For the first time since I found your website a couple years ago, I’m nearly done with the Beginner’s Baby Steps!

My question is about mopping; I live in an apartment that is tile from wall to wall, as in zero carpet whatsoever. I do have a couple of rugs, but all this tile means that mopping is a pretty big task, certainly longer than the 10 minutes allotted during the Weekly Home Blessing hour. Even when I just toss the rugs into the wash and devote the full 20 minutes for floors to mopping, I often don’t get nearly the whole apartment done, and since I live in Arizona (a state with so much dust you’d think it was our chief export) this means that sometimes my floors don’t stay clean for even a full 24 hours, let alone the full week between Home Blessing hours.

I’m worried that I may simply be fretting needlessly, letting perfectionism get the better of me, but every time I do mop and have to empty out a bucket of nearly black water after only a half-way mopped floor, I wonder if I’m not doing something wrong. When the room is de-cluttered and everything put away, the dirty floor is really off-putting.

Am I doing the mopping wrong? Is there a faster way to do it?

FlyBaby Chris

Dear Chris,

Mopping can only be done wrong; if you don’t do it. Mopping can be done wet and dry. It sounds like you have an issue with dust. When you mix dust with water, you get muddy water.

I like to dust mop daily and then only wet mop once a week on Weekly Home Blessing Hour.

I have two videos for you to watch. The first one is dust mopping.

Here I am wet mopping.

A fun way to get your floors clean is to put your children in their bathing suits. Put saving cream or baby shampoo down on your floor with some water. Then give them some old towels and let them play for a little while. You may have to bring out some squirt guns too. Your children will be making memories while your floors shine.