September Busy-ness and Some Baby News Thrown In

I'm sure that as soon as I get into writing this post, John will decide his nap is over, but I'll start anyway.  :)  We have been into our homeschooling schedule for about three or four weeks now.  I'm pleased to say that it is actually rather enjoyable, the kids have declared they "love math!", and the house is in no more disarray than it usually is.

Today, instead of jumping into our usual homeschooling day, I planned a housecleaning day.  I've been intrigued by this idea of once-a-month cleaning.  I have the suspicion that I probably only get around to changing the sheets, scrubbing the tub, or mopping the living and dining rooms about this frequently (or less), so it wouldn't be a radical change.  But by doing it all at once and scheduling it in, I wouldn't have to feel guilty about not checking these things off the weekly to-do list for weeks on end.

Of course, instead of actually getting into the actual cleaning, I instead opted to clean up from the massive explosion of clothes upstairs as necessitated by (a) the weather and (b) my new shape—wow, wait!  I've been so busy homeschooling, etc., that I haven't announced why I have a new shape.

Yes, we are expecting Number Four!

(Did I really just say four?)  I am due March 14 (anyone want to hope for a St. Patrick's Day baby?).

OK, so with that out of the way, back to the clothes.  I sorted through many random laundry basket, have resolved to get myself a dresser (rather than the baskets-under-the-bed-and-in-the-closet "system" I've had for a while), laundered two loads of towels and have a lights load ready and waiting for me to get off the computer, fed us all lunch, straightened the kitchen counter, and got the dishwasher running.  I'm even dressed, showered, and somewhat groomed!

(I'm mainly typing this out to convince myself that I have more to show for my morning than two loads of towels!)

So, I now hear the boy waking up—that's my cue to get the next load of laundry in and then get him.  I hope to get back here soon with a photo of our new living room wall art!  :)


 

Maintenance Laundry Day: Recovering from laundry paralysis

First Load: Outfits to last until the next available laundry day (I use the laundry on Mon, Wed, and Fri, so my list reflects that):

• 2 complete outfits per family member (don't do what I did and forget Dad!)
• 2 pairs underwear per person (add undershirts, etc., as desired)

This is the bare minimum.  I added these optional, but helpful, items:

• 1 pair pajamas per person
• 1 swimsuit per person (we're going to the beach—I hope!—at the end of the week)
• 1 church-worthy ensemble per person (that way I'm not surprised with nothing respectable in their closets if I we can swing Wednesday evening Vespers)
• a few extra onesies for messy babies
• as much additional underwear as fits!

Second Load: Towels

•  Kitchen towels or bath towels—whichever is most dire

Third Load: Sheets

•   Master bed sheets (unless another bed literally is unfit to be slept in)

This is what I did on Monday.  I read a tip (probably a comment somewhere on Like Mother, Like Daughter) to do the one outfit per person part when you have a mountain of laundry to do.  There are few things more frustrating than spending a good part of one day doing loads and loads of laundry and to wake up the next morning and find that you managed not to actually clean an entire outfit that actually matches!

I plan to sort the rest of it today so that it's all ready to go in the wash tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I'm so relaxed knowing that I have clothes for today and tomorrow!  I may even make my first load tomorrow another one which I know contains enough outfits to get us to Friday.  Or maybe I should just start with the bottom of the basket first.  ;)

A School Room of Their Own

Does the "to have a school room or not to have a schoolroom" debate just seem endless to you?  I've been on both sides for awhile.  I thought the idea of a dedicated school room sounded lovely.  A little table.  Surrounded by bookshelves.

But then, downstairs, we literally did not have a room to spare.  We did school at the dining room table.  I enjoyed being in the heart of our home (we spend so much time at the dining room table), in the company of our icon corner, being startled to discover that my kids really wanted to learn things from me and actually listened to what I had to say a good part of the time.  As long as I didn't go on too long....

The Entrance of the Theotokos Feast Day Box from Orthodox Christian Craft Supply.  How we love these—must order a few more for the Fall.

But then we moved upstairs and gloriously found ourselves in the possession of more rooms!  A dedicated floor for bedrooms!  Even if there are only really two rooms up there.  And you have to walk through the first to get to the second.  And there's no bathroom up there.  But still!  Lying in our giant king-sized bed (which had formerly been squeezed into a typical Chicago apartment bedroom—I kid you not, we could not even close the door) in our giant master bedroom, looking up at the sloping ceilings because, yes, really, it is the attic of the building: well, it is like this blissful cocoon in which to slumber and forget about the stresses of the day lingering a flight of stairs below.

The little not-really-insulated-heated-or-air-conditioned back room that had been (downstairs) my husband's office was freed to be something else, and since my kitchen is awkwardly filled with doors and doesn't exactly have room for a table, we settled on the back being a breakfast nook.

Breakfast by candlelight on a dark snowy day

And it really did a lovely job of being that.

Our view of snow-covered garage roofs, which I quite like.

But in my quest to provide some order to my house and not always have piles everywhere, I gradually begin to remove the kid things from the living and dining rooms.  Out went the tiny toys in the corners of the windowsills, the bag of blocks, the kids' books that were always just being pulled off the shelf into a pile by the baby.  (Don't worry, there were still some kid books down there.  I love to see my kids poring over books!)

I thought that doing that, combined with confining them to the back of the house when I couldn't be mentally present to chaperon them in the adult living areas would do the trick.

But their homeschooling stuff and craft supplies were still out there.  Any time they wanted to make a drawing of a sun with girl eyes and legs or cut a piece of paper into infinite tiny bits, there it was on my dining room table (and floor) to be picked up mostly by me when I'd surfaced from whatever consuming household chore or project I had happened to have been engrossed in at the time.

An answer came to me slowly.   After a visit to a friend's house that contains a small school room in the back of her house, the thought, Move the school stuff.  Make the breakfast room into a school room, began to float in the back of my mind.  Rather, it nagged.

The breakfast room was really difficult to keep clean of food debris after all.  The table had awkward gate legs that were hard to sweep around and it is a tight space for that big table and all that seating.

I began looking on craigslist for a tall table and stools to replace the chopping block cart/island in the kitchen.  Then we could eat small meals in there if we wanted to.  (For a picture of what I found, go back one post to this one.  Scroll down awhile to see the table.  Just yesterday, I picked up two more stools so now Mommy can sit down and eat too!  Very important!)

Then I did it!  I moved the table to the other side and folded up one side of it to make some room.

(Goodness, I am finally getting to the point of this post!!)

This is just after I cleaned the floor.  But nothing has been put back on the corner shelf yet.  The table is full of little projects the kids have come up with: Feast Day Boxes, sorting beads into cups—I love what they do of their own leading!

Then we moved a corner shelf—which we call the "homeschool shelf" and which had not been hitherto residing in a corner in the upstairs apartment— into the only available corner in this room.

Nothing organized yet....

I sort of let the kids run amok in there for several days.  I have to go through and toss or store what doesn't apply to this year.  I also had to actually order this year's books but that is finally done (mostly!) so I didn't want to waste time "organizing" when I was really procrastinating from getting our actual books.

She turned and made this face just as I clicked the button, I swear.

Yesterday, I shooed the big kids outside while I attacked the floor of this room.  I wish I had a before picture!  Just imagine the above table contents (but individual items about 90% bigger, as not to be choking hazards for Baby John) all over the floor.  But one of the organizational ideas I had was this:

Blocks in one, random baby-friendly toys in the second, little board books in a third (unpictured).

I'll get back to you on whether this system has any merits!

I know this post has gone on forever already, but here are a few other corners I wanted to show.  I was browsing Like Mother, Like Daughter (when am I not?) for some motivation to get back into our routines and schooling very soon, so clicked on the "education" category and found one on Nature Tables.

So I repurposed the top of this tiny bookshelf to serve as such for the time being.  We'll need more space later on, and maybe I'll get a bookshelf to put between the tiny one and the homeschool one.  But this will do for now.

Let's see rocks (top left and continuing clockwise) from Grandma and Grandpa's house, wooden cross from craft shop, jar of shells from a lake at a camp I went to as a girl and from beaches in France (!), acorns and buckeye from a nature walk at the start of school last year.  Small collection, but we had no place to display them until now!  We'll add to it this year.

Of course, nothing prompts interest like a new arrangement!

So that, mostly, is that!

Here's a fuller view of that side:

The little chaos-maker himself on the floor....

School should be extra interesting with John around this year.

Thank you, Auntie Leila, for the motivation to make many of these changes and for this post on educating children at home in particular!

A Less Messy Entry

I can't quite bring myself to call it something along the lines of "pretty," but I'm joining a linky over at Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Here are the befores:

 

 This is what awaits just around the corner of the backdoor.  It's not really where guests come in unless they've gotten a ride from us (which happens), but it is where my husband comes in every day, and I think it's important to spruce up what he sees first.

Why does everything end up here?  There's about half a square foot of space there and for some reason, that's where I unload my purse as I'm coming or going.  I do like to store my purse on this thing, mainly because I just need somewhere in the kitchen for it to live (there's a tiny bit of entrance hallway—which I may show you later if the kids don't all mutiny at once while I'm writing this—but it is already quite tight).

But this is not what I have in mind for it, generally.  

Notice this little book in the middle of the chaos?  Confessions of an Organized Housewife.  Clearly, I need this book.

So, I don't have any pictures of the process, but I took everything off of the cabinet and sorted it into piles.  I had the idea that the piles needed storage here somehow, that that was why they were there.  I even went searching for this odd organizer thingy I'd made a while back.

But you know what, as I sorted, 90% of the stuff could just be put away on this floor.  I did repurpose a little basket for all the tiny toys and kid stuff that ends up down here somehow and that needs to go back upstairs.

Here's what I came up with:

That is where the purse usually lives.  But look just above the purse.  There's a cute little head up there....
 

Let's pause for some cute baby.

 

Boy, do I know I'm cute or what?

OK, back to organizing.

So, I don't really consider this "pretty" or even ideal, but at least it is neat.  

I think I'm going to have to say goodbye to that island thing next to the cabinet and then I'll need some more storage over there....

There.  Not too bad.  Don't like the radio antenna hanging all over, but it's the only way to get reception.  Also don't really like the stuff on top of the radio and speakers, but again, it's neat.

Here's the rest of the first view of the kitchen from the back door:

So from that picture, the whole kitchen just looks covered in dishes.  And it is.  I could give you the excuse that I'm sick (which I am), but even when I'm not, the evening and bedtime circus often leaves the kitchen this way.  But you know what makes it instantly better, if only slightly? 

Clean table.  Ah.  At least it doesn't look completely out of control now.

And just for good measure, here are few other views, of which I do not have before shots:

This is the aforementioned tight back entrance.  No room for a big bulky purse/diaper bag.  I severely edited what is hanging on this thing.  It's somewhat necessary right here, but it's also what you see right when you come in.

I have since mopped those back stairs, which really brightens my day when I open the back door.  But picture that landing nearly covered with boxes.  I decided that it just clogged up my life to have things living down there.  That one remaining box is full of glass bricks and I'll have to get one of the men in my life to move it.

Hmmm... I need a better shot to end this post with.....

That's better.  This is slightly related to entries since it's one of the first things you see when you enter my front door.  It's fun because I really like those pillows and because I repurposed a duvet cover to cover that couch.  The arms are still bare, but they actually match the blue of the checks, so it works!

***************Addendum******************

You know, I keep wishing I'd done the real front guest entry... but it really is just a door into the living room which views my desk of all things!  I am terrible at keeping THAT clean.  Here are the before and after pics of that:

Before: kinda cluttered.  A pile on the desk.  And while I like that display of cards, it just looks like a mess in this photo.  Maybe I should edit it?  

Desk pile cleared... but really... what to do when you just walk into my living room and dining room?  I've relocated most of the toys and kids books (which I'm not so sure about because I like to watch them lounge around reading...) and the school stuff is now in our cute little schoolroom, which I should show you all when it gets organized.  Part of the problem is that when I go online for something, the kids sort of run amok behind me.  Maybe if I started bringing the computer into the back half of the house and stuck to Aunt Leila's rule about confining the kids (and myself when online!) then maybe that part of the house would stay tidy?  Thoughts?

{pretty, happy, funny, real} Reasonably Clean

I have something I've wanted to write about for a long time.  It's nothing deep or weighty—just one of those every day ramblings about housework.  The photos will have nothing to do with that (or almost nothing).  There is just so much to do every day that spending a long amount of time blogging just doesn't happen.  It's thanks to Leila's idea for {pretty, happy, funny, real}, that I do any blogging at all lately!

{pretty}

Two out of three in their Pascha (Easter) best.  This was actually taken on Bright Wednesday since on Pascha proper, they were all asleep by the time I thought to take any photos.

What I wanted to write about, though, is this.  Awhile back, I stopped doing housecleaning "systems."  I've done FlyLady, I've tried rigid schedules, and finally, I just stopped them all.  Instead, I vowed, I would clean things when they were dirty.

It seemed that with any kind of imposed system, I was training myself to ignore dirt.  I tend to have this problem in lots of areas of my life.  I ignore the time on the clock, the crying baby in the playpen, the alarm on my phone going off under my pillow—all because I don't feel like attending to it.  With housecleaning, I talk myself out of needing to do it right then because it doesn't fit into my "system."

So, with the "no system" system, I simply look around, and if it's dirty, I clean it.  No talking myself out of it unless it's truly dinner time, bedtime, or time to leave for somewhere.

 {happy}

These are the bay leaves that are thrown around the church on Holy Saturday.  As soon as I put John down in them that morning, his face lit up with delight.  He didn't know where to crawl first.  Of course some of them went in his mouth, but they're just spices, right? 

Now, I'm not truly satisfied with this way of doing things, but I think I needed the step to sort of tune up my awareness of mess.  I'm incredibly indebted to FlyLady's system as a beginning point.  When you have absolutely no idea where to start, go there.  She told me exactly what to do and my house was a whole lot better than when I was doing nothing because I was so overwhelmed.  But I also noticed that I never seemed to finish anything.  With all the timers and not doing "too much," I never actually seemed to get anything to the point where it was actually clean.

I do understand that a huge part of her system is not being a perfectionist (which is, amazingly, what often causes me to do nothing) so I see the value of learning to do a "good enough" job.  But I was coming to the point where I knew what a clean floor was, and with her way, I never had one.  Maybe I was doing it wrong, but I wanted to actually spend as long as it took doing the floor occasionally.  I suppose she does provide for those tasks somewhat with her daily missions, but since I am terrible at doing anything every day, I would often skip the missions because inevitable adding them to my life would cause me to "crash and burn."

{funny}

This kid will not leave the DVD player/VCR alone.  Doesn't matter what I put in front of it—he is obsessed.

Getting back to my "non-system," though, I knew it was lacking—things were going too long between cleanings, and I knew I could be more regular about it.  Plus, I needed to be able to set aside time for homeschool.  I'd noticed some things about my laundry that were starting to fall into a sort of routine.  We'd gotten rid of enough clothes so that the task wasn't as daunting and actually needed to be done at least weekly instead of me being able to stretch it to two or more weeks without really doing it completely.  I also started to finish it up by Saturday so I didn't have to do it on Sundays. 

I finally thought I could handle some kind of schedule without falling apart, so I went back to one of Leila's Reasonably Clean posts—The Moderate Clean: Two secrets to keeping your house on track.  I was a bit nervous about this, but I sat down with a pen and pad of paper and tried to make a system out of it.  One thing I realized was that I still hardly ever "cleaned. the. room."  (Quoting my Dad.  It drove us nuts when we were kids, but we'd ask if we were done cleaning, and he would inevitably respond, "Clean. The. Room.  Listen to the words.  When the room is clean, you're done."  Makes a lot more sense to me now!)

{real}

Notice the artful stacking of these dirty bowls from smallest to largest?

So, here's what I pulled out of her post:

• I need to clean up (blitz) the house every day.  Blitz!  That implies quick!
• Most of my hard work each day should be in one zone.
• In zone cleaning, I need to "clean. the. room." Begin by putting things away, removing things that aren't supposed to be there, getting the room into an ideal (or passable) organizational state, and then actually clean (as in dust, sweep, maybe even mop!) the room!  Now, this probably won't need to be done weekly in each zone, but at least I should assess the room (with my new-found "dirt awareness") weekly from the aspect of "is it clean?" and daily from the aspect of "is it passably tidy?"

I did come away with a schedule of sorts, but I'm also being very flexible with that.  Yesterday was not supposed to be kitchen day, but I felt like the kitchen hadn't been truly clean in weeks, so I went there yesterday—and finally figured out how to clean our toaster oven (by... um... scrubbing it.... I'm a slow learner).  Basically, I'm making the zones fit my actual house and how much I can do in a day (or week) and I'm making the schedule flexible as dictated by what is actually dirty.  But the schedule is there so I don't neglect to truly clean, say, the bathroom (as opposed to a quick wipe-down) for a couple of weeks!

The thing I'm trying to figure out is how she gets it all done in an hour (including dishes and laundry!) every day.  It gives me a good goal in that I need to work faster and that I need to be OK with "good enough" in some aspects and just move on to the other things in life.  And I'm sure that after these days of initial cleaning after a period of neglect, the work will go faster on subsequent days.

If you made it this far, bless you!  Here's your bonus photo:

 {just because}

Someone having a blast at the Chicago Children's Museum.  His gap-toothed smile is SO. CUTE.  ARGH!

My personal bonus in all this thought about housekeeping is that after truly cleaning something, life is actually easier! Whee!  For example, it's so much easier to cook in a clean, orderly kitchen!  And I certainly don't feel like I was lazy.  I'm even a little bit sore from all that scrubbing!

Winter Sunshine

Perusing one of my favorite blogs, Like Mother Like Daughter, and I just read this:

So much of how we live the spiritual side of our lives as mothers and wives has to do with how we live the feeding and clothing side. Since that's inescapable, I long ago decided to embrace it.

That is one of the reasons I love her blog.  Down to earth, traditional Christian, practical, and so sweet!  The post that quote is from is something like preparing for Easter or something (which, crazily enough, isn't as far away as it seems!) but that little paragraph leaped out at me.

It's a good day here.  Sunshine is streaming through the windows, the kids all slept in this morning, so I could take a shower and blow dry my hair, and the house looks so clean and spacious after removing the Christmas decorations.  Plus, I just started a seasonally appropriate decorating project that I'll share with you when I've finished it.  It's great to have a project to work on when you don't feel like reading and learning something any more.  Use your hands!  I now have a craft cabinet, a craft bag (alas, full of unfinished Christmas ornament presents that are slowly being finished—should I mail them out super late, or send them along next year?), and a basket full of my aforementioned project in progress.

There's a sneak peak into my project.  Can you guess what it is?  There's another hint in the top photo.  Look above the TV.

All these physical things contribute to my good mood.  The clean house, the ongoing project, the sunshine.  I can't just think myself into a good frame of mind.  I can't ignore these physical things and their impact on my soul—which is I think what Dear Aunty Leila was saying with those two little sentences quoted above.

Anyway, it is now 10AM and time for some small amount of school here.  Some letter practice, a math activity (butterfly mosaics? board games? Cuisinaire rods?). We read about Saint Simeon from Christina's True Heros, by Maria Khoury during breakfast this morning.  Maybe we'll get some kind of project or activity in this afternoon, but it doesn't usually happen.  I do want to continue working on our Creation Book from The Garden of the Theotokos curriculum.  We'll finish it eventually.

Hope you are all staying warm and cozy in spite of this:

A photo of our street from the recent Thundersnowpocalypse on Wednesday morning.

Happy Feast of the Presentation!

Somebody is making it difficult for me to write blog entries.

Can you guess which one it might be?  These first two photos are deceiving because the Little One looks happy.

That's more like it!  Actually, he's quite the happy baby.  Loves to smile at everyone.  But he doesn't like to nap for more than thirty minutes at a time.  And interestingly, the length of time he's been doing things this way corresponds to the length of time since my last blog entry.  Huh.

At least he falls asleep quickly.  And he does take four or five naps a day now.  But I got kinda spoiled by him taking usually two one and a half hour naps and one thirty minute nap.  Thirty minutes is not much of a break or much of a chance to get things done. 

Somehow, I feel like I've been really productive since we started homeschooling again after the holidays, though.  We moved to a slightly larger apartment the week before Christmas (it was just upstairs, so don't pity us too much, but it was still rather disruptive), and since we moved, laundry and housecleaning have fallen into place a lot better.  It helps that the kids now have a large playroom upstairs and that most of their toys stay up there (per parental request).  For some reason, I seem to have found a system of laundry that works well for me.  I've also found a system (method? technique? set of expectations?) of homeschooling that I am comfortable with.  I'll write about those things sometime if The Boy ever decides to start napping.

But right now, I think he's just soiled his diaper.  Such a cute little interruption, though.  Well, not the soiling part.  But he's a cute Little Boy.

Missing

Missing the mark.

Missing blogging.

Missing cleaning.

I miss writing.  I think in blog posts.  But then the baby cries or wakes up or the girls start hitting each other. So I've been avoiding (most days) writing while the kids are up.  But then who wants to blog when one's husband is finally home from work and the kids are asleep?  Well, obviously, many people.  But I'd rather spend time with my husband and probably some Doctor Who.

Did I mention my computer eats half of the words I type because of the way I hold my wrists on it most of the time, which makes it somehow select part or all of what I wrote and delete it with the word I am typing at that moment?  My hands have the "Undo" keyboard shortcut on speed dial.  That adds precious seconds to the amount of time it takes me to type out a thought, by which time all the kids are probably screaming.  It's just the season I'm in.

Another thing I'm missing is having a clean home.  It's "new normal" around here, and at the moment, "normal" seems to be dirty.

Yuck.

You know what I think the hardest part about having a lot of kids is (so far anyway, with my whole five years of experience here)?  It's not having another person in your family.  It's having another baby around.  Again.  And another one.  And a fifth time.  It's having to pause all your homemaking progress, and get really efficient, yet again, because a little person needs you quite often, but you still need to make the other people dinner.  Good thing my body makes the baby dinner.  Great thing that I have such a helpful, patient husband.

And trust me, it's great to have an excuse to put my feet up in my comfy über-pillowed papazan chair-nest, grab a book and my too-many-times-microwaved coffee, and nurse my son who gulps and stares up at me with giant eyes while his feet somehow manage to turn in so that they are sole-to-sole and just sort of stay there like he's holding his hands except they are his feet... what was I talking about?  Was I cleaning something before I sat down?  Eh.  I'll just read another chapter of H.M.S. Surprise and hope the girls keep playing quietly with that pile of sponges.  Or play money.  Or cups of water. 

Why are there puddles all over the house?

Sigh.

The last thing I want to do right now is do things I don't want to do.  However, those things still "need done."

My littles are big enough to be learning how to help, and they are, but they aren't quite big enough to really take much of the burden.  So, I have to bite the bullet and adhere to some standards.  While I'd like to believe that allowing myself to cook breakfast, say morning prayers, and read to my kids in my PJs is the key to getting things done around here (boy, does that look silly typed out), that means that I am sweaty and in my PJs drinking lukewarm coffee at my computer until the kids start fighting around 9:30AM (or earlier... or later).  I finally jump in the shower, jump out to nurse the baby who has, by now, awakened from his morning nap.... Finally, we end up starting school around 10:30 (or later... certainly not earlier), when we really need to break to make lunch at 11:00 or I will die of hunger.  (Nursing, remember?)

I need a higher standard.  I know my kids are little and I just had a baby four months ago.  But is it the kids needing me that keeps me in my PJs?

No.

It is the coffee and the computer calling to me for just a few minutes while they are playing....

And what do I see on the screen?  Photos that tempt and blogs that convince and what I end up doing ultimately is spending money to buy the order that will only come from me tackling my stuff.  Yes, italics and bold.

I just read these words at Like Mother, Like Daughter:

You need to clear your mind of all those perfect magazine pictures and find your own order.

Oh.

Yes.

Yes, I do.  It's OK to let those blogs and pictures draw me into communities that I love and inspire me to make my home a better place or to buy a product that will serve me well and make my life easier.  I live in the denim skirt I bought after reading Matushka Emily's Early Autumn Wardrobe post.  But I need to address the stuff I already have that is clogging my house and my life to really find that peace and order I am craving.

Leila also asks,

Are you getting up on time?

I haven't even read that post yet but I know I need to.  (And I need to fix my computer.  I just did the "Undo" speed-dial no less than four times for that sentence.)

I know that getting sleep and getting up is part of the key.  I need to get back to having a goal to get up on time, get showered and dressed at a reasonable moment in my day (maybe it won't be before breakfast, but it sure as heck should be before I meander over to the computer and lose half-to-all of my homeschooling day... and yes, my kids are little, but we need the good habits now), and get breakfast on the table before my husband is out the door.

I don't want to beat myself up about not sticking to some ridiculous schedule written to the minute, but I want some ideals.

Tomorrow (well, today for anyone reading this... well, today for me now that it's after midnight, I suppose), my dear wonderful husband is taking the girls on some errands.  John and I will be home alone together.

First, I'm going to get us all our something-with-syrup Saturday breakfast and get our naps and showers and prayers taken care of.

Then, I'm going to think about how to have a Reasonably Clean House by starting with the master bedroom.  I've had a hunch for a few weeks now that I need to pay more attention to that room, and Leila wonders

So, although Flylady has you start with your kitchen sink, and certainly, much has to happen before the sink gets shiny, which makes her idea clever, I wonder:

If you start in the kitchen, will you ever leave?

On many days, no.  I do not.   And although feeding one's family is something for which one should be commended and is no small feat with three kids under five and under my feet, I know there is more I could be doing.  I don't want to live in clutter and I don't want to live in dirty.

Once something has been done in our bedroom, I will go visit the Nester (who linked over to Like Mother, Like Daughter in the first place) and I will soak up every one of her 31 Days to a Less Messy Nest posts.

Let's just see what I can accomplish before the Nativity fast.

Or at least before Christmas.

Revisiting Seven

Since having Number Three join us, along with massive amounts of diapers, quickly rotating clothing stores (and nowhere to store it), and a lack of time for toy pick-up, I've been feeling completely choked by the piles everywhere.  Last week (when I was supposed to be packing for a visit to the grandparents), I went a little nuts and scooped up several of the piles into bags and stored them in the basement.  Just because I haven't made the final decision to get rid of this stuff, doesn't mean I need to live with it all in my house sine I have the use of a basement!

Earlier this year, I read an article containing a list of seven areas to address in your house and life that would make a big difference in your feeling organized in daily life.  It's just a filler Yahoo! article and not rocket science or a magic formula, but they are all things that need (or needed) doing in my house.  (Or as my Ohio relatives would say, "things that need done.")

Looking back at my original post, it looks sort of like I planned to get all of those things done in a week (days after birthing a baby, no less).  The article suggested this, but that was by no means my intention since I'd just had a baby.  I was simply referring to the tasks by the day on which the article suggested doing them.  And I haven't thought about it twice since!

Well, I haven't thought about the list or the post or the article.  The tasks, however, have been getting chipped away at for a few weeks now on their own—including The Great Basement Banishment of 2010.  Anyway, that's what I liked about the article: Everything was something I'd been meaning to get to.

I began the Tuesday Task of addressing my kitchen cabinets a couple of weeks ago.  I learned that it is not a good idea to pull everything out of your cabinets when you A) have to get dinner on the table, and B) have no one to watch your newborn.  But the spice cabinet is a seriously different place since I started.  I'd like to attack all the cabinets in this manner.  Maybe I'll post photos when I complete this task.  (Said spice cabinet is simply serene.)

The Thursday Task is supposed to be organizing the linen closet, which we don't have.  But we do have a couple of cabinets in our dining room set that store towels, and I have been reorganizing them a bit.

The bathroom (Friday's Task) hasn't really been touched.  Or has it?  I did massively declutter the bath toys, since my girls currently prefer to bring princess toys with them into the bath and just dump the baskets of toys to make room for their highnesses.

As for drafting the family to cover Saturday's Task, I recently stumbled upon a customizable chore chart for preschoolers at SimpleMom with suggestions for how to use it with an allowance system.  Scroll down about halfway to find the chart.  And while you're there, download everything else on the page.  It's all so useful.  And so free.

So, while I will most likely spend the next few weeks at the beach, and then jump into homeschooling (for reals, yo!), I'd like to be able to finish out some of these tasks and complete the list!  Here's to accountability!

My Trusty Timer

No matter what I think of a few of the aspects of FlyLady's method, I owe my changed way of thinking about housekeeping to her.  BF (before FlyLady), the state of my house and my person at this moment (fairly messy, both of us) would have quickly overwhelmed and paralyzed me.

I've fallen into some habits with the computer and fallen out of many good routines with my housekeeping—natural for someone with a newborn.  But it's time to take back my house and jump back into my life (or well, at least slide back in, shall we?) and I know exactly what to do.

First, I pull out my trusty timer.  (OK, well, in reality, first I blog about pulling out my timer, but you get the idea.)  Next, I pretend I'm starting my day (which isn't a huge stretch, considering I'm still in my pajamas).  And I go from there.

I don't have to rewrite my routines.  I have some very good ones written down already.  I just need to get up and do them.  My timer will help me know when to take breaks (from playing on the computer as well as from cleaning), as will my little one-month-old son.

I don't know who wrote that other post, but I certainly don't think I need to worry about being "too productive."  John must have been taking a really long nap or something.  Allons-y!

Some Rules

Now that I'm beginning to feel like myself again, I need some rules for the next 40 days (or so).  So here, in no particular order, they are:

• I will attempt to pray during the first nursing session that happens outside of my bed in the morning.
• Taking a shower will be my first priority of the day.
• I will do no more than one load of laundry a day.
• I will attempt no more than one major cooking project a day—this isn't meant to include dinner, but if dinner comes to be a "major cooking project," then it does.  (For example, today I will limit myself to making the granola that Mary told us about and not also attempt a batch of homemade baked beans.)
• As soon as I feel tired, I will grab some water or a snack (or possibly both) and get off my feet.
• I will make every attempt to only do one errand at a time (obviously not always possible or even practical), and do it in the morning, before my almost-three-year-old has a chance to sneak a nap in the car.
• Eating dinner as soon as my husband comes home will be a priority to get the kids (and myself!) the rest they need without naps and to give us some quiet time in the evening.
• I will begin making or at least thinking about making dinner at 3PM.

OK, that's enough for now.  If I sound like I'm being too productive (and probably wearing myself out), please refer me back to this post.

There are no emails in your inbox folder.

Seven Simple Ways to Get Organized

While I realize there's no magic formula to "getting organized," this article caught my attention.  Any short list of organizing tasks probably would go a long way to making my life feel a little more "under control" and I decided to see how many I could cover.

Before I went into labor, I tackled Wednesday's task of organizing the closet.  Well, for us, it was actually the back stairway that we have turned into a sort of mudroom.  I'd had this task listed in my Cycles of Grace notebook for the Pascha season, and it had gone undone and been moved to the Apostle's Fast notebook.  With impetus from this article, I attacked our mudroom.

The bags of "give away" clothes and other items were resorted and moved to the garage to be donated.  The winter coats and boots went downstairs to a small closet in the basement.  The mittens, hats, and scarves were bagged and set with the other cold-weather items.  I reorganized the wire shelving unit that had held a jumble of hats, mittens, chalk, bubbles, and other miscellaneous items.  Now, the summer toys each have their own bins, and when the cold returns, summer items will move out to make room, once again, for the winter accessories.

Today, I finished Monday's task of organizing my inbox.  I've always attempted organization in broad categories, feeling like putting one thing in a folder would be a waste of a folder.  But after learning from my Cycles of Grace project, I find that it is much easier to find things if they are clearly labeled, even if that means using one tab or one folder for one piece of paper—or one email.

I decided that having a folder in my email account labeled "Information" was about as useful as packing to move and writing "stuff" or "belongings" on the side of the box.  I first went through that folder and moved address change information into its own folder.  I then created folders for life insurance, stock, classes and groups, and invitations.  Once "Information" was empty, I deleted the folder.  Then, one by one, I went through the emails in my inbox.  Most of them were comments on  my blog, group emails, or newsletters that hadn't been deleted upon reading.  A very few got filed away.  And yes, a few of the folders only contain one email.

Very early in the process, I realized I needed a holding place for emails I need to respond to but don't have the time to address right away.  If I didn't have that, I'd start filling up my inbox with unread emails again simply because a few emails awaiting my responses would be sitting at the bottom.  It would be like intending to quit making piles, only to leave out a paper or two "to deal with later," and then throwing the day's mail on top of it, quite burying the original papers and creating a mess.  My response to this problem was to create a "Reply Needed" folder and put "00" at the beginning so that it would stay at the top of my folder list.

It also occurred to me that many of the emails could be turned into word documents or downloaded and saved to my hard drive.  Recipes, pdf files, and medical records would fall into this category.  I think I have finally discovered a system I can stick with, so next time I get the urge to clean up my electronic clutter, I think I'll have the time to address these other types of emails.

For the rest...

• Tuesday's task is to address the kitchen cabinets.  Most of mine aren't bad, but a few are organizational quagmires.  

• Thursday's mission is the linen closet.  We don't have one of those, but I do need a new system for sheets.  At present they are in several different places.

• I suppose Friday's assignment could be translated into a general bathroom declutter session.  Again, my bathroom isn't bad, but a few places (medicine cabinet?) could use some attention.

• On Saturday, I am supposed to draft the family.  I'll have to think about that one a little before I tackle it.  Maybe my girls are old enough to begin having some regular "chores."

• And I think I will leave Sunday's task until last.  It will be fun to think about some of the things we'd like to do later this summer when John is a little older.

Of course, right now, I'm all about doing the things (like cleaning out my inbox) that can be done while sitting, preferably while nursing or holding a sleeping baby.  ;)

My Morning Routine

I have been working on a post regarding beauty and aesthetics in the everyday, but for some reason, I can't seem to conclude it.  I'm not sure where it is supposed to end up.

However, I was motivated by Mat. Emily's Friday's Feminine Tip for today to write up some of my thoughts on personal care and appearance.  As a mother of young children who doesn't leave the house often (and likes it that way--a topic for another post), it might be tempting for me to go through my days in PJs and a greasy pony tail.

If I did this, I would never get anything done.

Ever.

I've tried it occasionally, and it doesn't work for me.

One of FlyLady's basic rules and a part of her AM routine is to "Dress to Shoes, Hair, and Face."  As a longtime "FlyBaby," I've long been in the habit of at least knowing I need to do these things.  Shoes really do help me to accomplish more, especially as I gain more weight with this pregnancy and as my feet swell.  I just feel more steady on my feet with good lace-up shoes on.

Lately—probably as a part of my third-trimester nesting impulse (which, as I may have mentioned elsewhere, usually take shape for me as streamlined housekeeping and childcare routines)—I have been showering daily.  A recent new hairstyle helped me along this path.  Once I had a hairstyle that I was happy with instead of the long, long hair I'd had for so long it was ragged, and which I had no idea what to do with any more, I was much more motivated to jump in the shower and figure out what to do with it.  Even though caring for this short style takes more time sometimes (other times I put it up or pin it back a little and let it do what it will), knowing that I'm happy with what it looks like motivates me to take care of it.

Finally, my face.  This is really the part of the routine that I probably can't live without.  If every time I used the bathroom and looked in the mirror I were confronted with a puffy-eyed, splotchy-faced, pale-lipped person, I would quickly sink into depression.  I make it a point to do a simplified make-up routine daily.  I usually go all out and do foundation, concealer, and powder.  In the winter, I follow that with a sweep of blush on my cheeks, a dusting of the same on my forehead and chin, and some more on the brow bone part of my eyelids.  In the summer, I replace the blush with a bronzer.  (When I'm actually going out somewhere nice or to church, I use blush and various eye shadows.)  I add a little eyeliner (or line with eye shadow) and some mascara, and finally some lip gloss.  I even reapply the lip gloss during the day.  It makes me feel put together and truly motivates me to be productive. 

It is my goal to treat what I do during the day as my job—after all, I have to put "homemaker" in the employment section of applications, don't I?  An article about the importance of aprons over at Hillbilly Housewife tells us to recall iconic homemakers such as Donna Reed or Beaver Cleaver's Mom with their full skirts, heels, and pearls. So, I get dressed in something that I like, I put on my shoes, and I fix my hair and face.  It helps me to take me seriously.  I hope it helps my children and others I encounter throughout the day to do the same.

As I will most likely note in my forthcoming post on aesthetics in other everyday things, I am learning that beauty can be extremely functional.

Seasonal Chores

In her recent post on the second section of her Cycles of Grace Notebooks, Mary provided various detailed and incredibly helpful housekeeping lists.  I am working on my own set of these notebooks.  I began this year after a fairly organized Nativity Fast, in which I was able to do most of the preparations for Christmas that I had set out to do using FlyLady's Holiday Control Journal.  I had the idea that I would add to the binder by continuing to print out portions of that planner to be used with other holidays during the year that require preparation.  Early into this process, I discovered Mary's Cycles of Grace Notebook system (including her set weekly menus), and I was hooked!

One question I wanted to answer for myself regarding the section she calls "Beauty in the Home" (the housecleaning and routines section, similar to FlyLady's original Control Journal) was why would I want to include this section in a set of seasonal notebooks as opposed to having one notebook for this section alone that does not change?  My daily routines remain pretty much the same, don't they?  The lists Mary provided for Monthly, Quarterly, and Annual Routines looked like they would also remain the same.  So why print out 5 copies for 5 different notebooks?

Suddenly, inspiration struck.  I had just been getting through a bunch of tasks that I would probably need to do at the same time next year (ie., switching out the kids' clothes, boxing up mittens and winter coats, etc.).  It turns out that I do have certain chores that should be done during certain seasons--so why not create a set of To Do lists individual to each Cycles of Grace Notebook so I don't have to reinvent the lists next year?  Isn't that the whole beauty of the other sections of these notebooks?

I have begun a list of these chores that will take the place of the Quarterly and Annual Routine lists.  I think I will keep the Monthly list, determine how many months that Notebook will cover, and add an appropriate number of little boxes to check off next to the items on this list.  (Incidentally, I've noticed that my Daily Schedule and Routines will also change slightly in the next season as we shift into a lighter homeschooling schedule and more time outdoors.)

Here are my lists for Notebook 4: The Pascha Season.  The first contains chores that need to be done in my home.

The second contains tasks that are more planning in nature.

I have also created a Projects page that is filed in my housekeeping section, a tab behind my Monthly and Seasonal Chores.  (My housekeeping tabs are Homemaking Journal; Daily Schedule & Routines, Weekly Routine; Monthly and Seasonal Chores; Projects; Household Inventory List.)  It's basically an ongoing To Do list sheet.

These are works in progress, but I am very excited about the prospect of using this next year.  I am starting to think more about Notebook 5 now, and hopefully, I will be posting some more of my creations for that notebook soon.  I am also eagerly awaiting Mary's post on her third section "The Year of Grace."  I have my own ideas for this section that aren't strictly church-year-related.  I'd like to include tabs for various secular holidays that we celebrate in some fashion, possibly a tab for birthdays or other gift-giving occasions, and of course I do have church year information filed there too.  I'm sure Mary (and others) will have ideas I haven't thought of and ways of organizing them into lists that will help me to organize my own notebooks.  Looking forward to the discussion!

Quotidian Comforts

In combining the titles of two of my favorite books dealing with homemaking, I have found an appropriate category title for my posts regarding housekeeping, routines, and the like.

The two books that have inspired me:

• The Quotidian Mysteries, by Kathleen Norris
• Home Comforts, by Cheryl Mendleson

Housekeeping Progress Report: How Did This Happen?

It is my second Friday of following (read: attempting to follow) a new homemaking/housecleaning routine/schedule/suggestion.  And somehow, by about 9:30AM, we were actually ready to do our morning installment of homeschool.

Huh?

No pull to check my email and blog?  No pressing cleaning project?  No new Seasonal Notebook entry to work on just really quick and then we'll get to homeschooling right away?

Huh.

I ran with it.  I've been wanting to do our Prayers and Circle Games followed by our Reading Lesson (with Bob Books) in the mornings, just after my basic morning routine, and before I delve into the day's Daily Focus.  And today, I actually did it!

Of course, I wasn't comfortable being totally on schedule, and since my routine said I could take "email breaks" during my Daily Focus time, I did just that for a while.  But the morning was nice.

I know that I need to give myself time to settle in with this new routine.  The beauty of my new system is that I do not seem to be fighting the way I naturally work.  I love FlyLady and most of her system.  I am seriously indebted to her for helping me to change my way of thinking about housecleaning and daily routines.

Actually, I think this new system would be a quick "crash and burn" if it weren't for my FlyLady training:

• It's OK for something to be good enough.
• I don't have to do everything that needs to be done in the room to check it off on the list.
• It's OK if I don't get to something today or this week.  There's always next week.

And so on.

I just never got very far with FlyLady's Weekly Home Blessing Hour, so my house didn't get cleaned well very often.  I get the concept--it's kind of that "quick tidy" you do before company arrives, assuming your house was mostly clean already.  And I get the idea that FlyLady encourages people to keep their homes "15 minutes worth of messy," meaning that you could quickly straighten the house in 15 minutes.

While I really benefit from the AM and PM routines I have set up, and I like the idea of Zone Cleaning, I don't manage to do it regularly.  Therefore, my home is never "15 minutes worth of messy." It's not a disaster, but to do the dusting and the mopping, I want to spend a little time straightening the room, maybe attacking a project in that area that has been nagging me.  Then I can get to the maintenance cleaning and dusting.  I'm sure FlyLady would disagree with me and tell me that I am thinking about it too hard.

But then, when do I get to these projects?  FlyLady would say that I should do them after my AM routine is done.  With my new system, I am seeing major projects (OK, by "major project," I mean something like washing my shower curtain or going through the bag of miscellaneous objects that's been sitting in the dining room for two months) actually get done!  And then in the interest of checking off most of the list, I do the dusting and mopping too!

So, here I am on a Friday, with the list of distractions shrinking, project by project.  I am looking at a relatively clean house.  One where I've recently gone through the girls' clothes, packing away the unseasonable items or the ones that don't fit.  One where that bag of mystery junk has been sorted.  One where the shower curtain, while retaining some mildew spots to be worked on, is back to being mostly white.  And on top of that, the floors are clean, the tub has been scrubbed, and most of the dust is gone.  Should I add that we have actually stuck with our homeschool plan for the week and I've accomplished all the activities I've planned?

This is definitely a "Go Me!" post, and I assure you that most of my weeks do not go this smoothly.  But it sure is nice when one does.  Oh, and don't worry, in a few weeks, I'll have a newborn in the house making all of the above impossible for a good long while.  ;)