Catch Up Time

Since I haven't been well I'm way behind on my housekeeping, and well, life in general. There are emails to return, laundry, so MUCH laundry, non-house related projects to finish, bills to pay, bills to file and last years bills to shred! I could do without bills :) I will be taking the remainder of this week and weekend to catch up around here so I can continue my deep cleaning projects. In between the posts labeled "Deep Cleaning" I will also be starting a new thread labeled "Purging". A friend recently asked if I had completed all my deep cleaning projects yet, the answer is nope. I still need to tackle all the doorknobs and light switches. See you next Monday!

Weekly Routine

In my church as children we sing a song, "Saturday is a special day it's the day we get ready for Sunday." Saturday is currently the day in our house do our weekly cleaning. IF everyone cooperates (big IF) we can get it done in a couple of hours, number one reason it's nice to live in a small house!

This is how it works:

- Each kid gets an age appropriate list, we try to have a fun, family activity for that evening to motivate the kids to get their list done!

- I make a master list for Ryan and I to complete in between taking care of the kids, and encouraging them to get their lists done. It usually looks like this:

Dust-Master Bedroom, Spencer's Room, Main Floor, Basement

Bathrooms-

tubs, toilets, sinks, counters, mirrors

Vacuum entire house

Stairs, edges too

Scrub/Mop all non-carpet

Straighten, Straighten, Straighten, as I've said before it's ongoing

I usually try to add one big job as well, in the morning its the dishwasher. Have you ever noticed the edges of your dishwasher? Go look, it might be pretty gross!

Have fun! If you want to get a big eye roll from your kids you can sing the song, I think they secretly love it!

What's that Smell?

The last thing you want someone to think when they walk into your home, is "What is that smell?" Right? Sometimes I walk into the house after being gone all morning and it smells like the last two meals, imagine BBQ chicken and syrup, so gross. I try to keep the house smelling extra good with my product of choice, but there are tons of other products on the market, choose whatever works for you. Hopefully, by emptying the garbage's, keeping up on dishes and laundry your home will smell fresh and clean. Unless you cook fish or bacon, I don't think there is any help for that!
P.S. The idea for this post came from a show Ryan was watching. Every one who came into this house literally gagged because of the smell. They found dead animals under all the food, clothes, paper and garbage, seriously dead animals! If only they would've read my blog, kidding, kidding.

Please Remove Your Shoes

Growing up we always removed our shoes upon entering the house. My mother has made up many different signs trying to figure out the most polite way to ask visitors to remove their shoes. I once saw a vinyl sign on someones door that said "Loose the Shoes," I'm still trying to figure out if that is funny or not. Everyone in my family knows when you go to someones house you remove your shoes, it's just what we do. At one point my brother had hospital booties for those people who opted not to remove their shoes. My Grandpa was having heart trouble and he drove himself to the hospital because he didn't want the EMT's to drag mud in on his freshly cleaned carpet, no kidding. That obviously was highly frowned upon, but now you know where I get my craziness from, it's genetic!
Why are we so crazy about this? Imagine where you go in a day, public stores, public restrooms, pavement, so many places where dirt and filth abound, mainly all sorts of bodily fluids or feces. As you walk around the soles of your shoes pick this stuff up and when you come home your carpet acts like a huge tongue wiping it all off. Gross! Especially when you think about your children playing on your carpet, walking barefoot, or your baby crawling on it.
Solution: simply remove your shoes, and have your children and guests remove their shoes at the door or outside. We have most of our shoes on shelves in the garage because I got sick of hauling shoes from the garage to the closets, and I didn't want all that junk resting on the soles of their shoes in our bedrooms!

Let Me Change Your Mind on Dusting...

Do you hate dusting? See these little guys, pretty gross right? They are dust mites, a member of the spider family, they feed off the organic material in household dust. Click on the links for more info. I dust at least once a week, if not more, in the summer there seems to be more dust because of the windows being open. Kids are great dusters, they take all their stuff off their shelves and dressers, dust and put it back on. My kids like rearranging their stuff, I wonder where they get that from? I'm realizing these posts might sound like my kids are little soldiers, believe me when I say they are not. They fight me a lot, but hopefully they are learning it's easier to just get it done so they can play faster.

P.S. These little guys also live in your mattress and pillows, one great reason to make your bed everyday.

First Things First

First things first, taking down Christmas. It took me three to four days to get all my Christmas decor up, and I expect it to take me that long to take it down. This year I'm going to go through my storage bins and make a DI (goodwill or other, whatever you use) pile, and throw garbage away, and put the stuff I want to keep away in an organized fashion. My categories are: wrapping paper/bags/ribbon/bows/tags, ornaments and other tree trimmings, kids projects, lights (in individual grocery sacks so they don't get tangled and don't forget to throw away the broken ones!) outside wreaths and garlands, inside wreaths and garlands, all other decorations. Every one's categories will vary, the idea is if stuff is put away neat and orderly next year it should be easier to get it out and up. Label the bins as well, I prefer clear bins so I can see what is in them.