Spring Cleaning Party!

My friend, Monique, pointed me in the direction of Simple Mom who is hosting a Spring Cleaning Party. I am a day late in starting, but I think it shouldn't be too hard to catch up. We are super busy doing lots of painting and renovating at my home, so the mess is driving me crazy! I'm going to do what I can. If your home needs a Spring Cleaning, I hope you'll join me. If it doesn't need cleaning, maybe you can start a blog and give the rest of us some good tips!

The Makings of a Great Day

Photo courtesy of Kinderash

I love the days when I just know things are going to go well, that I will plunk into bed at night with a sense of accomplishment, good family memories and a peaceful heart. I wish I had a day like that every day. Yesterday, I knew it was going to be one of those days and I thought about what circumstances or decisions set up a day to be 'good'. These will be different for everyone, I know. For me, three things stood out.

1. Being in a good mood. What makes me in a good mood? Of course, the number one thing is to make a choice to be in a good mood. God tells us to take every thought captive. When I choose not to complain and argue, it goes a long way to boosting my mood. I am also in a good mood when: I don't have to go anywhere that day, my home is relatively under control (we know where the homeschool stuff is, the kitchen is tidy, we have clean clothes, surfaces aren't full of clutter), and Steve and I are in our groove together.
   
2. Beginning early. When I hang around in my pj's knitting and going on the internet until 9am or later I am not left feeling energized. I think both of these things can be reasonable uses of time, but spending a couple of hours of prime morning time pursuing them does not set me up for a 'good' day. The kids know exactly what is expected of them in the morning, but they won't get started on it with me setting a bad example.
   
3. Having a clear plan. I am terrible at menu planning, (I really need to start working on this. I used to be great at it.) but when I do have at least that day's worth of meals all planned out in my mind, I am free to think of other things. I find when I don't know what we are going to eat that day, I am burdened all day long. As well, when my household tasks are planned and written down and the kids homeschooling assignments are well spelled-out, there is less to think about and we can just do.

Obviously, everything is not in our control, but in general, what sets up a day to be 'good' for you? Are there things you find that are under your control that help your day go well?

Organizing more than I bargained for.

Today I thought I would tackle cleaning out the cabinet under our kitchen sink. It houses a few cleaning products, the dish rack (so it isn't on the counter all the time), the crock pot and some junk. It is all just kind of shoved in there with no organization and I didn't like it one bit. So, I found a sturdy plastic bin to house all the cleaning supplies and I was ready to hunt down the junk and leave the cupboard nice and tidy.

I got started and noticed that things seemed to be kind of wet. Awhile ago, I had given baby guy his last sink bath. It was his last because he did an insane amount of jubilant splashing and made a large mess. I thought maybe this was leftover water that I had somehow missed. I pulled out a few more things and was horrified to find that the board at the bottom of the cupboard was completely wet. It was like a wood-sponge. Ewwwwwwww. Now, this board was lining the bottom of our cupboard because the previous owners of our house had some kind of leak, the bottom of the cupboard ended up with a hole and we just stuck a nice sturdy board on top of the hole instead of ripping out the whole bottom of the cupboard. Well, now I had to pull out the good board and survey the damage. At this point, I did what any capable adult woman would do. I called my dad.

I had to drive to the store to buy a flashlight because we never seem to have one. This one will stay in the kitchen and I will guard it with my life. With my trusty new flashlight, my dad coached me through the diagnostics and I discovered that it didn't seem to be coming from an actual pipe or the drain. The problem was around the plate at the base of the faucet. When Steve and I put in a new faucet a few months ago, we didn't caulk it. Whoops. Combined with the fact that the sprayer had twisted a bit loose and would pour out water along the hose every time the tap was turned on, we had a fair bit of water under the counter.

I had to pull everything out from the surrounding cupboards to check for water. Of course, with everything out, it was a good time to wipe down the insides of all the cupboards, a job that - in all honestly- rarely gets done. We tightened up the sprayer, caulked around the faucet and have banned everyone from using the kitchen sink for 24 hours until the caulking is good and cured.

I must say...if I had to choose between having a functional kitchen sink and not having a functional kitchen sink, I'd choose to have one.

The Art of Being 'On Time'

Photo courtesy of laffy4k

This is definitely a learned art, except for those few very lucky people to whom it seems to come naturally. It does not come naturally to me, though I am learning. I think the biggest secret is I have come to accept the reality that, left to my own devices, I have no realistic concept of time. My husband, on the other hand, is always on time. He gets to places nice and early, with time to get a coffee if he wants or just get into his meeting, help set up chairs, and take off his coat. We have been married nearly 18 years and it was only about two years ago that I decided he might actually have something to teach me.

I watched him for awhile and realized that he started getting ready to go WAY before the idea would have ever even occurred to me. If he is going to hockey after the kids are in bed, he will start getting his hockey stuff together after work. When leaving for church on Sundays, he will suggest getting the kids' coats on at least 10 minutes before I would have started. He is either one of those lucky people who have a built-in realistic clock or he has learned the art of being on time.

As someone without a realistic internal clock, here is what I do:
First of all, I listen to Steve if he says we have to get ready at a particular time. I used to always disagree, saying, "Oh, we don't have to leave then. We don't want to be too early." HUH?! Why not? And, was this ever really a problem for me, anyway? Nope.

Second, I take a couple of minutes to make a realistic mini-schedule for myself. This is a little secret that has helped me immensely in the art of being on time. Yesterday, we had homeschool skating as we do every week. I took out a little scrap of paper and wrote the time skating begins and the kids have to be on the ice. Next, I wrote when we wanted to arrive at the arena. Then, I worked backwards writing the things we had to do to get ready to go and assigning lots of time to each thing. Here's how it turned out:

• 11:10am Heat up soup
• 11:15am Pack Car
• 11:25am Eat Lunch
• 12:15pm Get outerwear on and get out to car
  
• 12:45pm Arrive at Art Store (I had an errand)
• 1:10pm Arrive at rink
• 1:30pm Skating starts

We arrived on time and the kids were ready to go when they needed to be. The great thing about making a mini-schedule is that there are all kinds of little checks in place to keep you on track. It is hard to remember that it takes a long time to get several children ready to go, especially in the winter.

Well, I'd better go take my own advice. We have a very busy week and we need to get ready to go!

Home Blessing as a Family: Step Two

Photo courtesy of merwing

I am re-vamping our Home Blessing schedule and assignments. If you would like to join me, please head over to my first post on the topic for your first step.

If you worked alongside me, you will now have your room-by-room task lists completed. Were you as surprised as I was how many little jobs there are needing to be done? I think I need to get myself some more kids!

The next step is deciding how often you would like to have each task done. I suggest you assign the frequency of the tasks according to your realistic ideals. So, dream a little, but don't be silly. An organized home is a blessing, but there is more to life than housework.

I am going to take my notebook and simply note beside each task one of the following:

• D - for daily
• EOD - for every other day
• W - for weekly
• BW- for bi weekly
• M - for monthly
• EOM - for every other month (my 14 year old is reading over my shoulder and groaned when I wanted to put 'BM' for bi-monthly)

If a task needs to be done less frequently than every other month, I would consider that to be different than the regular maintenance tasks we are scheduling here and would take it off the list.

After making the above notes, I am going to enter the tasks into the computer in an Excel spreadsheet to make things easier for the next step. My next post on Home Blessing as a Family will be about that. :)

Home Blessing as a Family - First Day's Chore Lists

Done! Earlier today, I blogged about my new plan to revamp our Home Blessing system. It starts with listing all the chores that need to be done in a particular room, one room per day. I actually chose two areas today since I was just sitting watching my pathetic, sick, 5 year old daughter be soothed by a warm bath. Naturally, I listed the chores for the bathroom I was in and I also did the hallway/stairs just outside the bathroom. It is definitely essential to be able to see the area for which you are making the chore list.

I thought the lists would be very short. I was surprised to see how many individual jobs there are to be done. Here are my lists:

Upstairs Bathroom

• wipe counter and back of toilet
• empty garbage
• wash shower curtain
• wash bathmats
• vacuum/sweep floor
• clean sink
• clean/shine faucets
• clean mirror
• clean soapdish
• clean toilet inside and outside
• check floor for clutter
• change handtowel
• clean tub/faucets/showerhead
• wipe shower walls
• clean window
• sweep cobwebs
• dust medicine cabinet/baseboard heater/candle
• wipe baseboards
• wipe down walls

Upstairs Hall/Stairs

• sweep cobwebs
• wipe walls/baseboards
• wipe doorknobs/light switches
• vacuum
• check for clutter
• dust pictures
• wash window
• wipe window ledge

WHEW! It makes me tired just listing everything. Good thing I have so many little workers!

Home Blessing as a Family

Photo courtesy of Geekgirly

I love the term 'home blessing' coined by the FlyLady. I think that it truly depicts what it is we are doing when we are cleaning our dwelling. More accurately, we could call it 'family blessing', but that sounds like someone is preggers. ;) We are not merely 'doing chores'. Rather, we are taking an opportunity to serve one another and to serve alongside one another as we maintain our home. We are, in effect, washing one another's feet.

Anyway, I realized recently that my plan for home blessing needed some improvement. Now that I have several children who can help out in a significant way, I need to re-vamp our system and outline more exact specifications for each job so that everyone isn't floundering wondering what they should be doing during home blessing time.

I have a plan which will leave me with the specifics I need to assign tasks to everyone on an age-appropriate basis. Care to join me? Let's get started:

1. Grab a small notebook and a pen.
2. Each day choose one room of your home to focus on -- not to clean, but just to plan for.
   
3. List all the cleaning chores you can think of that need to be done as regular maintenance for that room. Look at walls, floors, horizontal surfaces. At this point, you don't need to decide when or how often to do the tasks or who will do them. Just list them for now.

I'll give you (and me!) two weeks to finish up this task and then we'll move on to the next phase.

Don't Go Surfing...Let the Blogs Come to YOU!

Photo courtesy of e³°°°

Awhile ago, I read an excellent article on 'subscribing' over on the Simple Mom blog. Up until this point, I had my blogs bookmarked individually. It took a fair bit of time to click on each one, only to find that many hadn't been updated. (Not many moms have time to blog every day.) Learning to subscribe to my favourite blogs was a real break-through.

Subscribing means that the blogs come to you whenever they are updated, just like getting a letter from a friend. I was concerned that all the updates would come to my e-mail account, cluttering up my inbox, but this is not the case. Using a free 'reader' page on the internet, you simply click to subscribe to the blogs you read. When they are updated, they will show up on your 'reader' page, all in one organized place. It is a huge time-saver and makes reading blogs much more fun. You can even organize the blogs you have subscribed to by category (ie. inspirational, homeschooling, cooking, crafts), if you like.

Rather than trying to give you all the information on subscribing, I am going to refer you to Simple Mom's fantastic article. Taking a few minutes to understand RSS subscribing will be well worth it, I promise!

I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas tomorrow!

Enough Already

Photo courtesy of *Ann Gordon

(This isn't my kitchen. I was too lazy to take a picture of mine.)

It's time to get your kitchen counters clean. There is no tidy house fairy that will be visiting your home to do it for you. It is up to you. ;)

Now, here is what I want you to do:

1. Get a nice clean dishcloth, but don't go putting in a load of laundry or run to the store for a new one or anything. Just do your best.
2. Next, get it wet. You don't need to find Grime-O-Remover or Sudsy-Suds or any product; just some nice hot water will do the trick.
   
3. Start at one edge of the kitchen and get wiping. If there is something crusty, I find a green scrubbie pad helps (but for heaven's sake, don't go buying any in the middle of my lesson!). Otherwise, it is just you and the cloth and some hot water. Please move every single thing out of the way temporarily to another part of the counter and wipe the WHOLE thing. You might have sparkly counters, in which case you can ignore me and this entire bossy post, or your counters might be really cluttered. If so, just move the stuff, wipe the surface down and put the stuff back for now. When you are all done...GOOD FOR YOU!! Isn't that nice? No crumbs or sticky stuff anywhere.
   

What you have done is the easy part. The hard part is training yourself to be in the habit of maintaining. Every time you do anything in the kitchen that makes even the smallest mess, grab that cloth, wet it and wipe it up. Every time. EVERY time. Don't leave the crumbs from toast-making until after breakfast to do a 'mass clean-up'. Clean people don't do mass clean-ups. They clean as they work. I know from watching my super-clean friend, Leslie. Wipe it up right away because knowing that your kitchen is tidy will make your breakfast better. :)

You can do this. I promise. I used to have a sticky, crumby kitchen counter. It would drive my husband nuts that when I cooked, I made a huge mess in the kitchen. Now, I am so used to cleaning as I go that when it is time to serve dinner, most of the time the kitchen looks very nice. I had prayed that God would give me a vision for homemaking and He helped me to see that doing little things right away makes my job a million times easier. If you have an icky counter, please just try for the Christmas holidays to wipe your counter constantly. You will love it and by the end of the holidays, you should have a well-established habit.

Christmas Book Organization

For a long time, I wanted to make our Christmas books 'special' by taking them out in December and giving them a dedicated place for everyone to enjoy. It would always be a pain in the neck to go around to our various bookshelves and try to collect them. Inevitably, some would be missed, or of course, misplaced! A number of years ago, I solved the problem by creating a special box they could be kept in.


I took a sturdy, cardboard box, tucked in the flaps on one end and wrapped it in Christmas giftwrap. I actually added some nice ribbon and a pretty matching bow, but this has since been ripped off. You can imagine that part. It was really quite lovely. However, this is 'The Real Life Home', not the 'Faked for Photos' home, so I decided to leave it as it was instead of fancying it up for you. (I also photographed the box in front of a real life wall in our real life home, complete with real life gouges in our baseboard!!)

I keep the books in this box during the year on a shelf in our basement and when December 1st comes along, everyone is excited to take out the box. I like the idea of the box looking like a gift because I think books are a wonderful gift from God to His children.

Will work for high fives

I like to keep our main floor, the one on which most of us spend most of our day, in relative tidiness. I feel particularly stressed out if there is a lot of clutter on surfaces, so I do my best to keep those clear most of the time. It is inevitable, though, with seven of us home all day that there will be some mess. The key, for us, has been to manage the mess with frequent, regular tidy times. For years now, we have tidied the main floor:

• before mealtimes
• before Daddy gets home
• before bed
• before anytime we leave the house

This ensures that the children and I learn to pick up our things after we use them, or at least relatively soon after. Charlotte Mason was a huge believer in training children in good habits and orderliness is one habit that did not come easily to me. I want it to come much easier to our children.

However, my children would tell you that they don't enjoy hearing me bark at them all day to pick up their stuff. I don't enjoy barking either. So, I try to use a variety of things to make tidying time more pleasant. The first is attitude. We are tidying because it brings us pleasure and calms our minds to have tidy, serene surroundings. We can find things easier and we don't have to shove stuff aside every time we want to use a table or an area on the floor. It is also much less embarrassing when people drop over. It feels good to be able to welcome them in without having to worry that the place is a mess! So, cultivating the attitude that tidying our home is a blessing to us and others makes it more pleasant to do the work than to leave the children thinking tidying is a punishment.

As far as the actual tidying part goes, I find the best way to get the children to tidy happily is to work alongside them. This can be a hassle if I have something else to do, like making lunch or caring for a baby, but it makes all the difference in the world. What looks like just a few things to you can be an overwhelming job for young children, particularly if you have a child who is not inclined to look after their things. One of my children, when told that it was tidy time said, "But Moooooooom, I can't clean up because I'm toooooo lazy." Isn't that the truth?!

Finally, I have found that some kind of encouragement along the way works wonders. I have a little song that I sometimes sing while we tidy. I learned it from the Waldorf school years ago when we attended a parent and tot class. However, you can easily make one up to a favourite tune (Row Row your Boat, Twinkle Twinkle, etc.). Basically, you just start singing about what you are tidying up, or what needs to be tidied up, while you work. The children just seem to join in like magic. It doesn't work every time, so I like to mix it up a bit.

I also use the high five system, which is a particular favourite. I will tell each child one thing at a time that needs to be tidied. "Please pick up the puzzle and put it in the bin." Then, as the task is completed the child runs to me for a high five. This works really well and helps keep things from being overwhelming. Before they know it, the room is done.

What things do you do to encourage your children to tidy their surroundings? I'd love to hear some ideas.

HOW can a homeschooled child lose a pencil?

What do you mean you don't have a pencil? Didn't I give you a pencil box and tell you to put your things away after each time you use them? HOW can you lose your pencil when you are homeschooled?!?!

Who knows? I just know that this was a regular occurrence at our home and, as I understand it, in many of your homes, too! I thought I was nice and organized because each child in our family had a plastic pencil box with their name labeled on the outside of the box. Taped to the inside lid was a list of the contents that should be inside: pencil, pen (for older children), highlighter, eraser, ruler, gluestick, etc. Anyway, it didn't work. For years and years, I kept using this system, but it kept not working. Their things were always getting lost and little ones were always getting into the pencil boxes.

So, I came up with something new. The supplies basket!

TA DA! Now, THIS works. First of all, we have two jars. One houses pencils and pens. The other jar holds erasers and pencil sharpeners. In the bottom of the basket, you will also find small rulers, a small stapler, a highlighter, a gluestick and a pair of scissors. While the children are doing seatwork, the basket sits on the dining room table. When they are not, the basket is put into a cupboard with a childproof lock on it. This way, when we find a pencil somewhere, we always know where to put it. No more trying to determine who is missing their pencil or who didn't put away their eraser. I'm telling you, for weeks now, I have had not one complaint of someone not having a school supply.

The other benefit is that the basket is attractive, unlike the plastic pencil boxes. I have learned that surrounding ourselves with as much beauty as we can adds to the soothing atmosphere I am trying to establish in our home.

See you tomorrow as we continue to examine Charlotte Mason Basics in the real life homeschool!

Getting kids' clothing ready for winter

Do you get caught each year not having organized your children's winter outerwear? Does the first (or second or third) snowfall find you not knowing whose boots from last year still fit or whose snowpants need repair? I used to be in this position, but a few years ago, Steve and I developed a good system for making sure we knew exactly what we had and what we needed. In early November, we make a grid like this one:


Then, it is simply a matter of hauling out the winter stuff and checking off the list.

Steve and I get the kids busy with a game or activity on the main floor and we head downstairs to our basement, put on the fire - sometimes some music - and get to work. Each child in our family has a small bin, labeled with his/her name. We toss the smaller items we think will fit into each child's respective bin and place larger items alongside the bins. Then, we call each child downstairs one by one and have them try their stuff on. As the things fit, we check off the list. Then, the bins are brought upstairs and placed on the shelf in our main floor bathroom. At the end, we have a clear list of what we need to find at the thrift store.

Okay, so this year, I kept meaning to get our stuff ready, but didn't actually get to it until yesterday, just after the first snow that stayed on the ground. However, today we are well organized and ready to go! I only need to shop for two pairs of boots. One pair is for my oldest son, whose feet grow like crazy and the other pair is for one of my daughters who would be traumatized by being forced to wear the 'ugly boy boots' that we have in her size. I would have called them unisex, but what do I know?

Holiday Homemaking Freebies

Woohoo!! Joyous Home is putting together a terrific-sounding treat for us that they are calling: "12 Days of Holiday Homemaking", reminiscent of their wonderful magazine, Seasons at Home. Each of the 12 days will include freebies, such as: Holiday sewing, giving a Holiday tea, Holiday menu ideas, sweet treat ideas, Holiday bread making, traditions and more.

They are not requiring newsletter sign up or anything. It is just a gift to visitors. I really love Seasons at Home magazine, so I hope you will enjoy these free days! I can't wait to see them. :)

Home Management: Bedtime

You arrive home a little later than you'd like from visiting your parents with the littles cranky and needing to get to bed. After a thorough search, one of them seems to have no clean pyjamas. The next one is melting down because she can't find her diaper cover (you only bought one for her because you keep hoping she'll outgrow night-wetting). The next one has lost her toothbrush. Ahhhhh! You know they need to be asleep now, but it will probably be 20 minutes before you can get everyone together! Does this resemble your home at some point? Or worse, does this resemble your home many nights?

This used to be the scenario in our family, but not anymore. We like our littles to get off to bed around seven o'clock but it is virtually impossible to do this if we aren't organized. In our home, bedtime preparation begins in the morning.

As part of the kids' morning routines, they pack their bedtime bags. I made each of them a bag using the 'simple tote' pattern in the book, Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. The pattern isn't important, though I do like this one because it has a little pocket on the inside that we keep toothbrushes/toothpaste in. If you are going to make this pattern, I'd suggest enlarging the bag just a hint. Any bag that can be hung on a hook or doorknob or a box or basket that can be kept under the bed will do just fine.

Each child includes the following things in her bedtime bag:

• clean pyjamas
• diaper and cover (if needed)
  
• toothbrush
• toothpaste (sometimes we've done everyone having her own tube, sometimes just one person keeps the tube for the family)

Then each bag is hung in their room on a hook dedicated to this purpose. Again, the exact place isn't important. What is important is having a clearly defined place for their bedtime stuff.

The great thing about doing this preparation early on is that it is clear in the morning if someone is out of clean pyjamas or has a missing toothbrush (though this almost never happens, now) and the problem can be dealt with long before evening. Now, when evening rolls around, we simply tell the littles, "Get your bedtime bags," and bedtime is a breeze.

How about you? How have you dealt with bedtime organization?

Drinking glasses...the mother's dilemma

What is a mother to do?

It is virtually impossible keeping up with the ever-changing 'scientific' opinion of what is safe and what is not. Ages ago (like when we had our first child!) it was perfectly safe to drink out of just about anything, plastic or not. A few years ago, we were warned to get rid of all our plastic water bottles and replace them with polycarbonate (such as Nalgene). Shortly after, we found out that, too, was a big no-no, due to BPA.

We have two problems with drinking glasses in our family. First of all, with so many of us home all day, we can very quickly go through a lot of glasses. This problem we solved by getting every member a stainless steel water bottle that is filled and reused throughout the day. We drink water all day except for breakfast, when milk, juice or fruit smoothies are served. Since I like to keep the bottles for water only, I then had two choices, glass or plastic cups. Because scientists seem to find problems with plastic drinking glasses faster than new types can be invented, we settled on glass. Problem two is that we have ceramic tile in our kitchen and everything breaks on this floor. No kidding...even Corelle dishes! Nevertheless, off to the thrift store I went to collect 25-cent glasses, the strongest ones I could find.

These broke one by one very quickly -- many on our floor, some in our dishwasher and even some just being tipped over on our counter.

I got a fantastic tip to try using small jam jars as glasses! I love them. They are very sturdy, as they are meant to go in and out of boiling water and be reused over and over. They are also easily replaceable should one break. We have been using them for several weeks without a break thus far, though no one has dropped one on our floor, yet. The tip also came with a very handy side-tip which was to use wide elastics to label the cup with the child's name using a sharpie marker. These labels can withstand the dishwasher multiple times.

And...the best part of labelling the jar with the child's name is there is no argueing about whose cup is left on the table after table-clearing time! ;)