Making a list...checking it twice.



Do you clean your house in an orderly fashion or do you just close your eyes and hope for the best?  A few years back (mostly after I started homeschooling) I decided I needed to be more organized with my cleaning.  Don't get me wrong...I always clean...my house is very clean, but I was finding myself always doing the same jobs and certain things were getting overlooked.  I decided at that point to come up with list of things I would do on a certain day of the week and then things I would do everyday to kind of "maintain."  I've found it to be really helpful and I no longer come across areas that "never" get cleaned.  No surprises like under the fridge or stove etc...  Here's what my list looks like.

Monday-Clean bath (wash walls, floor, shower, sides of toliet and sink etc..)

Tuesday-Dust bedrooms, living room, kitchen

Wednesday-Dust upstairs, vacuum as needed, vacuum stairs and dust railings

Thursday-Change beds,  thourougly sweep (under fridge, stove etc..)  and mop kitchen

Friday-Vacuum living room, living room furniture and under beds

Saturday-anything that might have been missed during the week, catch up  laundry

Daily (to maintain)-Laundry (wash, dry and fold 1 load),dishes, countertops, sweep, vacuum as needed, spot clean bath (sink, toliet etc...)  I recommend keeping antibacterial wipes or a roll of papertowels and cleaner handy at all times for quick cleaning.

This is the list that works for me.  Obviously, your own house may be bigger, smaller etc...so do what works for you.  I think you will find a list like this helpful and it will also give you the assurance that things are getting cleaned and nothing is getting overlooked.  Don't stress if you miss...just make it up.  That's what Saturday's are for!

What to do with all those papers!

I'm sure like me (at least if your a Mom) you have enough drawings and crafts from your children to wallpaper just about everyroom in your house. I'm a neat freak, but yet I just can't bring myself to throw out a lot of things that my kids make. This is the idea I came up with. I have a rubbermaid container for each kiddo (you can make a cute label to go with it). I begin by always asking (especially my six year old)which pictures he wants to keep and which ones he doesn't mind throwing away. This really is a stupid question for me to ask, but morbid curiousity always wins. We usually end up keeping everything except the one little picture he scribbled on the back side of a juicy fruit wrapper. All the things he wants to keep go in the container which in turn leaves room for other things like eating and sleeping. We do have a rotating display of some of his favorites. We leave three or four on the fridge and rotate as he gets a new favorite. This minimizes clutter (which drives me insane) to say nothing of being able to see the door of my fridge while still letting the kiddos know that I love their work and am so happy to have it displayed for all to see. There are several other ideas for displaying...two that come to mind are frames and tables with glass covers that you can put the pictures underneath for all to see. Whatever your method for displaying you will appreciate not having papers all through the house! Let me know if you have any other ideas.

A Marvelous Invention!

I love being organized. Its something I do just about every day. I hate clutter! I don't like having drawers or closets filled with things I don't even know are there. I label anything that can be labeled and the rest is in a box, basket or whatever else I can find to make things look neater and easier to find. On that note I want to recommend a charging station. I'll explain and show pictures in case your wondering,"What in the world is that!?" Between my husband's phones (and I emphasize the plural form of this word) and mine, not to mention i pods and ham radios there are an abundance of things that need charging around this house. It would drive me absolutely insane to see cords all over my counter everyday. It was like a labyrinth of chargers! So...drum-roll please....Thank you Pottery Barn for fixing this dilemma! Below are some pics of the charging station I'm talking about. It conveniently holds up to four chargers (all hidden of course) in a rather fine looking leather box. It also has a built in power strip where all the chargers plug in and then the part that attaches to the phone goes up through a little hole where it is ready at all times for the phone to be attached. NO MORE MESS! It also has a small built in drawer!


This is what it looks like sitting on my counter.





Here is the handy little drawer!





This is where the phones etc...sit while they are charging
(the holes are for the cords).

I have more recently seen these at Target and a few other stores, but I really like the quality of the one from Pottery Barn. It seems very sturdy and made well.

So that's my organizing tip for the day...do with it what you will and in the meantime I'll just keep enjoying my counter space free from "cord clutter!"