A Bundle of Myrrh

Okay, so the title of this post is a little misleading. I do not pretend to be giving OTHERS lessons in homemaking (at least not for FREE!). This is a series of posts for me mostly and hopefully you won’t mind reading too. If not for just a laugh then maybe to get some of you to share what you have learned as a homemaker with me!

Homemaking seems to be a process of trial and error, changing and adapting and hopefully of growing as a mother and wife. It’s a vocation I take very seriously. As Martin Luther said, homemaking is a golden and noble work.

“A wife too should regard her duties in the same light, as she suckles the child, rocks and bathes it, and cares for it in other ways; and as she busies herself with other duties and renders help and obedience to her husband. These are truly golden and noble works.”

I’m continually looking for ways to better my “systems” to make things go smoother, to simplify and to eliminate as much chaos as I can in my day. So I thought I’d write down which methods I’m trying right now in order to remember them, review them and see what is working or what isn’t and maybe to find something new for whatever isn’t. I’ll start by looking at the fun part of my day, chores!

HOUSEKEEPING

I did finally decide that what was NOT working for me. I had been trying to do the “additional” housework (that would be everything other than dishes and throwing laundry in to wash) while the children are awake. I was constantly fighting against them to get things done, constantly dealing with distraction and getting more and more frustrated everyday with what I wasn’t able to get done. My new rule is to only do what absolutely MUST be done until the girls are in bed. That would be the cooking, cleaning up from cooking, washing clothes (since I do at least 2 loads a day) and if the girls are playing happily I fold and put away what I can.

After 8pm I get to everything else that I have assigned for that particular day. I never wanted to do this since by 8pm I am pooped mentally and physically and just want to relax, but I found that within 45 minutes I can get SO MUCH done and by 9 o’clock I’m free (unless Gerhardt is particularly fussy)! What takes hours with babies around I breeze through without them. Knowing that I’ll have time in the evening to clean takes some stress off of me during the day, so I’m able to spend time with the babies and be more attentive to their constant needs. My stress level has gone way down.

It helps my mental state to break things down and assign them to categories; Daily, Weekly and Monthly. I even have Quarterly and Yearly categories. This way I know that eventually all the things that are dirty will get cleaned so I can put them out of my mind until their “due dates”!

Here is my Daily cleaning list:

Laundry – Washing, Folding, Putting Away

Sweep and wipe table – morning and evening

Dishes – ALL DAY

Straighten up living room before bedtime using Basket System

My Weekly cleaning schedule:

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Menu Plan	Wash Diapers	Mop Kitchen	Wash Diapers	Our Bathroom	Wash Diapers	Straighten our room
Downstairs	Dust + Cobwebbs	Change all sheets	Children’s Bathroom		Scrub sink	Straighten nursery
	1-2 Monthly Tasks				Mop Kitchen

And my Monthly cleaning list:

Clean Microwave

Vacuum

Wipe down washer and dryer

Clean fridge inside and outside

Dust in kitchen

Wash kitchen cabinets

Organize something; Laundry room, Pantry, Notebooks, Linen closet, Hall closet, Shoes in closet

If something comes up and I miss a day of cleaning I just adjust the remaining days of the week to accommodate those tasks or if they aren’t that big of a deal I may put them off until next week.

So, what have you found to work best when getting chores done?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Homemaking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.