New Year's Goal

New year's goal this year is to have a cleaner and more organized home. I love having a clean home but for some reason it doesn't happen very often. It's like I go in spurts or something, one day the house is clean and then the next it's dirty and it stays that way and builds up until I am like "okay, it's time to clean this house". Why can't I clean my house and keep it clean? I always list off reasons in my head when my house is dirty to make myself feel better like how i have a two year old, or how I don't have a dishwasher, or if I clean it will make me neglect other important things that i need to do that day. So I came up with a plan to make a once a week, six hour house clean up into an hour to hour-and-a-half house clean up each day...

First I made a list of all the rooms in my house and listed under each room what needs to be done to make it deep-cleaned and spotless. I also created a list of "other" things that  would need to be done like laundry and grocery shopping. I then decided to do something each day of the week, a "chore." Some days of the week have multiple things for that day, so i combined easier things together. So each day, i now have a room or two as a daily chore but what about the rest of the house? I need to have time to clean up all the messes made through out the day. Oh - and what about dishes?

I will have two 30 minute clean up times - one in the middle of the day right before or during my son's nap and then a second one right before and after my son goes to bed. Now the "right-befores" would be if vacuuming needs to be done. I try and have Ollie help clean up his toys so i don't normally count that into my time. I will if i am doing it alone. So that gives me an hour of clean up time and a daily deep clean chore each day. Now to me that seems doable, that gives me time to clean but doesn't make me have to do it all in one day, each day!!

I have a second list that has all the things that I want to organize from the small to the big that I have also thrown in to do biweekly. I think once I get those all done, I will repeat the list because I am sure they will need it again and again and again.

I have been doing this for one week so far and I am loving it!!! I have had people stop by to give me back borrowed stuff or drop off late Christmas presents, and I have not felt embarrassed by how my house looks or just talked to them in the door way but invited them into my home. We had some friends over for dinner and I didn't have to spend hours getting my house clean. Or when I cook dinner, I don't have to make space on the counter or was a dish needed to make dinner. Like I said, I am loving it!!!

The Dreaded Chore

I have mentioned before that I am a stay at home mom. My day is full of tending to my son, cleaning the house and other such things and love it! But I have something that I hate to do, I do everything else before doing this one thing. I am sure that you guys have one too?! Mine is the dreaded DISHES!

The last place we lived had a dishwasher and it was so easy to just load it through out the day, run it after dinner and unload it in the morning. Making it very convenient to keep the kitchen clean.  Here we do not have the same luxury. I feel like I have to wash dishes all day to keep the kitchen clean. Or let the dishes build through out the day and wash them all after dinner which always takes so long. Lately I have found myself putting them off more and more and letting them build. 

So I do all sorts of things trying to procrastinate doing them (like blogging). I even now like folding laundry more then dishes and would do that all day to not wash dishes. When all else is done or when the counter is getting to cluttered with dishes, I then head into the kitchen to clean in there. I stack up the dishes, clean off the counters, wash the stove, sweep and mop all before I delve into the dishes. 

I don't know why I hate doing them so much and I wish I could just get over it and do them everyday and not let them build up little by little. I love cooking and even more so when the kitchen is clean. Which of course cooking makes more dirty dishes. It's a viscous cycle that I know I can't escape.  I need to come up with some type of routine or some way to stay more on top of them. The next place we live will have a dishwasher!