Spring Cleaning

Spring is on its way. Despite the falling snow and the icy branches, spring is coming. Though the yards are covered in white, we can hear the birds singing their songs and see green tips sprouting from wet soil. It’s coming.

In the words of Aslan,

“Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.”

I’m finding this slow start to spring to be the perfect encouragement to get some things done inside. I know if the weather were different, the chores at home would be lost on the sunshine filled days playing outdoors.

Since organization isn’t my first inclination, I’m taking the lead from this great blog I found on Pinterest. Over at ‘A Bowl Full of Lemons’ I found the perfect organizational lists to get my act in gear. I’ve decided to start her 14 week program in an attempt to get things a little more in order and start purging all the things we don’t need. Join me?

Here’s the link to the program:

http://www.abowlfulloflemons.net/2013/01/home-organization-revisited-week-1-the-kitchen.html

And alongside organizing my home one room at a time, I’m also reconnecting with a paper planner alongside my iPhone. I just can’t seem to tame the paper trail and back when I used a planner things were far more in control. I’ve decided to use the planner suggestion from the same blog as above as my jumping off point and I love that it’s kind of a home organization/management binder as well as a planner.

Here’s the link to that:

http://www.abowlfulloflemons.net/2012/05/planner-organization.html

And lastly, I finally got back into the groove of having a cleaning schedule. When we were first married I found a rhythm that worked for me. It takes only 15-20 minutes a day, less if you go really fast, and you only do one task a day. Seriously it keeps me sane, takes the pressure off, and makes tackling our house so much easier.

Here’s the breakdown:

Monday: Laundry (bulk of it; I do laundry throughout the week too), Groceries

Tuesday: Bathrooms (wipe down, clean toilets, mirrors, tub/shower wipe down)

Wednesday: Dusting/mirrors

Thursday: Floors (dust and mop all floors and vacuum carpet and rugs)

Friday: Errands

My breakdown per day is based on what we have going. Bible Study is always on Wednesdays and since I try to tackle the job during morning naps, dusting is a short and easy task for that day since we are gone in the morning. I also try to get all errands done on one day in one fell swoop but sometimes that doesn’t work and we find ourselves at Target other times of the week. Customize it as you see fit.

Everyday the kitchen gets wiped down and cleaned so that is why it’s not on there. Laundry of course gets done at other times as well but if I can get through multiple loads on Monday that makes the rest of the week more manageable. When I first started we lived in a 2b/1bath, 980 square foot house. Our next place was a 1100 square foot apartment with 2b/2b and now we have 4b/3b and 2400 square feet. With every upgrade came more honing of the schedule above and because it’s broken down into days and smaller pieces the upgrade in square footage and bathrooms has not felt overwhelming.

Plus another tip I’ve learned is for bathrooms have a set up in every bath. In every one of our bathrooms there is a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner, Lysol wipes, Windex and a cheap toilet brush from Ikea. That way I’m not hauling cleaning supplies all through the house, just a cloth. This has revolutionized cleaning for me!

So today we’re hunkering down and getting clean and organized.

What are your tips for keeping things in order?