Welcome to November - 30 days of cleaning, organizing, and thankfulness

So it's November!  YAY!  I love this season from now until about the end of January.  At that point I'm about ready for spring but these next three months are so full of wonderful that I can't help but fully embrace them.

So first an update about my frumps to pumps journey.  I've done ok.  There was still a day or two in the past week that I didn't get fully dressed and just tossed on lounge clothes but I have been showering daily again which is great.  It makes me feel good (and smell better lol).  In fact I should be showering right now before princess girl gets up but alas it's also a peaceful time to write this blog post so I chose this.  Sarah Mae's motivotionals on her blog here have been wonderful.  Such a blessing to me.  Here's a link to the latest motivotional and at the bottom of the post are links to the others: http://www.likeawarmcupofcoffee.com

Speaking of Sarah Mae I'm going to be tackling her 31 days to clean e-book again.  I'm very excited about it.  It is a deep cleaning book and starting it now means I will complete it right in time for the holidays.  Won't that be nice?  You can find the book and more info here: http://31daystoclean.com/

I also found a blog last night about organization.  Now I've been working diligently and I feel that our house is probably 60% organized which is great because in my past it's only been about 10 or 20% organized.  So 60% is a huge improvement for us.  There isn't as much hunting for things.  But the clutter drives me mad and whether I like it or not there seems to always be clutter here in a home with a family of 6 people.  So I'm going to be reading through her 31 days of organizing and hoping I can glean even more organization prowess.  I'd also love to get rid of some of this clutter BEFORE the holidays hit.  Check it out here: organizing made fun


In other news I'm going to do a project with the kids to learn about thankfulness this month.  Starting today I will have them eat think of one thing they are thankful for.  I need to search around pinterest for a way to put them together as a keepsake/reminder for the future.  I hope that this exercise will help my children to remember to be thankful more often.  I know they are children and even as an adult I still have my issues with discontentment but I think it might benefit them to learn how to avoid so much discontent at younger ages. 

I should also mention my progress or lack there of with the detail projects.  I don't think I even did one this last week.  On Thursday I somehow decided that I needed to re-arrange all of our bedrooms because of bedtime issues with one of the monkeys.  So I began that.  KOJ and I finished it on Friday although our new room is a mess.  I'll share pics and post about the changes soon because it has affected our schooling and play areas since we no longer have a playroom.  So far it's been nice.  Fewer toys end up on my living floor and that's a bonus.

So join me for some of these adventures and see how things turn out in the next weeks here!

Housekeeping update

So I know you all have been sitting on pins and needles wondering about my house keeping skills lately.... Have they improved?  Did she locate that one kid that was missing in all the clutter? Was her husband able to find clean underwear last week?  Yes, no, and yes. 

No, for real, things have improved much.  One might notice a correlation with the improvement of my house and the decreased blog posts.  Then again, one might not notice that.

So what's been working for me?  Just doing it.  Sounds ridiculously simple but I can't even begin to tell you how many hours cumulatively I've spent planning out my cleaning, or reading about how other people clean, or wallowing in my lack of cleaning skill.

So here's what it looks like:

I have been a part of a few FB groups related to the 31 days to clean e-book.  One of them started doing "challenges" and it just caught on like wildfire, now there are at least four challenges in a day and often more.  You join in when you can and you don't when you can't.  You jot a list of four items and whomever is hosting the challenge posts a number and you go spend 10 min on that task on your list.  In the middle we take a 10 min break.  So with going over the 10 min here and there we spend about an hour and generally come out of it with much cleaner homes.  It has been SUPER helpful in helping me just keep the downstairs tidy.

So today I was browsing around some blogs and came across what I thought was a super neat idea that I want to translate into my own thing over here.  She was doing a 31 days of details challenge for herself.  It started Oct 1st and so she's half done at this point.  Reading some of her 31 days of details posts I thought "I need to do something like that too!"  So I know it's the middle of the month and all but I need to do this.  Keeping the house tidy is great but there are still piles of clutter throughout that genuinely drive me nuts.  But I just never can seem to make the time for them.  So I'm going to plan ahead.

I lesson planned for the kids today and it's so nice to see at a glance what I will accomplish in school for the week (or rather what the kids will accomplish).  And likewise I am going to clean plan.  I can't have a rigid schedule because my 4 small children make that pretty much impossible.  But I can have a list of the things I need to accomplish each day and do them one by one.  So I'm challenging myself from now until Thanksgiving to clean a "detail" each day.  I'll take pictures and post once a week with the details I do all in one post.  Hopefully this will be the thing I need to get that last bit of decluttering done around here.  Less clutter makes it easier to clean.  It truly does.

31 days to clean Day 1

I'm beginning the original book of challenges today.  I'm very excited about it.  Now that VBS and Sierra's party have been done and over I can get back into keeping my home and having more relaxed fun with the kids.

Today's Mary challenge is to create a Mission Statement for myself.  WHY?  Why do I want to have a clean home?  What are my priorities in doing so?

I want to have a clean home:

so that the kids and I can have a peaceful place to play and learn

so that projects with the kids - whether art or baking or board games - can be done on a whim because the tables and counters are cleaned off regularly

so that I don't have to feel guilty about taking an impromptu trip out to the park or the fountains or the library

having a clean house - esp kitchen makes it easier for me to get home cooked meals on the table every night

so that I can more freely invite friends over for fellowship

so that the kids (as they are getting older now) can invite friends over for playing

so that I can feel at peace in my heart that I worked hard and did my job each day

so that I can teach my children HOW to keep a home themselves one day

so that my family will feel loved.  

If I only clean because company is coming over WHAT does that tell my family?????  GAH!  No more of that.  

I really enjoyed the routine challenges.  Getting into a routine really helped me feel less overwhelmed and more in control.  I will continue with that basic routine.  The Martha challenges in the original book are more of a deep cleaning/decluttering set of challenges.  So each morning I will start with my routines.  Then sometime during the day (probably late afternoon most days) I will do the Martha challenge of the day.  I will read and do the Mary challenge of the day in the mornings.  I hope to update each Monday on my progress in both the Mary and the Martha challenges.

The Martha challenge today is to create a list of supplies I will need to complete all of the Martha challenges.  I will just look ahead at this weeks challenges and see what I need for the week and do that each week.  I will NOT be doing a challenge on Sunday.  Sunday is my day off.  

I'm pleased that the challenges are of a simple nature today because Princess and Howler have well checks this afternoon at the peds.  I'm praying that the ped will be able to tell me why my daughter hasn't been sleeping the past few nights (I suspect an ear infection or her 1yr molars or maybe both - whatever it is I hope it stops soon because I'm a zombie over here.)

31 days to a clean home update 2

I'd snap pictures but um... NO.  It's not the challenge at all.  It's me.  It's having four small children, warm and sunny weather, and family visiting.  It's my inability to say no to a trip to the library or park instead of staying home and cleaning.  The routines themselves are solid and I am working still to make them a daily part of my life.  We were in and out all week and weekend so the house has gotten to a completely ridiculous state and as soon as I hit publish on this post I'm going to go clean it up using the routine list from this challenge.  I LOVE starting in the kitchen because as I've said before it's the heart of our home.  I don't mind doing the bathroom because it's a smallish room and while it's supposed to be cleaned on Fridays I didn't get there last week and my family will be by more this week so I will clean it today and probably again on this Friday to get back on task. 

I've outlined a list that's slightly more detailed for myself so that I won't forget some of the things that I tend to forget when cleaning.

Now the routine of the challenge is this:
Kitchen
Main spaces

bedrooms
load of laundry

and on Fridays we add bathrooms and on Saturdays we prep our meals for Sunday so we can have a true day of rest Sabbath and on Monday's instead of main spaces we are supposed to catch up on hot spots from weekend.  It is a good and simple and solid routine that should keep the house clean even if it is clearly lived in.

There are also "next thing" challenges to help with, well, the next thing. I'm not going to tell you what those are... check out the book. lol

So to add to it I've made myself a laundry schedule and added in morning and afternoon tidy times (10 min each and the kids will be involved in helping).

Laundry:

Monday: 1 bed of sheets and a regular load

Tuesday: 1 bed of sheets and a regular load

Wednesday: 1 bed of sheets and a regular load

Thursday: 1 bed of sheets and a regular load

Friday: Princess' blankets and a regular load

Saturday: regular load

Tidy:

Morning:

Monday: playroom

Tuesday: boys room

Wednesday: my bedroom

Thursday: office

Friday: bathroom

Saturday: Van

Afternoon:

Monday: living room hot spot

Tuesday: dining room hot spot

Wednesday: kitchen hot spot

Thursday: laundry room

Friday: boys room

Saturday: meal plan and grocery shop

I also want to aim to tidy through the downstairs before I go to bed.  It makes it easier to keep up with the next day.  I'm planning to print out these lists on page and laminate them and keep them on a clipboard so I can mark off what I've done and at the end of each week see that it's gone well. 

31 days to clean update

So I totally missed out on updating about the 31 days to clean last weekend.  Sorry ya'll.  My family was sick.  Got the kids to the peds on Tuesday morning and all four had pink eye, nasty colds, and two had double ear infections.  I didn't feel so hot most of the week myself.

Needless to say sticking with the 31 days to clean schedule hasn't really happened this week.  I've still been trying my best but until Friday morning my living room was completely trashed.  Then I completely abandoned the 31 days to clean list and tackled the living room with my children because my dad and second mom and little sister were coming into town for two weeks and I wanted the living room clean if they came over to see us.  So we got the living room clean.

Now with the day to day set of challenges that I'm working with we start in the kitchen each morning cleaning up after breakfast.  I like this.  It works great for me when I stick with it.  Having my kitchen clean makes it easier for me to make fun foods or even crafts with my kids because I tend to clear the dining room table as part of my kitchen cleaning efforts.  It makes it easier for me to make dinner because I have clean counters to work with.  It's truly inspired and I wish I had thought of it sooner... or even at all really. 

I could share pictures here but really ya'll don't want/need to see the piles of dishes, soda cans (sore throats), and toys and clothes that currently lay about my house.

Another thing that I REALLY like about the 31 days to clean schedule is that we are told to take Sunday's off.  Now I will still have to make supper tonight because I didn't plan ahead well enough yesterday to avoid that altogether but for the most part I've been able to have a relaxing Sunday without the guilt because I know that first thing tomorrow I'll tackle the kitchen.  And soon after the kitchen I'll pick the living room back up.  One clean room inspires another.  I'm certainly not perfect and my house is still very much lived in, but most of the time I don't feel like I'm going to kill myself tripping over a shoe or a toy or a fill in the blank.... that someone left laying about on the floors.  My husband is just as guilty as the children and I have also been just as guilty as the lot of them myself.

Another thing not really 31 days related but something that I've been trying to do as a habit is to put away all the groceries right away when I get home instead of just lugging the bags into the middle of the kitchen floor and dropping them.  It's easier to do too when I have clean counters because then I tend to sit the bags on the counters and they are at eye level making it easier for me to put away faster. 

Overall I've been feeling much more at peace with myself over my cleaning habits.  Again, I'm not perfect, I still have a random folding table in my living room completely covered in stuff, and an entire couch covered in stuff.  My laundry room is still very difficult to walk through to the basement/back door.  But my kids have clean sheets, and we've hardly eaten out impulsively because I don't feel like cooking since I started this challenge.  I'm thrilled and thankful.

31 days update and today's Muffin Tin Monday

Ok I'll start with the Muffin Tin Monday since I know most of today's traffic will likely come from linking up to that.  Today I did breakfast again.  It's easier for me to put something together for breakfast and then I'm not rushing trying to get something cute together for lunch.  Since the kids tend to leave me be while I prep breakfast but not so much when I'm prepping lunch.  So here's the scoop on our MTM breakfast.

plain oatmeal in the bowl, banana slices, brown sugar and raisins for the oatmeal, and blueberries.

Even Princess got in on the muffin tin action today.  She got a few blueberries and some banana slices.

Squirrel monkey mixed his sugar and raisins right into his oatmeal.  He ate every bite.

Not sure what Spider is doing here but I think he put the wrong thing in his oatmeal. lol 

And alas I did NOT get a pic of Howler with his meal as he was away from the table when I was snapping the pics.

So remember I'm linking up here at Muffin Tin Monday so go check out the other great muffin tin meals today.

Moving on.  31 days to clean challenge.  So, we have completely week one.  I'm having a hard time getting the cleaning challenges done at the "right" time of day according to my perception of the way this is supposed to work but I'm working hard and getting them done as I can throughout each day.  Last week I started out with the kitchen as the challenge says.  This is what my kitchen looked like before:

So then I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.  I spent a while cleaning probably two or so hours but that included washing all the larger pots and pans and whatever didn't fit into the dishwasher.  And I got this:

Not too shabby right?  Yeah I didn't think so either.  I was very pleased with my clean kitchen.  I really went at it.  Cleaning things up that I'd ignored for too long.  Things behind the sink, on the windowsill etc.

The next challenge was to clean a hot spot in the kitchen.  I chose this shelf:

And after spending probably 20-30 minutes on it I came out with this:

No I moved the storage bins down onto the wire shelf on the bottom so I could more easily reach them and moved the raisins and snacky stuff up to the top shelf.  So far it is staying in nice condition.

So we're supposed to be getting into the routine of picking up the kitchen each morning after breakfast and tidying our main spaces.  I don't have pics of tidying the main spaces.  Sorry ya'll, cause that was a dramatic change and it took me and the boys about an hour to accomplish the other day for the initial clean up.  And on Friday's we add cleaning the bathroom to the routine.  Right now I'm very glad we only have one bathroom.  On Saturdays we add preparing our meals for Sunday to our schedule so that we can have a complete day of rest.  What does that look like?  The day of rest?  Well I'm so glad you asked let me show you:

Now keep in mind we were super busy this weekend so we didn't have much time for keeping up after ourselves on Sat so this is actually the accumulation of two days of not cleaning in the kitchen not just the one.  So I started out with 20 min on the timer this morning.  Then I got distracted and did some switching over of the laundry and such during that time so after probably 10 -15 min this is what the kitchen looked like:

After a walk to the library and returning home and resting for a few minutes I got to work finishing up the kitchen and it turned out like this:

Took me maybe another 30-40 min including washing by hand the accumulation of larger bowls and pans and what wouldn't fit into the dishwasher again.  Not too shabby.  And it feels so nice to look into my nice clean kitchen.

Today I'm supposed to clean a bedroom and wash the laundry from that room.  I'll do the boys room because their sheets need washed anyway. Then tomorrow it will be adding our room to the rotation.  I'm also supposed to be aiming to do a load of laundry each day.  I have already done that today and will add a load of sheets to today's tasks.  After reviewing the calendar and aside from Monday's when I'll need extra time to catch back up from taking Sunday's off I really don't think this "routine" should take me more than an hour of maintenance cleaning each morning and then just picking up after ourselves throughout the rest of the day.  I will also be adding a children's chore system to the foray as called for by the "Next Thing" on Thursday.  I've already started it but I'll get it finished and star using it this week.

Anyway, so far I like the challenge.  More than the prescribed tasks though it's knowing that others are out there working hard keeping their homes tidy too.  Check out the facebook page and join one of more of the challenge groups to feel more connected to others that are on this same journey with us.  I do highly recommend this as a jump start to getting your home in order and finding a way to keep it that way.

31 Days to Clean - give away within

First let me mention Muffin Tin Mondays.  I LOVE them.  I enjoy doing them and will come back to doing them in the fall when we start school back up.  Our days are so crazy right now that I just haven't had the concentration to plan for them and I'm going on a MTM hiatus for summer break.  Instead on Monday I will be posting about a new project I'm embarking on.

31 Days to Clean was written by Sara Mae another blogging mommy.  You can get more info here at 31 days to clean.  It is meant to help women get inspired and get a handle on their cleaning.  Having a Martha house the Mary way is the tagline.  This appeals to me.  I lean toward the Mary side of life.  But when I get into a Martha mood I'm extremely Martha.  Maybe I should explain who Mary and Martha are.  They are two sisters in the bible.  Jesus came to visit with them and their brother Lazarus.  Mary sat at Jesus' feet and soaked in his presence and words of instruction while Martha was trying to be a hostess who had a clean home, perfect food, etc.  This book tries to help us home makers have a Mary heart - seeking out how we can glorify and even worship God with having a clean home.

So here comes the fun.  The book was initially written with the Martha challenges being more of a deep cleaning throughout the house (which I haven't done yet, I'll admit).  But the author has released a new set of Martha Challenges to be done that are more about creating a routine for daily upkeep of the house.  More exciting is that she needed a focus group to test these out and give her the ins and outs of how they worked for us and I get to be in the focus group!  Now blogging about the journey or the book even isn't required but since I have a blog and as a gift to me for being in the focus group I get to give a special code to THREE people to download their own copy of this e-book.  So leave a comment and I'll choose three random people to receive a code for a free copy of this book.  You can earn an extra entry by sharing this give away on facebook and commenting here that you did.  Give away ends Monday, June 6th at noon EST so that the winners still have the opportunity to start the challenge this week.

I will be beginning the new challenges for the focus group TOMORROW!  The challenges run from Monday through Saturday taking Sunday off as a day of rest.  I will blog for the next few Mondays about the previous weeks progress.  It is my understanding that along with the new Martha Challenges I'm supposed to go through the book reading and completing the initial Mary challenges and so that is what I plan to do.  If you're joining the June 31 days to Clean challenge please feel free to link up in my comments on any Monday post in June.