How I Keep My House Clean.....this week

Being a mother means constantly finding balance. We juggle children, chores, work, personal sanity, and don't forget our relationship with our husbands/boyfriends/significant others, friends, & family! My life, especially in these dim days of miserable gray skies and freezing temperatures, revolves around sleep, food, and chores. I get lost in the mess of things, often.

What a consistent thought process keeping my home, and life, clean and organized can be for me! It isn't always easy for me to spend every hour cleaning. I like to live at a more leisurely pace, getting a thing done here and a thing done there, just wishing everything into place while I drink coffee before it goes cold and shower before 2 in the afternoon. So, my goal is to make the reality a little easier to face.

I've tried several methods to confront the madness; doing all the laundry on one day, never going to bed with a messy kitchen, deep cleaning on weekends, cleaning as I go....they all turned into this all consuming never ending mess.

I realized something the other day when I started my Spring cleaning tasks. If things are DEEP DOWN clean they are easier to pick up. The deep down clean is what I have a hard time getting around to. It's what makes us grumpy on the weekends when we want to be taking naps and going for walks. They are the tasks that can be totally overwhelming when you only do them once a month. I'm not talking about wiping the counter tops, but elbow grease scrubbing them, and sanitizing them, and putting all the little things that accumulate in random drawers into a place they actually belong. And the laundry? Right now I'm ok with doing laundry every day if it means I do it from start to finish and always have clean clothes to choose from. The picking up of all the toys? No matter how many times you clean them in a day they WILL get pulled back out again. So, let them get played with, and enjoy the playing. If I'm not constantly picking them up the second she walks away I might actually enjoy the toys with her and she might actually learn some stuff in the process (imagine that!).

This brings me to my current method, one that I'm really liking, a daily checklist. I am NOT a list person. I don't make grocery lists, to do lists, cleaning lists, they just annoy me. Or, they used to. I don't think I'll go list crazy any time soon but having a few things every day that I can accomplish, without forgetting or changing my mind, and then eliminate from the list is really an easy method. Another benefit? The more often a bathroom gets cleaned, floors get steamed, blinds get dusted, the less time it takes to do the next week. And picking up a mountain of toys at the end of the day is the simplest of my tasks.  If something on the list doesn't get done? I roll it over to the next day.

To make this work I don't put simple chores on the list (laundry DOES go on the list because I need to have a goal of what loads I need to get done or I do NO loads). Dishes? Bed making? Pillow fluffing? Sweeping up from lunch? I do all of those jobs in reverse order. When I have a few minutes in the morning I make my bed because that is the very last thing that will get messy again. The toys I generally ignore unless I have guests coming over, time to burn during naps, or they have to be cleaned up to do a list job (like floors).

My question for you today is, what is your method to keep life under control? Are you a clean freak that actually enjoys constant cleaning and will never be ok with toys underfoot until after the baby is in bed? Are you happy with clean laundry residing in baskets until you need something (like the internet famous Kelly Hampton who you really should read if you like pictures and adorable babies)? A couple other random blog posts about cleaning that I like.....here and here .

Scrub A Dub Dub

So, Spring is officially here and that means I have to get my butt in gear and get things prepared to be cleaned again so my house is nice and organized, and deep down clean, for the warm months when we will be spending our time and attention in the disaster we call a backyard.

This week my goal is to finish the kitchen, and keep in mind I am spending next to nothing so my costly organizing ideas are just going to have to wait. Yesterday I cleared counters, rearranged a little bit, and scrubbed them clean (all those edges and corners that tend to get a little less attention), as well as de-cluttered a few drawers, tossing things that I don't need (like all those hand mixer accessories when I don't even have, use, or need a hand mixer) and storing them where they will be the most useful. It looked pretty good if I do say so myself, even though when I clean like this I think of all the things I wish I could change about my kitchen. Why yes, I did leave my garbage in the middle of the floor, thank you very much.
Like the cupboards. They are pretty, but I want a bright kitchen with white cupboards. So, I decorate as if it were the kitchen of my dreams and I have to shrug it off when I feel like it doesn't look all that put together. The lack of color is one of the few complaints I have in this house. I'll probably change my mind on my kitchen desires in a few years anyway. Such is the life of a mother who spends too much time in one room.....
I've been inspired to try and find some more design friendly items to store my frequently used sink items in. Hand soap, dish soap, and lotion to be specific. Previously they were in a little metal holder and I hated it. I didn't love the metal look, it felt dirty and scratchy on the counter (I felt like it was going to rust), there was no color, & not really any design whatsoever. So, Mad and I popped over to Pier 1 to check out what we could find. A serving dish, a colorful coaster, and a pretty plate came home with me. This is what I ended up with. Can I just say that I love Pier 1 for stuff like this?
Isn't it so cute? I couldn't believe how perfectly the little dip dish worked for this project! I want to get a cute lotion and soap dispenser but for now this is perfect! $6 total for both of these, plus another $8 for the plate and an additional coaster that aren't being used here but will definitely be put to use.

Now that Mad is napping peacefully (and hopefully for a couple of hours) I'm going to grab a much needed shower, brush my teeth, help myself to another cup of coffee, and get to work on reorganizing the cupboards. Sad that it takes me until 2 PM to brush my teeth. I really need to make that a priority....on days when I'm not in a rush to get all my Spring cleaning done.

The only way to deal with tantrums these days.

Cleanliness is Happiness

One of the most difficult things about settling into a home is getting organized. Ugh. Just thinking about it is frustrating for me.

I totally admit that all my cleaning and organization skills(z!) are practiced NOT inherent. I was the messiest kid and for the first few years of my adult life my home was a wreck. Mostly I hated laundry, dishes, deep cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms, & cleaning up after other people. So, basically I hated life in the cleaning zone. Previously I was married to slob of a man who didn't know how to put a dish in the sink, let alone rinse it off, who wouldn't mind climbing over laundry piles to get out of bed, who didn't notice the difference between a pee stained toilet and a freshly bleached one. Then you add into the mix his disgusting friends that were a constant at our house? Yeah. Not a pretty picture (don't get me wrong, I was partially to blame and I know that. Like I said, cleaning was never a natural thing for me.)

Re-building my life from the ground up after my divorce gave me a new appreciation for my "stuff" and my space. I enjoyed having clean clothes neatly organized (it helped that I was skinny enough to enjoy wearing those clothes) in my closet, I enjoyed displaying my jewelry on pretty hangers, I found my happy place in vacuuming floors. I was far from perfect, still am, but I started practicing and building habits that would make my life happier, cleaner, and more organized.

So, back to the house organization. The clutter, oh how it taunts me. Batteries, cords, single socks, scissors, papers, tools big and small, pictures, books, cleaning supplies, wrapping supplies, holiday decor, constant laundry piles (the consistency of dirty laundry makes it clutter), toys, dog items, more toys, kitchen knick nacks. I mean, seriously, the list could go on and on. This isn't even the half of it and if you are a normal human living a normal human life you probably totally get what I'm saying here. I've had enough!!!!!!!!

Last week I posted a picture of my before and after laundry room. I wish I could say that it was the first time I had to totally clean out that room but, oh boy, how the clutter builds up in such a small narrow space. It was probably the third for fourth time! I've been so happy with the final results of that day. The cupboards were organized for the first time since we moved in and I have a lot of great plans to make that space functional, and pretty. Everyone, Google search "awesome laundry rooms" and you will see my inspirations!

So, my goal is to do one space at a time until every nook and cranny in my home is neat and tidy and prepped to stay that way by giving every little piece of clutter a labeled home.

This week, inspired by this photo, I started on my pantry and refrigerator (one of those places that requires constant attention).
{via Tidymom}
Beautiful right?!?!?!? (check out her post for suggestions on how to make the most of a pantry do over)

I forgot to take a picture at the beginning of my work and it's probably a good thing. Look at the bottom shelf of this "mid" before picture. The entire thing looked like that, or worse!!!


After about an hour of purging, wiping down, categorizing, and arranging I got it looking like this:

It's nothing like my inspiration picture because I don't really have ANY budget to work with so the cute containers, baskets, labels etc are going to have to wait. For now this is ten million times easier to live with. It's been a few days and we've managed to keep it this way. Mad loves to go in there and search for "crackers". Which is basically any crunchy snack. I love to open the door and know where things are. Hopefully I'll have a pretty pantry when all is said and done and I can't wait to get to work on that! I didn't take pictures of my fridge (be grateful!) but it is like a different world in there.

Right now the three of us are battling The Sickness and I don't have much hope of getting anything done this week. But, with a lot of Zicam, Vitamin C, and some Thera Flu miracles, could definitely happen. I haven't even decided which space to start next because a lot of my "to do" areas need money spent to make my time worth while. I suppose I now need to learn to organize on a budget!

People, I just want to link you to my new favorite blog that has really given me the drive to get things done. IHeart Organizing. The blog, and the creator, are great and it really inspires me to get shiz done around here. My home style is totally different than hers. Meaning, the framework of my home just doesn't compliment modern, but her ideas are a push in the right direction and it helps me get excited about what I can do around here. Add her to your blog feed friends!

I admit that most days my dishes are dirty and sitting in the sink, toys are scattered, and, like today, every item in every drawer in my bathroom has been pulled out to decorate the floor to my toddler's liking, I just know that this is a step in the right direction in making my cleaning life easier and less all consuming. Oh, and ALL of it is ten million times better than what my younger self would have had going on! Ew to the old and in with the (not so) new!

No Shadow Celebration! - Wordless Wednesday