Unnnhhh. This past weekend's festivities has left us with a massive hangover and a massively dirty house (the kitchen, in particular). After everyone left, we surveyed the damage: cups, bottles, plates everywhere; overflowing trash bins, and a few spills here and there. Check out some tips after the jump on how to tackle a party clean up...and anyone have a tried and true hangover cure?
[ Photo from Sixteen Candles ]
Some tips from Reader's Digests' Five Minute Fixes:
There's no need to wear yourself out by tackling the entire mess immediately. Spend just a few minutes whipping the aftermath into shape, and then do the detail work in the morning. Assuming you have already put perishable foods away, here are the steps to follow:
1. Collect bottles, cups, and glasses. Look for spills and deal with them right away.
2. Empty half-filled glasses and cups in the kitchen sink. Toss out plastic and paper (to recycling!). Set the glasses on the counter. Do the same with plates and utensils.
3. Fill the dishwasher with as many dishes as you can fit in and start it when it's fully loaded.
4. Gather up the garbage in plastic bags, starting in outer rooms and working your way toward the kitchen, so that you centralize the clutter there. Take garbage out as soon as bags are filled and tied, to prevent accidental leaks and odors.
5. In the morning, after a good night's sleep, finish up by dusting and vacuuming, again working your way toward the kitchen. Clean the kitchen last.
Anyone else have any handy tips for the party aftermath?
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Surefire hangover cure (for me, anyway): 4 aspirins, a big glass of water, and a large bag of vinegar & salt potato chips.
Cleaning tips? I have none.
Hangover cure works for me:
Two extra strength tylenol or advil and two very large glasses of water *before* bed. And a bedside glass of water to quench thirst during the night.
Also: science shows that eating fatty foods while drinking helps the body metabolize alcholol and reduce hangovers.
A multi vitamin, an alieve, and a big glass of water before you hit the sack.
...Dude, who cleans up before the morning?
It does help to do as much cleaning as you can before going to bed. At least load up the dishwasher, because if you don't the backlog seems insurmountable in the morning. And then you have to go out for breakfast and wait on line at the brunch place with all the other partyers.
For hangovers: drink champagne, and drink a big glass of water before going to sleep and while drinking. A lot of hangover is dehydration.
All I have to say is that I do my best house work after a night of drinking. I'm up by 7 am and by 9:30 am I've got dinner ready and my house clean! Granted by noon I'm so tired, I could pass out (watching the Home Shopping Network and wanting to order that 175 peice tupperware set). Does this happen to other people? Do you wake up energized after a night of drinking where u feel like you can tackle any and all projects around the house? Or is that is just me?
BrookeinBoston, if you are able to function in that way after a night of drinking, I'd label you as a professional drinker/alcoholic-in-the-making :)
Ruby- I guess it doesn't help that I live in the drinking capital of America.
Brookein Boston, I always wake up early too, not so much energized, but because the booze messes with my sleep. It's like a little extra punishment for overindulgence, as if the queasy stomach/headache aren't enough :)
I try my best to do a garbage sweep the night before, take a vitamin and a glass of water. Next day, a little hair of the dog (beer) and try to tidy up as quickly as possible, so as not to prolong the misery. Recycle, sweep, clean bathroom. It's typically not too bad.
After a big party, if I'm totally wiped, pretty much the only thing I do is go around with a pitcher of water and pour some in every glass. I haven't got a dishwasher, so that makes it easier to wash those cups the next day, especially considering some of the sticky concoctions that are required for serious partying. I also try to get all the dishes into water, either in the sink or in a basin on the counter.
Oh yeah, and cleaning....
Use paper products for serving drinks and food so everything can be tossed out quickly. Environmental? I'm not sure which is worse -- running lots of water and using soap, or using paper products and adding to the landfill. Anyone have stats on that?
Have lots of trash stations. I put lawn & garden trash bags in carboard boxes at the drink station and the food station so that it's obvious where people should toss their trash. Works very well.
Clean the house *before* the party. Hire a service. Post-party effort is then limited to trash & spills. Otherwise, it feels like a house-wide deep-clean.
But, have the rugs professionally cleaned after the party. I do mine twice a year -- about as often as I have a major party. So it makes sense to time them together.
Serve clear drinks. White wine, clear cocktails (cranberry juice comes in clear now!), white sangria, etc. But make sure you have some wine-out for stains anyway.
I'm a very high functioning drunk and usually manage to get things pretty tidy before I turn in.
Speaking of HSN, one time several years ago, I woke to find my credit card and phone on the floor next to my bed. A few days later I received that cookware that is miraculous because you can cook meat etc in the bottom and perfectly steam vegetables in the wire basket on top. It had a dome lid that supposedly circulated the steam. I don't think I ever used it and lost track of it on one of my many moves. Apparently, I haven't always been a high functioning drunk.
Oh... and the hangover "cure": A couple pain relievers and glass of water before bed.
Brookeinboston - I have the same thing. I refer to it as 'my drinking problem'. Happily, it has a scientific basis (or so I tell my boss!). Basically if I have more than 3 drinks, I wake up at 4am the next day *wide*awake. The reason is your body produces 2 chemicals to sleep. When you start drinking it starts to produce one of them (hence the occassional dozey feeling) and it can only produce so much in 24 hours, and so when my body runs out of said chemical at 4am it shakes me awake, and yes, I then crash completely at noon too!! Its fairly common, and if you google alcohol and insomnia it will give you the full run down.
As to party tips, I do one or two rounds with a trash bag during the party and as guests leave ask them to toss it in the trash (5 flights down). There are still spills and mess to clean, but not so many bottles. Also I never clean the floor before a party, the rest of the house yes, the floor always needs a clean the day after. No point in doing it twice in a weekend.
Really, for the above hangover cures, the key is the WATER. A dear old friend, after a binge in college, put me to bed with the instructions "drink one glass of water for every glass of booze, whatever the booze". It has worked every time, and HOLY COW the few times I've had too much and forgotten.
Lastly, and this one'll make me look really bad, but if you realize you've had too much, BEFORE you go to bed, and you think it's REALLY too much, get rid of it. Really. Just make yourself yarf it up, and it won't sit on your stomach doing a number on you the rest of the night...but still DRINK WATER before passing out. Very important.
I'm not an alcoholic, swear!
THE hangover cure... MIDOL.
Think about it. It contains caffeine, a pain reliever, and a muscle relaxant - everything you could ask for when you're hung over!
i generally have to work all day after a party, hungover. so the mess hangs out by itself until my hangover is gone so i can clean up without getting vertigo every time i turn my head. i get em bad. no cures.
Best hangover cure: spicy food and/or drink. Try a Bloody Mary with as much spice (tabasco, horseradish and Tony Chachere's) as you can handle, in addition to olive juice, Worcestershire, and lemon & lime juices. Garnish with celery and bacon!
If hair of the dog really makes you cringe, try the above as a Virgin Mary or simply rehydrate with Gatorade or Pedialyte.
Also, my husband swears by Tom Yum Goong soup.
Get the rugs professionally cleaned? Maybe my parties are different (or maybe I just don't care so much about the "full" appearance of my apartment), but I roll my rugs up before a big party. I am not paying hundreds of bucks when I could just mop the floors the next day...
And allisonwondrland -- you're totally right. Water is KEY.
If a #1 with cheese from Carl's Jr. doesn't cut it, scrambled eggs does the trick.
However, if I'm thinking hard enough the night before, I chug a full glass of water as I'm sitting in bed. (It's especially easy if you think to fill up a glass and leave it before heading out.) Works every time! Just don't get between me and the bathroom when I wake up the next morning...
I've heard the Pedialite thing as well. I tried it once, but I couldn't force it down. I don't recommend the orange flavor. *shiver* It still makes me cringe.
I second the spicy food. I eat a sunny side up with tons of tobasco the next morning
Cleaning: I used to clean during or after the party ended. Took the enjoyment out of the evening. Now I allocate money for my housekeeper to come the night of or day after the party to clean up. This let's me enjoy my own party and my fantastic housekeeper makes some extra money. She even picked up a new client from last soiree!
Hangover Cure: 6 oz. of water mixed with 6 oz. of unflavored pedialyte followed by 10 saltine crackers. Make sure you drink and eat all of this prior to going to bed. Make sure to have at least 8 oz. of water on bedise table and drink immediatel upon waking up.
Staying hydrated is the best preventative, but drinking also depletes B vitamins. Get some sub-lingual B12 lozenges and have one before you go to bed and one when you wake up. You put them under your tongue and the vitamins get straight into your brain where they can do the most good. Ten minutes later you will feel like a new person.
Haha, Brooke, I used to be the perfect party guest way back when in high school. I would wake up at 7am, while everyone else was passed out here and there, and proceed to clean up every bottle, cup, dish, etc. I could find. I also was an anomaly who didn't get her first bad hangover until two years after I started drinking.
(I think one of my underlying motivations was to wake everyone else up so we could go out to breakfast. Dunkin' Donuts bacon egg and cheese sandwich=my cure.)
Must be a Boston thing...
Omg, Jake Ryan. Major crush. I still want a Porsche just like his.
ps - I was recently introduced to the "2-minute tidy" (ie, when everyone runs around for 2 mins at the end of the party cleaning up). Big fan. I live in a studio, so when I wake up to a mess it's literally staring me in the face.
Water, water, water!
My partner laughs at me, but this works: I'm hyper organized when it comes to cleaning up after parties. I sort everything by type, so plates of the same size go into the dishwasher together, glasses that are dishwasher-safe, etc. I never drink so much alcohol that isn't balanced out by even more water (and usually an Izzy) that I can't make sure that all surfaces are clean, messes are picked up, etc.
And more water...
katiebug , i should have said carpets. Anyway, textile on floor that gets dirty from daily wear and tear.
pedialyte is my savior for hangovers. if you can keep it down, it works its magic very quickly and is very effective.
I have the same issue with waking up early and cleaning, but I think it's mostly because I am still drunk and figure it best to get it out of the way before my hangover kicks in.
The last big party I had was an ugly christmas sweater party (hilarious) where I found beer cans and empty beer boxes wrapped up as gifts and placed in or under my tree. (I'll have to remember that game for next year!) I also woke to find that my numerous bags of trash were no longer sitting near the front door to be taken out. Assuming my friends were being jolly good partners and took them to the dumpster for me, they just piled them on the hood of my car. I noticed when we were heading out for the hangover cure.. whataburger!
I know it sounds as if my friends are evil, but they aren't. This is just how we express our love.
If you have really dirty dishes (cooking pots, e.g.) that you don't want to deal with just then (or you don't have a dishwasher), put them in the sink with some dish soap and hot water and let them soak. The next day, the crud will come right off.