Clean your fridge plan

You know the reason your fridge gets out of control and you avoid cleaning it out? Because somewhere we got the stupid idea to do it all once...yucky and time-consuming. Why not take one week a month and do it day by day? Or for the ambitious, do each task everyday (I bet it would take 5 minutes tops that way)!

DAY
1. the Door- remove all expired products, reorganize keepers and wipe down (15-20 minutes)
2. the Freezer - trash freezer burnt items, organize (meat, veggies, sweets, etc) and wipe down (15-30 minutes)
3. Shelf 1 - trash spoiled items, empty and wash out left-overs, wipe down
4. Shelf 2 - trash spoiled items, empty and wash out left-overs, wipe down
5. Shelf 3 - trash spoiled items, empty and wash out left-overs, wipe down
6. Bins - throw out bad produce and wipe down
7. Quick Inventory and meal plan for next week! (Do every week)

Getting back to square one

What is square one? It's a mythical time of clean and organized that probably never existed in any home. As a homemaker, we fondly recall when we first moved into our home and how fresh and new everything seemed. The carpet was cleaner, the walls were freshly painted, the tiles pristine, right? Hmmm, probably not. We forget the dirt the movers traipsed in and the dozens of boxes piled all over the house. The weeks of not being able to find what we needed, and how long it really took to unpack. But still we long for those early days or the possibility of getting back to square one, of having a home that is totally neat and organized. Why? Because we theorize that if we could get back to square one, we could keep it at square one. Clearly, we are glass half full people.

Recently, I've been obsessed with getting back to square one. My poor husband has heard, "If I could just get back to square one, I (would stay on top of the laundry, keep the bedrooms clean, keep my sewing area organized)." You get the idea. I'm sure he is sick of it. The thing is that getting back to square one is easier said than done. So I've been creating a strategy based on the idea that not all homemakers are created equal and we need to employ different methods to meet our personal cleaning and organizational needs.

The Square One Plan

1. Determine what type of homemaker you are
2. Begin the square one plan for your type
3. Share your strategy - let your family know your plan so they can help or, at least, not hinder
4. Reevaluate your needs - done with your square one plan, maybe you want to kick it up a notch to the next level

Stay tuned as I post each step over the next few days!

Clean Sweep - Using the Buddy System

I am not an organized person, despite what it might seem like on my blog. Worst yet, I'm an organized person trapped in a hoarder's body. This has kept the hoarding from reaching reality television cry for help level, but it leaves me feeling like an utter failure most of the time. Combine that with being thirty weeks pregnant (aka nesting phase) and you wind up with an emotional wreck of a housewife. So, in a less than gentle moment, I let my husband have it. Didn't he care? How could he just come home and never want to work on the house? He was totally anal when I met him, what happened?

He lovingly explained that when he married me he had to learn not to care so much about everything being in it's place. It seems that we both started pushing each other more towards the other's line of thinking.

Now don't get me wrong. It feels like we live in the world's most cluttered, disorganized house, but I watch t.v. - we don't! Not by a long shot. And I'm happy to say that I stay fairly on top of the actual cleaning tasks (toilet, vacuuming, laundry, etc), so our house is "clean." But I want my house to be welcoming. It doesn't have to be a flippin' museum, but I want people to come over or drop by and not leave wondering if my 2 year-old completely rules the roost.

So my husband and I came up with a plan for the living room only. He had a meeting at work, so we had limited time and I wear out easily anyway. We easily spend the most time in our living room, so it seemed like a good place to start. And it worked, we got the whole room clean and clutter free in less than an hour. First, we pared down the dreaded toy box that had grown larger and larger as my 2 year-old added to his treasure trove. Then we took down the Christmas tree, an activity which I generally dread. We made a basket for books and bagged up DVDs/tapes we no longer watch.

It wasn't anything groundbreaking, but it worked so much better than me doing it myself. For instance, I had pared down the toybox only 2 weeks ago, but I had a hard time getting rid of and putting away all his toys. Instead my husband filled an entire 13 gallon trashbag with toys and let me jump in and save a few I knew James loved. A small store size bag of toys was rehomed to the toy chest in the basement to be rotated with the toys we kept in the living room. Our son now has about 5 carefully chosen toys he has ready access to in the living room.

It worked because we buddied up. My husband was able to approach it with fresh eyes. He knew that most of the toys wound up all over the floor because our son was trying to get to the few toys he did play with, and he reminded me that we are the parents. It's okay for us to graciously accept yet another obnoxious toy and then make it disappear after a few days.

So you know that room you are avoiding, or, in my case, that house, because you just don't know where to start? Grab a buddy and get going. Husbands are convenient, but good, honest friends work too!

Hyper Homemaker List Redux

Here are my personalized edits to the Hyper Homemaker list. One of the reasons I like this list is that it reminds me of the good old days when I worked for someone else and thus had accountability to someone else. For the short time I ran a video store in grad school, I used daily lists to account for the tasks that needed to be done and when. So I'm hoping that I can initiate a similar system in the home.

I've taken into account that we have a maintenance free lawn, although this spring I will hopefully add in gardening! And my laundry conundrum.

Monday: Bedrooms
Tuesday: Kitchen
Wednesday: Bathrooms
Thursday: Living areas
Friday: Project Day
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Project Day

Weekly Cleaning List
Kitchen:
-Mop the floor
-Wipe the cabinets, backsplashes, appliances, and fans
-Wash the dishrack
-Wipe the switchplates and phone
-Wipe the inside of the garbage can (yuck! but necessary)
-Quick clean fridge (toss last week's leftovers - you aren't going to eat them!)

Bathroom:
-Scrub the tub and tiles
-Mop the floor
-Wipe switchplates, doorknobs, and doorjambs
-Empty and wipe out wastebasket
-Clean toilet/sink

Bedroom:
-Change the sheets
-Dust all surfaces - including electronics, books, pictureframes, window sills, ledges, tops of the door frames, and ceiling fan.
-Vacuum floors and carpets.
-Wash hardwoods
-Wipe switchplates, doorknobs, and doorjambs
-Empty trash
-Straighten closets (I tend to drop stuff through the week)
-Vacuum heating vents and closets

Living Areas:
-Dust all surfaces - including electronics, books, pictureframes, window sills, ledges, tops of door frames, and ceiling fam.
-Vacuum floors and rugs
-Wash hardwoods
-Vacuum upholstery
-Wipe switchplates, doorknobs, and doorjambs
-Wipe and disinfect telephone
-Shake out/vacuum doormat
-Vacuum HVAC vents
-Clean high chair

And because I love you all, here is a link to pdf checklists that you can print and tape on the back of your doors!

PDF to-do lists

Hyper Homemaker List

I came across this list of daily household chores from a website called Hyper Homemaker. Unfortunately, the site is now gone. The list lives on though. I'm going to be tweaking this to meet my needs, but it's great way to get started, and I'm guessing that a new year is a great time to get started on a new method of housekeeping!

The idea behind this plan is that each day of the week, you focus on cleaning one part of your house:
Monday: Outside / Garden
Tuesday: Kitchen
Wednesday: Bathrooms
Thursday: Living areas
Friday: Bedrooms
Saturday: Laundry
Sunday: Off

Below is the weekly cleaning list for what to do each day of the week:

Weekly Cleaning List
Kitchen:
-Mop the floor
-Wipe the cabinets, backsplashes, appliances, and fans
-Wash the dishrack
-Wipe the switchplates and phone
-Wipe the inside of the garbage can

Bathroom:
-Scrub the tub and tiles
-Mop the floor
-Wipe switchplates, doorknobs, and doorjambs
-Empty and wipe out wastebasket

Bedroom:
-Change the sheets
-Dust all surfaces - including electronics, books, pictureframes, window sills, ledges, tops of the door frames, and ceiling fan.
-Vaccuum floors and carpets.
-Wash hardwoods
-Wipe switchplates, doorknobs, and doorjambs
-Wipe and disinfect telephone
-Empty trash
-Vaccuum heaating vents and closets

Living Areas:
-Dust all surfaces - including electronics, books, pictureframes, window sills, ledges, tops of door frames, and ceiling fam.
-Vaccuum floors and rugs
-Wash hardwoods
-Vaccuum upholstery
-Wipe switchplates, doorknobs, and doorjambs
-Wipe and disinfect telephone
-Shake out/vaccuum doormat
-Vaccuum HVAC vents

I dislike the idea of doing laundry just on Saturday, especially since Syd will be cloth diapered, so I will be doing daily laundry (ick!). Basically, every other day I wash clothes and every other day I wash diapers. Fun stuff, right?