I'm cleaning the house top to bottom (toothbrush-for-the-corners kind of cleaning) so I can do a sage cleansing later this week.

I started with the living room. Some observations:

If you are a mother trying to get children on a school break to help deep clean, you are a mother destined to clean alone. (You can, however, garner help by suggesting that anyone assisting you might get something when you go to the store for groceries for the now-clean refrigerator. In order to have this work solely to your advantage, emphasize one word; remind said child in store that you said "might." Provide a defintion-- it is a derivative of the word "may" which expresses possibility, not certainty.)

Inhaling undiluted ammonia is very bad.

If you tell your children to exit and enter through the back door because you're on a stool cleaning the wall around the front one, they will find a reason why they must exit and enter through the front.

If you tell your son to exit and enter through the back door because you're on your knees scrubbing the floor around the front one (with now-diluted ammonia), he will find a reason why he must exit and enter through the front. He will bring in dirt, grass and pieces of dry leaves. He will not understand all the fuss-- you're cleaning the floor anyway.

If you try to clean the outside windows and there is the slightest breeze, that glass cleaner will get in your eyes. And no, it doesn't help contacts much.

The feeling of accomplishment and the feeling of clean can too be a worthy simultaneous pleasure.