who lived on a farm and her place was quite a mess. There was freedom and things we could do there that we couldn't at home, but I knew I couldn't live that way. Right now, my house is in a current state that I never thought possible. It isn't nasty, but it is not clean. It is somewhat cluttered and things are stuffed into closets and forgotten. I can get my dishes, laundry and my floors cleaned, but you should see the ensuite...it seems to be the last place that gets cleaned. Or the boot room. Need I explain. How about the toys? Disaster.
I was the cleanest housekeeper when Riley was about the same age as Shea is now. He took the lovely 3 hour nap in the afternoon, and since I was home doing nothing, I would clean, and sort and clean some more and tidy and dust. It was nice. Things were pretty easy back then. Add 5 years, two more kids, a bigger house with an extra bathroom, more years of paperwork and toys and furniture and clothes, and EEkk!
Let's just say that I'm glad we moved a year ago. It was a big job, but it was good to go through everything and get rid of a bunch of junk. We still have more to ditch.
I know I'm not hopeless though, and do some things right...here are some of my tricks:
1. I invite people over. That way I HAVE to clean my potty and sweep the floor etc.
2. I try to make sure that the boys only take one major messy toy out at a time and then put it away before starting another. For example...if the lego bin is dumped out, no, we are not playing Candyland until the lego is back in the bin.
3. I do laundry all the time. I used to cram my laundry day into one day and the piles and just overwhelming amount of stuff to fold and put away would be too much for me to handle. I try to do a load here and a load there and it goes better.
4. I let the playroom in the very basement be a playroom. I let it be messy. I don't make them clean up. I let their friends come over and make a mess. I am fine with that. We tidy it up about once a month and vacuum. However, I keep our family room toys in bins and make sure it is cleaned up daily.
5. I own a dishwasher.

What are your housecleaning secrets??