Manage my household to be clean organized and happy

Wiped down all baseboards and doors
Touch up painted the walls
Given the kitchen a good scrubbing
Weeded the yard and cleared yard debris
Caulked around baseboards
Spot cleaned downstairs rug

Kicked BOOTY in the bonus room-play room (it looks really really good!)
Shredded some mail I found from 10 years ago (gasp!)
Cleaned the wood floors in great detail
Did massive amounts of laundry
Gave things a good vacuum
Decluttered a great deal downstairs and in play room
Took out several bags of trash
Organized the Laundry Room

To do for this upcoming week:

Touchup paint baseboards
Wash windows
Steam Clean rugs
Dining room
Toss old clothes
Work on garage
Work on guest rom
Hand wash sweaters
Give bathrooms a good scrubbing

Working on my spring cleaning this week….

So far I have wiped down all baseboards and doors
Touch up painted the walls
Given the kitchen a good scrubbing
Weeded the yard and cleared yard debris
Caulked around baseboards

Still to do:

Touch up paint baseboards
Give wood floor a good cleaning
Steam clean downstairs rug
Wash windows
Give bathrooms a good scrubbing
Get dining room in shape
Decorate dining room for Easter
Toss old clothes
Work on bonus room upstairs
Work on garage
Work on guest room
Hand wash sweaters

Not going to do much more than that…that should keep me plenty busy!

The weekly routine thing still holding strong! The only thing that is not included in it is serious decluttering or organizing, but cleaning, yes, so at least I know the place might have some clutter here or there, but it is indeed clean!

As for organizing, more furniture coming today, hand-me downs from grandma…something to put dining room stuff in (finally!). This will definitely help with the organization!!

Places in need of organization:

Dining room
Entry closet
Under stair closet
Guest bedroom
Bonus room
Master closet
son’s closet
garage

Still lots of work to do! One project at a time! This week will be the dining room!

I have just about given up on the flylady concept of doing stuff daily, as I am finding I have been exhausted in the evenings or booked solid with activities lately. I am having more success with a “weekly chore list” that I can cross items off as I do them for each room, so I know how often they get cleaned and what I have overlooked. I’ve been using google docs much in the same way crazyinagoodway had previously kept a spreadsheet, except I am not assigning a score to the items, just simple “X” and checking them off when they are completed with my initial.

I also shared the doc with my hubby so he can jump in and put his initials in if he completes a task….although so far no luck (sigh…) it is just my initials all of the sheet so far. My son did get his in there for vacuuming though, which made my day!

myspringpadit.com

Free, similar to google docs, but free, and does GTD and many household notebook forms!! I am going to be playing with this for awhile. Does not work on PalmOS though, but I have firefox and it runs well on here.

I’ve been away from home about a week for work, and coming back to try and reestablish the peace is so difficult….seems a good habit takes 30 days, a bad habit about 3 days max.

Today I managed to run some laundry, clean the bathrooms, unpack several boxes, work on a budget, and scrub the kitchen sink, amid grocery shopping and dealing with a hungry stray kitty that has taken refuge under our porch.

Now the cub scout uniform is MISSING and no one knows where. Trying to prepare for Monday is worse than herding cats.

Managed to clean the bathrooms, vacuum, unpack more boxes from the moving and move all the empty boxes from the living room to the spare bedroom temporarily….the living room has been reclaimed, and I put my love seat in there today! (Yay!) It is not accessorized yet, nor as lit as I want, but it is now CLEAN!!!

The spare bedroom has boxes in it, but considering what is in there, the things that are in there are ORGANIZED!

One room clean, one organized, clean bathrooms and a clean floor = awesome! (Did I mention my sink is FULL of dishes??? Something had to give!)

Here is what I need to set up to streamline organization and happiness for my family in my new home….

1. cleaning routines…I did clean the bathrooms today, and vacuumed yesterday, so I have a start

2. laundry routines

3. meal plans and routines (like preparing food for the crockpot the night before to save prep time in the morning)

4. a lunch making station (I have this one started, a whole corner cupboard devoted to lunch box supplies and fixings)

5. a routine for the dog to make sure she goes for a walk

6. a routine for family time (scouts, Church, family fun and the like)

7. a routine for “me” time (book time, pamper time, prayer time)

8. Planned date nights (now that we have babysitters in the neighborhood, a calendar needs to be booked!)

9. Before bed and morning routines (I have a start, but need to do better laying out clothes and maybe doing some cleaning in the morning and before bed)

This house showing thing has been fantastic for getting into routines….the whole family pitches in after getting dressed in the mornings, making beds, picking up floors, straightening things, wiping down things, running the dish washer, vacuuming (daily) and making the house “perfect.”

The routine also happens at night just before bed, a quick sweep of anything that will take longer to straighten first thing in the morning.

Talk about a little pressure of living in a show ready home! I found a great book, “Home Staging: The Winning Way to Sell Your House for More Money”

It is great because you can use the principles for every day life too, and it includes some motivating pics. Showed hubby and son some pics and said, “make it look like this” and it surprisingly happened.

The offer we have on our house is from clients who saw our home 2 days after I left for Florida (4 days after putting the sign up). Hubby and son get A+ for maintaining things while I was gone!

Being able to walk in my bedroom with out bumping into things and being able to see all surfaces. I hope we can maintain it and not fall back into the abyss that is comfortable because we are used to seeing it another way.