Cleaning Calendar Challenge

Hello all! I wanted to share how I was doing on my Cleaning Calendar.  It’s been a week since I started doing the cleaning calendar (Organization) & I’m doing pretty good!! I still have areas I need to work on, but I’m doing better!!  I feel good about how my house looks, and I wouldn’t be completely freaked out if someone popped over for a visit.

RESULTS!!

After a week my kitchen, my living room, hallway & bathroom are all still cleaned.  We don’t have the cash to re-do our kitchen countertops, so we went & purchased some contact paper and covered the old, and it looks amazing!!  I told you I am not a good house keeper!!  Never really have been, but with this calendar I feel like a good house keeper!  I modified the calendar to fit my family’s needs & what I think is important.  I do DAILY eight chores.  In the morning I make beds, wipe bathroom counters/sinks (this means clearing the clutter from them also), empty dishwasher, do one load of  Laundry, & the chore of the day.  Since I have back pain, this has been good for me, because I can do them all at once or I can space them out with breaks in between.  At night I load dishwasher (& run it), clean the kitchen counters/sink (clearing clutter that has piled up during the day), & sweep the kitchen floor.  Just doing this alone has helped keep my house clean, but I’ve also been making daily & weekly goals for myself, little projects that I want done; like today I’m going to clean all the ceiling fans in the house & de-clutter my computer desk.  I’ve found that if I’m doing my “chores” my children don’t complain about their chores.  If I have a good attitude about my chores, my children have a good attitude about their chores!!

Here’s what my chore of the day –

Monday   Catch-up day/Coupons (cut coupons & organize them)
Tuesday   Clean oven, microwave & fridge
Wednesday   Dust & Vacuum
Thursday   Mop Floors
Friday   Swing Day (see list below)
Saturday   Family Time

SWING DAY

• 1st week – Wipe down furniture & cabinets
• 2nd week – Clean Mirrors & windows
• 3rd week – Wipe down walls & doors
• 4th week – Change Sheets/Project

I found a book at a yard sale that is helping me organize bigger “projects” it’s called The One-Minute Organizer by Donna Smallin.  She has loads of ideas & tips to help you get organized!  She says to “start with today’s mess. Do whatever it takes to keep up with daily mail, dishes, and laundry. Then set aside time to catch up.”  That goes right along with my calendar so I added a project day to my swing day just to work on bigger projects.  She also says to “Be realistic about you can and can’t do.”  Your house isn’t going to get clean & organized in one day! Just tackle one thing at a time, eventually your whole house will be cleaned.  I’ve heard this saying before at church or somewhere, “If you do what you’ve always done, then don’t expect different results.  If you want different results, do something different.”  That’s what I’m doing… doing something different!  I’ve tried to be the housekeeper my grandmother was, it doen’t work for me!  I’m not her!  But what does work for me is the cleaning calendar.

So here’s my challenge to you, try the cleaning calendar for one month.  See if it works for you, if it doesn’t find something different – just DON’T QUIT!  Keep trying until you find something that works!

Organization

Here I sit with my coffee cup and my laptop contemplating the days tasks that need to get done, & things I want to get done.  I woke up late today. It’s summer so I normally sleep until 9 ish, but today I woke up at 11:49 – WOW my kids let me sleep that long!  They are 11 & 8 so they are pretty self-sufficient.  They played their DS’s & did their chores!! Guess it’s “Amaze Momma” day 🙂

Confession time! I am a horrible housekeeper!  My grandmother would be so at me everyday!  How on earth did my grandma do everything she did in a day with her job, working the family farm, raising 6 kids & have a spotless house!!!  Even when I lived with her, she was taking care of me, babysitting 3-6 extra kids a day, managing her my dad’s & my grandfather’s medicines (we had a pharmacy in our kitchen!), doing the bills, grocery shopping, preparing meals & a slew of other things she took care of for her ladies church organization… and she was RETIRED!

The month of June flew on by & July isn’t looking much better either!  With my son is Baseball & my husband in our church softball we’ve been running around like chicken’s with our heads cut off!  We had seven days that we didn’t have anything going in the whole of 30 days of the month of June, & most days we had 2 or 3 things going on in one day.  The house cleaning I admit got shoved to the bottom of the list of important things to do in my day, and I didn’t think about it until I actually sat down at the end of the day or on one of those 7 days & then I just tried to ignore as much as I could.  Now to be fair, the house wasn’t dirty, I mean there aren’t bugs or mice crawling around it’s just clutter. But oh how it piles up!  And how can I expect the kids to complete their chores if I’m not doing any of my jobs?  A friend told me that there is a law, it’s a natural law, it’s called THE LAW OF FLAT SURFACES – it means if there is a flat surface, things will pile up on it!  At my house we embrace that law! Everyone here (my husband, kids & yes even myself) throws everything on the counter! After a week the counters look horrible, almost like we are hoarders!  Then with all the clutter everywhere I feel guilty about the dirty house, if I spend time with the kids I feel guilty, if I clean I feel guilty, if I don’t do anything but relax I feel guilty.  Guilt, to be honest SUCKS!

I have found that my own self inflicted guilt is worse than any guilt others may try & force upon me.  So I am setting FIVE goals to help me erase guilt.  I am addicted to Pinterest and found this Cleaning Schedule/Calendar for busy mom’s.  I know that it’s for mom’s that have a full-time job, but hey why can’t a busy stay at home mom us it too!?  That is my goal #1 is to follow the Cleaning Calendar, to make it work!  The calendar came from a Tips & Pix blog by Pixingo I have seen other’s on Pinterest also but this is the one I printed out.  I have switched things around, added things & taken things off it to fit my needs & the needs of my family.  But the basic principle is the same. Goal #2 is to set weekly goals to complete.  These goals will be tackling big projects in the house that gets ignored, such as cleaning closets, clean/organize scrapbook table, collect unused things for yard sale or Goodwill, spend family time together etc.. Goal #3 Use my planner more!  I love my planner, I just don’t like the pages, and they don’t seem to help me with the things that I need to do!  Goal #4 Spend less time on Facebook, Pinterest & online!  This is going to be hard for me, I do most of my genealogy research online & I spend a lot of time on Facebook!  But really what am I doing?  I’m wasting time, I’m shutting my brain off & I’m getting lost in the world wide web!  Goal #5 Do something once a month just for me!  If that’s doing some genealogy or getting my nails done, I need time for me!

Ok so that’s the end of my goals & this post for the day! Off to do my morning chores & cut coupons! (Awe who am I kidding, I’m off to check my Facebook!! 🙂 then do my chores & cut coupons)