5 Ways to Keep up with the Housework

Image by katybird via Flickr

Today's post was going to be something fun for training, but as life would have it I'm not in a fun mood today. As we all know sometimes the best paid plans can get thrown out the window and stomped on by a passing elephant. Wow...apparently I'm creative when I'm tired...or maybe I just sound like a complete whack-job.

Last night was date night with my husband. We went out to dinner and had a wonderful evening. When we got home the kids were already asleep, how wonderful was that?! Well, about 11 pm Riley woke up because she was scared - I'm not sure what she was afraid of. I calmed her down and put her back to bed. I went to bed shortly after that.

This morning I had zero energy. I could barely make the kids breakfast, let alone workout or clean the house. This got me thinking of how I can make life easier on myself. I came up with some common pitfalls and solutions to keep the house somewhat organized and clean.

1. Dishes 

I don't have a dishwasher...I AM the dishwasher. I find when the mess from supper is cleaned up, the next morning I'm able to keep up with the kitchen. The nights I "leave it until tomorrow" I end up with a disaster that grows beyond chaotic to monstrous.

2. Laundry...laundry...laundry...laundry...laundry...

We're a family of five and I...HATE...laundry! It's NEVER done! Realistically, if I did one load a day I could keep up with it, but who wants to do laundry every day? Instead it piles up until I can't find my laundry room. Or worse, the laundry is clean but needs to be folded and put away! That's when I cant find MY room.

3. Bathrooms

I admit it...another one I'm not good at keeping clean. Clothes all over the floor, a layer of dust on the back of the toilet and a black ring around the tub. (Comon...I have 3 kids, it gets a black ring after one day of bathing them.) This is another one that seems so hard to do, but can be very simple. Keep a laundry hamper either in the bathroom or near it. Keep a cloth in the bathroom under the sink to wipe the sink, counter and any other spots that need wiping.

4. Main Room (Living Room or Family Room)

I think if it was just my husband and I we'd be okay with keeping this room clean. Unfortunately, with kids, comes all of their stuff. Oh and it doesn't help that I've "lost" my office so the living room has become my surrogate office. The room starts off clean

5. The Kids Rooms

I can only stand their version of clean for so long. This is the bane of my existence. How many times a day do you ask (tell) your kids to clean their room? If you're anything like me, you ask them too many times.  To be honest...I don't have any real answer for you here. I've asked nicely, bribed, threatened. They've all worked and they've all failed. Please feel free to send me your suggestions!

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My Unorganized Life

I've been thinking a lot lately. I know it's a dangerous past time, but thinking can lead to doing and that's what I was in need of. Every time I think about starting an exercise regime, I think of my lack of time. This line of thinking led me to the realization that I have a lot of wasted time during the day. I know I technically already knew that, but when you're "in it" it's hard to see things clearly. I also knew part of my problem is the utter chaos my house was in. 

While technically clean, my life has been a mess. Yes, I mean life, not house. The unorganized house is a reflection of my unorganized life. I know there are certain things that won't stay clean and especially as a parent life doesn't always go the way you want. However, there are things within my control that I can do to help myself. And yes, I admit a LOT of it is because of laziness, procrastination and a majority of the time from frustration.

I let go of so many things - like the clean laundry sitting on our bedroom floor that no one had gotten to folding. My night stand full of useless stuff and one of it's drawers sitting on the floor. It's been there so long I barely remember why. I think it as just too lazy to put it back in. Also, the basement that's supposed to be half office and half workout room. Instead it too had become chaos.  

How can I make a fresh start with my life in constant disarray? How can I even begin a routine when I can't even find my jogging pants? So, today was the day. I called off going to church set a time to get off my lazy behind and get to it. Riley got up before 6:30 so I decided 8 am was a good time to get moving. 

At 8 I started the dishes, I decided to get the big stuff out of the way because it always looks worse than it it. I'm not the kind of person who can start with one thing and well finish just that one thing. I washed only the big stuff - pots, pans, cutting boards, lettuce spinner etc. Then I moved onto cleaning my espresso machine because well I hadn't had any caffeine yet and we all know how I love my caffeine. This led to me going downstairs to finally organize my office/work out room. I finally got the biggest of the basement organization done. There's still a closet under the stairs, but for now it's out of site. 

I ended up back in the kitchen, not to finish the dishes, but to organize the tall cupboard that's  been driving me crazy. I even moved the stove out and swept and mopped under there. I never did do the rest of the dishes, Ben ended up doing them later this afternoon. 

Somewhere between the basement and kitchen I managed to sort the laundry and get Ben to take the giant bucket of clean clothes to our bedroom. This led me to going into our bedroom to try and sort out THAT mess. I'm proud to say I did! I started with the clothes on the floor and worked my way to the bucket. I even folded and put most of it away. There is of course a lot more laundry to come, but at least caught up with myself. 

Now I'm sure you're all wondering when I'll stop talking about cleaning and I'm almost there. I just wanted to share how one thing leads to another with me. I made a fairly hefty to do list:

• move office
• organize basement
• set up temporary work out area (we're getting a home gym from my grandmother)
• laundry (which of course was in two parts) continue laundry and finish folding stuff from bedroom floor
• kitchen - organize tall cupboard, finish dishes, make curry (never made it to the curry we had BBQ instead)
• bedroom - finish folding clothes, put away misc crap, hem pants and sew stuff (also part of misc crap) 

 

I managed all of my list plus other stuff along the way. After that I decided to get some errands out of the way before going for my walk I was determined to go on. So, I went looking for someone who does shoe repair and ended up at Payless where I bought new shoes and a purse for $38! 
   

Aren't they pretty? (Yes, I'm one of THOSE who has just one purse regardless of what color she's wearing...sorry Dre...I know you'll be teasing me for this one.) I was so excited when I got home and a little nervous because I spent money I technically shouldn't have but I did NEED the shoes for work tomorrow. When I got home Ben was doing the rest of the dishes I still hadn't managed to get to and he was completely fine with my purchases of $38. He was worried I'd come home to say I spent hundreds because I was gone so long. 

I played with the kids for a bit before making supper and then I went for a walk. I planned only on walking but I did jog off and on on the second 15 minutes. I was surprised at myself and hurting for it now. My goal is to walk/jog every other day and to do weight training on the off days. I need to remember to bring my 1 lbs weights with me on my next walk/jog.

Oh! After all that I forgot to tell you one of my big epiphanies - I spend way too much time watching tv. So, I'm giving it up. Well, not entirely I still need to de-stress from time to time or want to watch my shows here and there. Instead, I'm going to try and finish all of those things I say I don't have time for. That's another list for another time.

All in all, today was a very productive day for my house and for my soul.