Seeing the squares

How do you guys plan your lives?  I LOVE seeing the squares on a paper calendar.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not sure what I would do if my smart phone did not "beep" at me reminding me of certain things.  However, when it comes down to it there's nothing like the awesomeness of putting the pencil to the calendar and planning something...anything!  I know I'm a nerd, but I don't care:).  The tricky thing about planning though, is you have to know when to let it go.  For instance, I have our entire preschool plan ready to go for next year but I am completely OK with the school day taking on it's own vision.  As long as we have a blueprint, I'm good.  I feel the same way about meal planning and unfortunately I believed this a little too much when it came to the cleaning schedule this year.  

So, the plan is to execute preschool (officially twice a week), a meal plan, and the cleaning schedule everyday.  The trick is to know that the desire is great just as long as the schedule doesn't become an obsession.  I like a "lived in" home, but that good 'ole fashioned straightened up house that my Grandma believed in and STILL delivers on every time you walk into her home IS my desire.  I.  Can.  Do.  This.  

It really makes a for a calm day and fun times!

How do you guys like to plan?  Is it in your head, on paper, on an excel spreadsheet?  Please share:).

Clean It! - Wednesday is kitchen day

My lovely husband is in charge of the dishes:).  So for today, which is kitchen day, the fact that the dishes got washed in the dishwasher was the extent of cleaning the kitchen...ha!  My goal is to sweep, mop, wipe down counters, shred papers, and clean out the fridge.  However, today was a icky day and I almost slept through dance class so I am letting go.  I'm OK with the fact that all the other stuff didn't happen because sometimes that's just life.  Plus tomorrow is grocery/errand day and I don't need to run out for anything so I can catch up tomorrow:).

Toodles!

Clean It! - Tuesday is master bedroom day

So today is master bedroom day and I have not done it yet...ha!  So after I hit "publish" I will go into the bedroom and tidy up so I can check it off the "Clean It!" list:).

The way I keep the room organized is to keep it DE-CLUTTERED!  It's hard with little kids, but I try really hard to keep the toys out.  I read somewhere that you should keep your room free of kid stuff and although some would disagree, I LOVE this!  Now don't get me wrong, when I have an infant in a bassinet I make exceptions.  But keeping this "rule" in mind has helped cut down on how much I have to clean when I clean this space each week.

So I'm off to clean my space!

Night:)

  

Clean It!- The Schedule

So I'm on this kick that I'm praying will stay with me and become a habit.  It's called cleaning my home.  Not a novel idea at all, but one that many women and men struggle.  So I sit somewhere between,"I must clean until everything is in it's proper place" and "who cares because my kids are awake" and I think this a good place to be:).  I want people to come into my home and things be tidy, but not at the expense of loosing out on valuable family time.  I want my husband and kids to feel like they they "live" in their home without fear that mom is going to chop their heads off because they dropped a cheerio or didn't put their shoes in the shoe bucket.  So now that I'm out of the,"you've had a three babies in the past 4 years" fog I can wrap my brain around a cleaning schedule.  Yay for me!!!

Luckily I have some wonderful family and friends who feel the same way that I do about this and they have physically helped me numerous times in my endeavor to get my house in order!  They have organized clothes and closets, cleaned floors (YES, on their hands and knees), kept the girls occupied, and helped me fold laundry.  I have some wonderful friends:).

So on to the schedule.  I don't know why, but I get really excited when I begin to schedule anything!  You should see my notebooks that I write in.  They have several versions of schedules because the first schedule you write is never the final plan:).  So anyway...I have a room that I clean each day and some items that should be done every day.  So that this post is not crazy long I am going to just talk about Monday and then for the rest of the week I will blog about what I cleaned on that particular day.

Monday is bathroom day.  Yuck!  Hey, but it's got to get done.  I clean everything in each of my three bathrooms.  I clean the shower while I'm in it, sweep/mop the floors, clean the tubs, toilets, sinks, and mirrors.

The items that should get done everyday are the following:

*Take a load of laundry out of the room with you in the morning (I'm still working on this habit and I want to fold and put this away right after lunch.)
* Vacuum the dining room and living room (I do this because I have carpet in my dining room and it's awful if I don't vacuum or at least pick up big stuff off the floor every other day)
*Dishes (t\This is actually my husbands job and he loads and unloads the dishwasher every day)
*10 minute pick up (I haven't actually implemented this yet, but I want to start.  I think I'm going to do this at lunch, dinner, and bedtime.

So there you have it!  Day one of the cleaning schedule:).