As you can read in my profile, I am a very busy mom. With a house full of kids and pets, it only takes a few hours for my entire house to fall apart. For a few years, I felt like I was riding behind the wave of mess. I couldn't catch up. No matter what I did or tried to do, the second I was into an hour long project, at least one of the kids was making a mess that would take me longer to clean up. I was frustrated. My frustration came to a head when I had to talk to a friend while standing on my front porch, holding a baby with a dirty diaper so that he didn't get into it while she was talking to me. I was embarrassed. I had to figure out a way to manage my household. While this blog will include posts about daily activities That need to be finished, it will be much more than that.
I plan to have videos, housekeeping tips, product reviews and anything else that I thing will relate to making managing a home easier. I am not perfect. If you stopped by my house any day, it may or may not be clean, but if I follow my steps to managing the house, it is presentable. One of my thoughts is that we need to touch everything we own at least once a year. That means our days are full of organizing and cleaning and we keep only things that bring us joy or are vital to running our household.
I love Konmari as much as the next person, but after reading her book, I threw out my ironing board, all my mops, the alarm clock and the oven. I may refer to her methods from time to time, but for a mom with four kids, taking everything out of my closet and throwing it on a bed to sort through all in one day just isn't going to work. I do use a modified version that is more family friendly.
You will also notice that in my list of chores to do daily I have a chore that is called, "Close the Kitchen". This means that at a set time, I go into the kitchen and I wash all dishes, I wipe the counters, the stovetop, fridge and sink. I then sweep the floor and if needed, start or unload the dishwasher. After this point, if anyone decides they need a snack, they must reclean the kitchen if they get one. That means hand washing their dish, sweeping where they stood. I have found that this puts an end to me waking up with a torn up kitchen because someone decided to have a late night and made snacks at midnight. I presently close my kitchen at around 8pm. I do have a daughter that works a part time job and if she is getting home at 8:30, I wait until she has warmed her dinner before I close the kitchen. Some people do this right after dinner, but I found that it was a waste of my time to sweep the floor just to have one of the many people living in my house to mess it up an hour later. Closing the Kitchen works for me.
I also keep a 3 ring binder with my chores listed. I place the lists inside page protectors and mark through each chore as it is completed. I will write more about this in a later blog. If there are any products you would like me to review or any topics you want to discuss please leave them in the comment section. I look forward to all of us having a clean and tidy home.
Emma
