Organizing Goals 2012 - #9 A Chore Chart (For Me)

This is the final entry for my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

9. A Chore Chart (For Me): A while back I jokingly mentioned that I need a chore chart for myself. A little gold-star motivation. I've never had a daily (or even weekly) cleaning schedule--I'm more of a clean before company kind of gal-- but I think I need to change that this year. I've seen some great examples of cleaning schedules on Pinterest, and my friend Bethany shared her weekly cleaning schedule recently. I like the idea of having a few things that need to be done every day and then divvying up the rest of the cleaning throughout the week. I always feel like maintenance is nearly impossible in my house between the dogs and the kids and the husband and the unpredictable work schedule, but I think I need to really give it a good effort this year. I always feel so much better when my house is clean. I hate that the messy state of my house is always in the back of my mind. And I've been catching myself a lot lately wanting to invite different people over at the last minute and feeling like I just can't do it. I don't want to be like that! I know my house will never be immaculate, but I do know I can do better. And I'm a sucker for crossing things off a list, so a laminated chore chart may just do the trick!

Organizing Goals 2012 - #4 Reorganize Linen Closet

Each day for the next week or so, I am introducing my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. The first post in the series can be found here.

4. Reorganize Linen Closet: You may remember this before-and-after of my linen closet.  Lately it's been looking more before than after. This closet is also where I store gift wrap supplies, cards and envelops, games, light bulbs, my shoes, and several other odds and ends. It's time to revisit this space and clear out some clutter. My girls' art supplies (Play-Doh, crayons, markers, colored pencils, glue, coloring books, etc.) have been growing exponentially, and I need to find a good storage solution. If you have any great ideas for storing art supplies, pass them along.  I'm considering something like this, which would make them easily portable. And I think a magazine file might be a good way to store the coloring books.

I've got my work cut out for me

Notice my shoes are noticeably absent from the shoe rack.
Apparently they were scared off by the dinosaur. ROAR! 

Organizing Goals 2012 - #1 Organize Storage Room

We are well into January already.  And yes, I'm still writing "2011" on everything.  I've made some organization-specific resolutions/goals for the coming year.  Last year I found I was pretty successful in keeping my resolutions when I introduced them gradually.  This year, I'm hoping to continually move toward each of my goals, and I'm already making some progress.  

Each day for the next week or so, I will introduce my storage/organization/cleaning goals, plans, and progress for 2012. And I will revisit these goals throughout the year as progress is made.

1. Organize Storage Room: 

This is actually one I can almost check off the list.  The new year started with my husband expanding the shelving in our storage/laundry room. He also added shelving for his hunting and fishing stuff and a bench and chairs to create a workspace.  I am relieved to finally have a home for all of those fishing poles and duck calls that inevitably end up on our kitchen counter. Just after we had everything put away in the storage room, my sister sent me several boxes of baby clothes via a visit from my parents.  We are planning on having more children, so we'll hang on to the clothes for now.  I was happy to see there was actually still room for the clothes on the storage shelves. The final to-do in the storage room is to find a place for our pantry overflow.  We stock up at Aldi a few times a year, and whatever doesn't fit in the pantry goes in the storage room.  Previously the food was stored on our shelves (when the floors were covered in stuff). I have my eye on the shelves above our washer and dryer, but they are inconvenient for a shorty like me.  For now, I'm holding off on figuring it out until our next trip to Aldi, which I plan on making in the next couple of weeks. If I were going for perfection, we would have matching plastic storage bins on these shelves.  I'm not going for perfection. I happily used what we had on hand.  Diaper boxes make great boxes for kids' clothes. Down the road I may replace some of the cardboard boxes and bags, but for now it works.

I wish I had a before photo to show you the dramatic transformation, but you'll have to take my word for it.  This is about twelve thousand times better. I can now do laundry without passing through an obstacle course (yay?). On the right side of the room (not pictured) is more shelving, a work table, and the washer and dryer.

On a slightly unrelated note, I've been watching old episodes of Hoarders on Netflix. Have you seen this? It's fills me with anxiety. The episode where the woman hoards perishable food? The one where they remove 8,000 pounds of GARBAGE from one woman's home.  Or when they find 13 dead cats in another home. I've decided, though, that it's not so much the amount of junk, clutter, and garbage that these people are living in that makes this show so heart wrenching. It's the strained relationships. The hopelessness of the loved ones who so desperately want the fog to clear from their father/mother/sister/brother's eyes. It kills me.

Stinky, Dirty Dishcloths Be Gone!

Disclaimer: If you're not at all interested in the resolving the stinky, dirty dishcloth problem or have no idea what I'm talking about, feel free to stop reading here. Visit me another time, though.  I won't always be talking about dishcloths. OK, now that we have that out of the way...

I used to have a problem with dirty dishcloths sitting in the bottom of my sink getting wetter and nastier because I refused to use those gross things again and I hardly wanted to pick them up to even throw them into the washer. I'd inevitably just get a clean one out and leave the old one in the bottom of the sink. But you can only do that so many times before you have an even grosser pile of dishcloths in your sink. Of course, they didn't start out in the bottom of the sink.  I would attempt to wring them out after using them and lay them neatly on the side of the sink or on the faucet to dry out, only to have them slip, fall, or crawl back into the the sink. My husband, on the other hand, just throws them sopping wet into the sink.  Yuck.  It makes me shudder just to think about it.  I get the same feeling when I have to clean food out of the sink drain catch.

Sometime last year I found a gadget that has actually helped.  (Is it still a gadget if there are no moving parts?) The full name is the Umbra Chariot Stainless-Steel Dishcloth Stand and Scrubby Holder Combo, which is a mouthful considering it's just a dishcloth holder.  I bought it in hopes that my husband would see that the dishcloth, indeed, had a home and would put it there.  No such luck, but at least I now have a place to put it.

This is what it looks like empty:

And this is what it looks like when your dishcloth is staying clean and drying out:

This thing really does work. My dishcloths are no longer draped on my faucet getting in the way, falling into the bottom of the sink, or getting wet as I use the faucet. I no longer get that funky dishcloth smell.  I can go a little longer before washing them, and I no longer find my dishcloths repulsive. I think I even wash them more frequently because I not disgusted to pick them up.   

I bought my dishcloth stand in a little home accessories and kitchen gadget shop in my town. I encourage you to check out the little shops in your own town if you're considering buying one.  Or if you cringe at the thought of dragging your kids to said cute little shops (I'm speaking from experience), they are available from Amazon. 

A Summer of Dust, Dog Hair, Grime, and Clutter

This summer I've pretty well fallen off the wagon and into a deep, dark pit of despair when it comes to keeping my house clean.  For eight consecutive weeks I worked more freelance hours than I ever have before, including pre-children, including pre-freelance.  It was an insane experience.  Oh, and did I mention I continued to be a stay-at-home mom while fitting in these hours?  Which meant waking up at 5am and staying up until after midnight many days to work while the kiddos were asleep.  It also meant calling up my babysitter a few times a week, paying her well, and sneaking off to the coffee shop to get in some real focused work time.  In fact, I'm hoping she understands her babysitting fee is hush money.  Please do not tell the neighborhood what kind of slobs we are.  Maybe I can get her to sign a nondisclosure agreement.  Anyway, this all means that all nonessential household chores (anything other than cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, and child care) were put on hold indefinitely. I even went a full month without reading a book.  Shameful.  Here's a little peek at what I've been living with...

Granted, this mess and clutter changed over the weeks, but the general chaos was constant.  It got so bad my husband even did the dishes TWICE!!  That's unheard of around here. 

Do you see my blog's cute vintagey polka-dot background with it's adorable fake dust.  I actually wiped my screen once this past week assuming my computer screen was actually THAT dirty.  Gross. But it wouldn't have surprised me.

So after spending my summer stuck inside reading away at my laptop, this marks my first week with a "normal" workload.  Have you noticed the baking, the cooking, the gardening, and the extra blogging happening here?  My only challenge now is to not go too far in the other direction being lazy and wasting the day at the computer.

I feel like I'm about to gear up for another round of organizing and cleaning.  We've got new furniture coming soon for our living room, and before that comes we're planning on painting.  It will be a good time to give the living room (and the rest of the upstairs) a deep clean. 

There was a great post today from Rachel Meeks at Small Notebook on how to make a room uncluttered while retaining a warm, homey feel.  Rachel sums up the beauty of a clean home perfectly:

When you have clear surfaces, your room is ready to be used. You can come in and set down your drinks and popcorn bowl on the coffee table. You can eat dinner at the table without sitting next to the paperwork. Your bed is ready for you to stretch out on it. The room welcomes you. It’s not a place to hold your stuff, it’s a place where you can live.

That sounds like exactly what we need over here.  Right now I work at our kitchen table, so the table is always cluttered with my laptop, books, my phone, and whatever my daughters have brought me throughout the day.  As a result, my husband often eats on the couch rather than clearing off a spot at the table.  That's not right.  I don't want my house to be a place to hold my stuff.  I want it to be a place where we can LIVE.

Hopefully I'll have some after pics to share soon!

One of Those Days

Yesterday was just one of those days.  The kind of day I wish I could wear headphones and still be an effective parent.  Seriously, I think scientists should study my daughter.  It must be medically significant to be able to talk, sing, laugh, cry, scream, grunt, giggle, groan, holler, and otherwise vocalize astonishingly loudly, nonstop for 12 hours all without the slightest strain of the vocal chords.  I blame my husband; he's the talker in the family.  When I married him I guess I didn't realize I was signing up for that same quality in a three-year-old!
It was also one of those days where after putting the girls to bed and finishing up my freelance work, I finally got a long-overdue shower.  It was lovely.  I enjoyed every minute.  Then I got out, dried myself off, towel-dried my hair, and was half dressed before I realized while one of my legs was baby smooth, the other one sported several days' growth.  Yes, I had only shaved one leg.  So I re-undressed, the towel came off my head, and I went back into the shower one more time.

Have you had one of those days?  Where you forget to shave one leg?

I also learned these fun facts yesterday. 

• Sheets are disgusting.  According to this article, "sheets can contain 0.1 gram of feces, salmonella, and E. coli after just one night's rest. That means they'd collectively contain about 10 billion microbes." And that's nothing compared to the feces party in your carpet.  Seriously.  Disgusting.
• There's a birth control shot for men.  Well, it exists, but approval is still being worked out in India, the home country of the shot's inventor, and maybe in the next year or two the FDA will start it's own research in hopes of eventual approval in the United States.  So basically by the time I'm menopausal, there will be a birth control shot for men.  Sigh.
• I had one more thing, but my browser isn't working to bring up the article.  Basically it was all about the harmful effects of the sun, including the risks of skin cancer.  And since we had a week of 90-degree temps here and I've been outside with my daughters every day in that blistering sunshine, I was suddenly alarmed at the sight of my slightly darkened (compared to the the usual pasty white) arms and ashamed at my previous pride in the first glimpses of a tan in years.  Damn you, sunshine!

Coming soon: Fighting weeds in my garden the lazy way.  And this year I don't mean hiring the neighbor girls to do the weeding.

Freshly Fallen Laundry

image source

So running and jumping in piles of dirty clothes is just as good as the leaves thing, right?  Thank goodness my daughter seems to think so.

Keeping Your Toilet Fresh between Scrubbings

Image Source

Yes, this post is all about the glamorous world of toilet bowl cleaning.  If that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will.  Seriously, as of late this has been a problem in my house.  Ever since my first daughter was sleeping in a bedroom adjacent to the main bathroom and her little ears would pick up on everything, every flush waking her and subsequently making her (and me) cry, we've been more of an "if it's yellow let it mellow" kind of a household (particularly at night).  I've heard all about how this saves water and is therefore good for the environment, but there is a serious drawback: our toilet gets FUNKY!  I'm mean really grody fast.  Ew!  Sorry if this is TMI, but I'm just keeping it real.  So all of this disgustingness had led to me needing to scrub said toilet about three times as often as I normally would.  Notice I'm not actually disclosing how often this is; I'm well aware it's still not as frequently as I should.  But the point is, I was definitely not enjoying the extra work.

That said, I'm happy to report I've found a solution!  It's actually something my husband picked up when I asked him to buy toilet bowl cleaner.  He brought home Comet (Don't ask me why he's convinced Comet is a toilet bowl cleaner.  It is not.  Don't try it!, it will forever turn your toilet bowl blue--I know this from experience, which he still denies.) and a little box of Clorox Automatic Toilet Bowl Cleaner, which does work!  Each box contains two tablets.  After scrubbing your toilet, you drop one in the back of your tank when the water level is low after flushing.  Clorox says it cleans and deodorizes the toilet for up to three months and it repels stains.  According to the product website, it's safe for plumbing and septic systems.  I do occasionally smell a subtle bleach smell from my toilet, but it's ten times better than what I was smelling before.  And now I'm back to cleaning my toilet at my normal leisurely rate (which will remain undisclosed).

I do need to mention that there are plenty of product reviews online that warn that this product harms valves in the toilet.  For now, I'm trusting Clorox and risking it.

If you're reluctant to try the Clorox solution, I've also read that you can use effervescent tablets (think Alka-Seltzer or denture cleaner) dropped in the actual toilet bowl.  You leave them set for 20 minutes and then brush and flush.  But that still requires brushing, so I'm not sure what the benefit would be.  You might as well clean your toilet if you're getting the brush out. 

The same article say a can of cola dumped in and left for an hour works, too.  I swear, our intestines must be indestructible. On a related note, I was this close to spelling it "bowel" instead of "bowl" throughout this entire post.  I'm an awesome speller ;o)

I Love Goop!

Solution to my grease stains?  Drumroll please...

GOOP!

No, I'm not talking Gwyneth.  I'm talking the little tub of wonder, Multi-Purpose Goop Hand Cleaner.  It's been in the back of my mind for a long time; I've seen Goop used for years on grease stains, watching my mom slather it all over my dad's work clothes.  I can still remember the smell.  Yet it never occurred to me to try it for my own tiny spots.  I don't know why.  I finally asked my mom for the details, and remembered to buy some on our last trip to Menards.  It didn't take long for me to find my first test pieces--two shirts, worn layered, that my daughters little greasy fingers pawed.  I was wearing one of the shirts for the very first time. 

Surprise, surprise it worked! 

There's nothing fancy about Goop.  The marketing copy on the side of the container says, "Try it for difficult and stubborn stains on shirt collars, blouses, skirts, slacks, vinyl, canvas, woodwork, rugs."  Apparently there is no limit to which specific item of clothing (or material) it can clean.  Essentially you rub it on the stain, let it sit for 20 minutes, and wash your clothes as you normally would.  The instructions emphasize that both your hands and the material should be dry when the Goop is applied.  It does stink, so I washed my stained shirts in a separate load.  I've since washed some Gooped clothes in a full load and didn't really notice any smell on the other clothes.

It's also non-toxic and biodegradable.  That sounds good, right?

The directions suggest testing for colorfastness, but really once you've got a big grease spot on your shirt this is pretty much your last resort.  Next stop, garbage.

Give it a try.  It's 4 for 4 at my house.

Embracing the Magic

I'm convinced the Magic Eraser was invented just to removed dog slobber from white painted woodwork.  And thank goodness for that.

Also, I found a solution for grease stains that works!  More to come.

Bathroom Drawer Revisited

In a previous post, I added a before photo of the last holdout in my bathroom purge: a bathroom drawer.

And here it is now.

I have no idea why we have such an abundance of oral hygiene products, but we do.  We also have a disturbing number of lighters (11) considering neither my husband nor I smoke.  Actually, a couple times a year he picks up the bad habit for a few weeks.  Apparently he's not good at keeping track of lighters. Anyone have any good ideas for getting rid of them?  Do I just toss most of them in the garbage?  Is that even safe?

Since the bathroom is pretty well in shape now, I'm going to be moving on to my daughter's bedroom.  The biggest obstacles there are a drawer of sentimental stuff (ALL of the cards from my first daughter's birth and a bunch of manuals for baby gear) and her closet (a catchall for all kinds of random family stuff).  Now I'm very practical when it comes to the sentimental stuff.  I have no problem throwing out those cards.  My husband, on the other hand, thinks it's imperative that we keep it all.  I know from experience (thanks, Mom!) that someday we will need to get rid of this stuff; we'll be downsizing to a smaller place or just needing to use our space more efficiently.  And we'll have to pass along this stuff to our daughters.  And then they'll have to find a place to store it.  I've got the proof, handed down by both sets of parents, in our basement storage room (the last room in the project, for good reason).

So, any suggestions on how to handle the sentimental overload and convince my husband it's a good idea to pare down?  Or will I regret it someday?

My Name Is Joanna, and I Have a Problem

I can't put my finger on it.  Something has changed.  Once again, I'm losing steam.  I've learned that, much as in my experience with my children, just as you get into a really good groove, something changes--a new found ability to crawl, climb, or walk, the ability to suddenly reach higher drawers, an incoming tooth, a bad cold, potty training--and things get thrown out of whack.  My maintaining is out of whack.  I'm not sure why.  A busy week?  My husband out of town for a few days?  The sweltering heat and humidity?  New planting and gardening projects? A renewed commitment to exercise?  An increasingly alert (and therefore demanding) baby?  I know that those really aren't good excuses.  I had free time this week.  I read an entire magazine in one sitting, people!  So am I just tiring of the tedium that is housekeeping?  After all, it's one of the things that really is never ending.  I guess the key to to just take it one day at a time.  Is it bad that I'm comparing housekeeping to overcoming addiction?  Huh.  Is there a 12-step program for laziness?

How do you all stay motivated to keep it up day after day?  Ideally a clean house (or at the very least, clean countertops) would be reward enough, and initially it was.  But I'm slipping.

On the positive side, I did get my final bathroom drawer cleaned out this week.  After photo to come.  Granted, this blog is the ONLY reason I cleaned that drawer.  Whatever works, right?

Oh, and I prettified the blog.  Just more proof of my procrastination.  Uff.

UPDATE:  After posting this entry, I looked around at my messy place and immedately started shopping online for a new swimsuit.  What do you do when you want to procrastinate?

I Am Not Alone

So just when I think I must be the messiest, most cluttered person I know, my sister steps up and lets me know I'm actually not.  Case in point, she sent me these pics after my recent bathroom decluttering post:

By the way, this doesn't include her makeup drawer.  I'm still waiting for that photo.  So sister, my loyal blog readers (all 10!) will be looking forward to some "after" photos.  Get to work! 

And in the spirit of total disclosure, I still have one more bathroom drawer to get through.  Take a look:

I'll let you know how it goes.

I Waited 15 Years for This?

A couple days ago, as part of my ongoing bathroom purge project, I got rid of a TON of makeup (most of it never worn out of the house).  It was a sad reminder of all of the dollars I've wasted over the years trying to find the perfect (or at least acceptable) lipstick/eyeshadow/eyeliner.  I wish I had a before photo or even one of all of the crap I threw out, but I don't.  You'll have to take my word for it.  I've talked about this over the last week or so with my best friend, my mom, and my sister.  Apparently I'm not alone here.  We've all got a stash of unused cosmetics.  Why are we keeping them?  We don't use them.  And not only does this extra makeup mean more clutter, my friend reminded me that, for health reasons, we are supposed to get rid of makeup regularly.  I guarantee I won't miss anything I threw out.

I'm pretty sure I've had my old makeup bag since I started wearing enough makeup to warrant a makeup bag (about 15 years).  The problem is that there is nothing wrong with the old one.  Granted, it isn't very cute, but it worked just fine.Tonight, as a reward for clearing out all that old unused makeup, I bought myself a new makeup bag.  I'm not sure it's worthy of having waited 15 years (that's half my life!), but it's cute enough and much better than the old one.   

Before:

After:

The "makeup" drawer I cleaned out looks great.  Other than my "everyday" makeup, I kept only a handful of additional products. They're stashed in a small bag way in back.

P.S. I swear the big banana clip is only for hold back my hair while I straighten it!

P.P.S. Now if I would only get rid of some of the 9 lipsticks stashed in my purse.  One thing at a time.  One thing at a time.

Taking It to the Box

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivewires/ / CC BY 2.0

I'm just about to start working on our upstairs bathroom.  I've been dreading it.  I'm just not ready to face the many, many unused eye shadows, lipsticks, and "free" Clinique makeup bags, but I'll save that for another post. 

One thing in the bathroom that will be quick and relatively easy to take care of is our medicine cabinet.  I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one guilty of buying medicine and then forgetting about it for 5 years or until the next move (whichever is longer).  I remember a bottle of iodine (I don't even know what people use iodine for, but we had it) in our medicine cabinet growing up, it was there for as long as I can remember—at least 15 years or more.  And it was still there when I was graduating college and my parents were moving.  In fact, I'm going to make a point of checking my parents' medicine cabinet for the iodine the next time I'm at their house.  If it's there, I'm going to toss it.  I bet you they'll never notice.

One thing I think I've finally learned is that just because medicine is sold in economy sizes, which may ultimately make the per-pill or per-ounce price cheaper, doesn't mean I actually need the economy size (unless we're talking Tums and I'm pregnant).  After all, medicine does expire.  And not only does it clutter up your bathroom, it's a hazard for kids, and unused medicine can be dangerous to the environment if not disposed of properly.  But it's not just over-the-counter medicine that's the problem.  I've got leftover prescription drugs from the birth of my first child—she's now fully potty-trained—and I've added a whole new batch of the exact same meds from the birth of my second child. 

What's a safe way to get rid of all this excess?  The federal government suggests the following:

1. Check for a local collection program.
2. Check with your pharmacy.
3. Follow the federal guidelines for prescription drug disposal.

Luckily for me, our community has a collection program for prescription and over-the-counter medicine.  So tomorrow (or sometime in the near future), I'll be packing up the reminders of our previous pain and suffering and taking it down to the drop box at our local police station.  And they will dispose of it for me.  I like that!

The Best Gift

From one mom to another, the best gift to give and receive?  A clean house.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I hope you came home from work, ate something yummy, put your feet up, and read your book. Enjoy your clean house.  I was happy to do it for you.  And thanks for always cleaning up my house when you come to visit.

Seriously, why is it always easier to clean someone else's house?

The Solution to My Grease Problem?

As I was roaming around on the Internet in a few minutes of free time yesterday, I found Tide's Stain Brain site.  It's a handy little resource for finding the solutions to all sorts of stains.  Not surprisingly, they recommend Tide for everything.  But they do offer some instructions for exactly how to pre-treat specific types of stains.  They also offer tips for treating stains while on the go (and presumably away from your Tide).  More importantly, they display user-submitted advice, so you can get suggestions that don't necessarily feature Tide. A free Stain Brain iPhone app is available with the same information, useful for when you're away from home. (I hear some people do actually leave their homes once in a while.  Maybe I'll try it sometime.)

It does, indeed, have a solution to my grease stains, but I haven't had a chance yet to put it to the test.  Apparently I've been very careful lately (pats self on back).  I'll let you know how it works when the time comes.

The Babysitter-Cleaning-Time-Saved-vs.-Time-Spent Ratio

I work from home while taking care of my two little girls.  Usually it means I'm working early mornings, late nights, and anywhere I can squeeze in a hour or so between diaper changes, feedings, burping, potty trips, kissed owies, reading, cooking...you get the idea.  It gets particularly challenging when I have a deadline.  For some reason my two-year-old just doesn't understand deadlines.  Go figure.  When I start stressing out over an impending deadline, my husband loves to suggest I hire a babysitter. Brilliant idea! We have three available right on our cul-de-sac. The babysitter will come, I will work, and my deadline woes be damned.  Then I open my eyes, take a look around, sniff the stale air of my dirty house, and quickly equate the babysitter-cleaning-time-saved-vs.-time-spent-ratio.  It goes something like this:

Time saved  = Hours babysitter comes − Time spent consoling sad toddler who doesn't want mommy to go − Time spent frantically cleaning to make the house presentable − Time spent nursing baby (babysitter can't do that one)

Let's fill this in with the figures from a typical day:

Time saved = 3 hours − 15 minutes − 1 hour 15 minutes − 30 minutes

Time saved = 1 hour

Now it gets tricky.  You see, I've now paid the babysitter for 3 hours.  Is this three hours of pay less than my pay for the 1 hour of productive work time?  Yes, but not by much.  Call me lazy, call me crazy, but sometimes it's just not worth it.  Now I've tried explaining this to my husband, but he still loves to throw out the babysitter as the answer to all of my problems.  One day it will be.  I'm hoping once school is out (when my babysitters are readily available) I'll be far enough along in my project to knock that 1 hour of frantic cleaning down to a solid 15 minutes.  And that will make for some pretty sweet math.

There's an App for This

About a month ago, before I started this whole housekeeping project, I discovered the HomeRoutines Task Management iPhone app.  (I have a bad habit of browsing the Apple App Store when I have nothing better to do.)  I immediately downloaded it.  HomeRoutines has all sorts of fabulous features for those who like to check tasks off a list as they progress through their day, with a strong emphasis on housekeeping.  I've always been a cleaning list-maker.  Usually listed by room and then marked for priority, my cleaning tasks just seem to multiply when I write them down on paper.  And I like that--the more detailed, the better.  Yes, I could just write down "clean bathroom," but I feel so much more productive when I:

• pick up bathroom
• wipe counter
• clean sink
• clean mirror
• dust
• clean toilet
• sweep floor
• mop floor
• empty trash
• clean shower

And who wouldn't?  That's what's so great about HomeRoutines--it's completely customizable.  You can make your cleaning routine as simple or as extensive as you like.  And you still get the satisfaction of adding that check mark (actually, it's a star) to each item as you go.  It's got lots of other helpful features, including zones of focus, a timer (quick, sweep that floor!), and the ability to sets daily and weekly tasks, as well as a general To Do list.

Now it's confession time.  I haven't actually been using the app...YET.  I will.  But trust me, I'm starting way behind, here.  As I've said before, my goal is to work through the house room by room, purging, organizing, cleaning, and maintaining.  Once I've tamed this beast of a house, I think HomeRoutines will be a good daily motivating tool for keeping the mess under control.

Pulling back the Covers

I've decided it's time I act like a grown-up and start making my bed every morning.  I didn't say this housekeeping challenge was rocket science, people. This is a habit many people pick up when they are just wee ones. I was not one of those kids. I've never been a morning bed maker.  My excuse used to be that I often left for the day before my husband was out of bed.  When I started working from home, I decided that the dogs would just mess it up anyway, so what's the point? (That is, indeed, my dog in the photo, demonstrating my argument rather nicely.) And now with a toddler, I could use the same excuse.  But now that the dogs aren't nearly as playful as they once were and my little girl usually just slips under the covers for a mellow game of pretend sleep, I'm running out of excuses. I honestly think it just doesn't occur to me to make the bed in the morning.  Seriously, I'm lucky just to get myself dressed for the day. 

You may have noticed I said I'm not a "morning bed maker."  What other kind of bed making is there?  I make my bed at night, right before I get under the covers.  I like it to be nice and neat and put together properly.  I guess I will just move that step up about 17 hours, and I'll be golden.  So, from this day forward, I will make a conscious effort to make my bed every morning and keep my countertops clean.