New Cleaning Routine

It's been almost two years since I found the Fly Lady system. Her 15 minute baby-steps are crucial to my survival, however, I never managed to quite make the routines that are so essential to her system. So, while I was an advocate (and I'm still on her mailing list!) I am not a follower. Then, I read from Candy on www.keepingthehome.com and Candy doesn't use "zones" like Fly Lady, but instead has broken down the house by surface, so you would clean flat surfaces on Monday, and windows on another, appliances on another...so on. This system is more thorough than Fly Lady's but I have a problem with its specificity. In my case, I needed something extremely simple that I could use to help thwart my procrastination. Both of these programs has valuable aspects, so I want to pull from them, and I did, to create my own system.

First, I started with a goal: Biblically, we are called to hospitality and I (thankfully) have a natural inclination toward opening my home, which I have carefully suppressed because my home is filthy. When my family attended a new church last Sunday, two of the elders dropped by on Tuesday evening. How embarrassing!!! Thankfully, our house was not at it's worst, but it was not pretty either! So, my goal became the ability to show a presentable home at a moment's notice. The main living areas (and bathroom!) need to always be tidy or in use. We are a family with small children and children have toys, so I won't get rid of all the toys, but I will teach my children to put them away when they are done with them. The second aspect is that I would like my house to be ready to entertain guests within 30 minutes. Maybe this is less attainable than the first part, but I think it is a good goal for our family to keep in mind. Entertaining involves so many different things, but I would like for say, my mom, to call and say, "Hey, I'm on my way home from work, can I stop by for a visit?" and I will not be ashamed at whatever she sees. The other aspect is that I would like to keep the house clean and organized for the health and happiness of the family. It is amazing the difference between the kids just because their bedrooms and living room are cleaned! They actually want to play, instead of just staying in front of the TV all morning. I never realized how much mess affects you physically and though I keep saying that I just "don't see" it, my body knows the mess is there and it causes stress to build up. What a pleasure it is to come into a clean home.

So, how am I going to do it? First, I have a conversation with my husband about what tasks needed to be completed on a regular basis. Then, I broke the house into five sections: living room and hallway, kids' rooms, kitchen and dining rooms, bathroom and laundry area, and master bedroom. I took the list of things I wanted to accomplish on a weekly basis and put it all down by room. I want to clean 5 days a week and I have scheduled 2 hours, one in the morning and one in the afternoon to do that. So, I took my list of tasks to be done and my schedule and I plugged in one room per cleaning session. This means that I will "hit" every section of my house twice during the week, once in the AM, once in the PM. I did choose particular tasks to do on those days, so that if I needed to, I could go right to the directions to follow for that day, change the sheets and vacuum the master bedroom on Friday morning, for example. However, I think the key for me is that it gives me direction. Today is Friday, so I know that I will be spending time cleaning the master bedroom this morning (starting at 10:00am) and then I will go into the living room for this afternoon's cleaning. What I have yet to do is to establish "monthly and yearly" cleaning lists but when I do, I will divide them out through the month or year on the day that I would normally do my cleaning routine. The other thing is that my husband is going to be working a 6 day rotation, so I might end up with a Wednesday off, in which case, Saturday is my stand-in day. As is stands, I have planned for Saturday to be a "special projects" day which could include cleaning, but also includes sewing and crafting. Sunday's are my day to rest so I am not planning anything for that day (excepting of course, the standard dishes and tidy-after-you-finish-playing-with-that-toy variety).

The last aspect of this, is that I am taking pictures of each room when in a state of "tidy" and when completely clean and I am posting them in my Home Management Binder so that I have an easy reference of what it could look like. I like that I have freedom with this plan and I can still get my work done. It is my job to provide for my family's health and happiness and a clean house is a great beginning. I would encourage anyone who is trying to clean their house to do this as well, make a list of ALL the most necessary jobs, schedule the cleaning and divide the way you prefer. If you like to do all the floors one day, you can always arrange for Monday to be your floor day, Tuesday windows and dusting, Wednesday wash day...whatever works!!!

I'm off to get some cleaning done!!!

A Call for Information

This semester at school, I am taking a history course where the entire class is set up on writing an ORIGINAL historical research paper. It is incredibly intense because it requires loads of reading and writing (somewhere between 15-20 hours a week, for a 3 credit class!) but it is the ORIGINAL part that is really throwing me off!

My topic, which is still being revised, is how feminism has affected motherhood between the 1800s and 1980s. If anyone has any books or articles that were written in the 1800s about motherhood or the effects of motherhood, I would really appreciate any information that you could give me. You can post a response or email me. If you don't know anything, could you ask the people around you? I am searching for this information but I fear that I am not going to have enough to write a good paper.

My goal is to present this information in a way that leaves no doubt that motherhood as it was in the 1800s, before feminism messed with it, was a much "better" way to raise children. I am not really writing a persuasive paper here, but I think I can still argue the point a little bit. :)

Thanks for the help!

Update on Katie

My mom flew to New Mexico the other day and so now I have a consistent line of information. Katie is doing fine, she is at home now and the doctors think that the liver condition is a result of the mono. The major concern right now is to get the proper nutrients into her body. She is already extremely thin so she can't afford to lose any weight. Adding this to the other million things that are already wrong with her and my mom says that she is taking about 12 different medications, including pain-killers, everyday. Continued prayers are always appreciated.

Katie Elizabeth...

In other news, my sister, Katie (age 25), is in the hospital with liver complications. She has had a series of medical problems and this is the latest. The doctors do not have a diagnosis though talks of hepatitis have surfaced, they are just waiting for the body to fix itself (apparently, there is nothing they can do for the liver) but after one night at home, she is back in the hospital and now diagnosed with mono. Please pray for her health and healing. She lives in New Mexico and I am not able to visit her. She is, thankfully, a born-again believer of Jesus Christ the King.

Katie and Kelly (and me in the background) playing with some phones.


Katie and Kelly, twins.


My most recent picture of Katie (that I know of), taken Christmas of 2006. Katie is on the left, Kelly on the right (and pregnant with Bethany).

Recently...

My posting has thinned out and that is disappointing to me. There are so many topics and issues that I am learning about and that I want to discuss on this site, but I just don't have time. A monthly post is probably all I will be able to accomplish in the future, if that. My goal is (and always has been) a weekly post, but I have started school in earnest now and I think I can understand to a small degree what working mothers go through! My school schedule is simple, I am able to stay at home with my children because I am going to a 100% online school, otherwise I wouldn't have tried to go to school with my young children. When my husband and I were talking about finances, we decided that I needed to do a little extra work for us to make it every month. Since I get my Montgomery GI Bill, it pays for school as well as bringing in a little extra every month, so essentially, school is my job! Trying to get all my studying and class time done during naps and after the kids go to bed is not working and now I am trying to negotiate activities that will allow me extra time in the afternoon after the chores are done to study. After all that, I have very little time to read extra websites (and blogs) that I love, like Keeping the Home but when I do get a chance, there is invariably something that makes me think that I would like to make my own post about. Instead of going crazy about all these different topics, I am going to make a list of the issues I was to discuss and then whenever I do get a chance, I can just pull a good topic from my pre-made list. I will probably keep the list in my Home Management Binder (HMB). Once I figure out how to include pictures in a post, I will take pictures of my HMB and my house and my clothes for a week...at least that is what I am working on.

I did get a chance earlier today to read Candy's blog and post a response. I don't understand why people get so offended at someone else's opinion. I love Candy's blog and though I don't agree with everything she posts, I do agree with the majority of it and I appreciate all of it because she doesn't just wave about her opinion, she always supports it with Bible verses and good logic. She does feel like a mentor to me and her posts always make me think. Her recent post about being a sloth at home really hit dead-on. I am a lazy, procrastinating bum and with a good excuse, it is positively terminal for the happiness of our home. Her latest post about not "hanging out" with non-Christians is exactly what people need to read and I was really surprised that she got bombed for it! That ANY Christian not understand this fundamental truth surprised me and since I had lately "fallen for it" by allowing my conversation with a non-Christian to distract me and allow my behavior to not reflect Christ, I needed to hear it again and see the list of verses she used to support her position.

Day of Reflections

September 11, 2008; what a good day for reflections. I started my reflections this morning around 9:00am when I realized that today was September 11th, and that 7 years ago, I was in the military and just getting dressed to go to "PT" (I was on a swings shift) and I heard in formation that the World Trade Center had been hit with an airplane. I had no idea of the scale, in fact, I had no idea what the World Trade Center was. When my normally stoic platoon sergeant was late to formation, we were a little confused, but like good soldiers, we stayed in a loose formation talking amongst ourselves. As the platoon sergeant walked across the field toward us, stopped halfway to answer his cell phone, talked for a few minutes and then hung up and ran toward our formation as fast as we've seen him run. He called us to attention and told us that a third plane had hit the Pentagon and we were all to go to our barracks room and stay there until further notice. We saluted as the flag at the front of post was lowered and the gates barred. He told the soldiers who lived off post to plan on it taking several hours to get back on and recommended going home and coming back with plans to stay. He was right, though I didn't live off post at the time. Armed guards were stationed behind a bunker at the front of the military base and every car was searched, proper identification was required. For the rest of us, we went back to the barracks and called our loved ones to let them know we were okay and that the Army was still protecting it's assets, us. Later that day, we were marched to class (we had been allowed to either walk or march ourselves before) by a platoon sergeant or drill sergeant and though we had class on that day, much of the time was taken with talking about what was happening and what it would mean for us. We watched the footage over and over again, willing it to sink into our brains that something of that magnitude happened during our lifetime and not on the pages of the history book we were forced to read in high school.

Today, I watched the original footage from Foxnews.com (but I couldn't find a link, sorry) and it completely brought me back to the moments I first saw the attacks and the days and months of ensuing chaos. I prayed for the families of the victims, that they continue in their healing process and for our country to not forget what it felt like that day, to remember that urge to fight, to defend our country. I was us to remember all the flags flying and how proud we all were to be Americans.

Knowledge is Power

Knowledge