She loves me ... She loves me NOT

I have a love/hate relationship with cleaning.  I LOVE a clean house - LOVE IT!  I love the feeling of looking around and the countertops are all clear and scrubbed, the sink is empty, the stove top is sparkling, the kitchen table is wiped clean, the smell of freshly washed floors and the feeling of just-vacuumed carpet.  Walking into bedrooms with beds all made, blinds up and clothes put away.  Clean bathrooms with no TOOTHPASTE on the mirror, shiny toilets with clean seats and no soap stains in the sink.  It all just makes me so happy :)  All of that said, I think there is very little that I hate more than waking up on cleaning days and realizing that I have a tonne of work to do.  Knowing that the kitchen is dirty just makes me cringe.  It is a daily battle for me and I KNOW in my head that I should make sure it is spic and span before bed but then I get to the end of the day and all I want to do is crash, leaving the kitchen for another day.  I would rather eat dirt than scrub the bathtub, and thankfully I have a husband who does not want me eating dirt and he cleans the tubs for me (and why not, the last thing this pregnant mom wants to do is lean her enormous belly over the edge of the bathtub and scrub it out!).  I think the idea of being the perfect 1950's housewife is appealing - I would love to have a clean house all the time and cook perfect meals each night.  I also know that the majority of 1950's housewives were exhausted and unhappy and many took anti-depressants just to stay afloat!  

I don't know anyone who enjoys the actual cleaning itself or looks forward to doing it but there is so much satisfaction in the finished product that I guess we can talk ourselves through it to get there.   I guess I am in love with clean, just not the cleaning and most of the time I can convince myself that I will be glad I did it in the end.  Today was one of those days .... tomorrow may not be!

So ladies, now I want you to share your best house-cleaning tips with me.  What do YOU do to keep things clean .... I can use all the help and motivation I can get!!!