Reading your Cleaning Posts , i wonder if some of you Get Up at 4 Am and go to Bed at midnight to Get it all done?
Or Maybe you don't Do anything Else. I dont' Know , But I Would Love to Say , I Kept up with My Cleaning, Like I used to!

I have been Stressing about it lately , But I just Can't seem to Do it all.

With Sicknesses Always Going on around here , Dental and Drs. appointments, Running kids to Practice, sitting through games , Vet appointments, Unexpected Guests , and other sudden Cleaning to do ,
i.e , My parents stop over , I Lose an hr. of Cleaning,
My son colors on the wall. There goes Getting The wash Started at 8 am , - now I am scrubbing a Wall! Or I Am ready to Dust and the Phone Rings ! Gotta Pick up a Sick kid at school , or Meet Dh with his Forgotten License ( that i Spend An hour Looking For)
Not to Mention the Frantic Phone call from a Neighbor , that she needs a Sitter Cause hers canceled and she has to Leave For work NOW!!
Stuff never ends around here!
Not to Mention my Precious Son saying , " Mommy will you Lay down with Me?" There goes the Ironing I was doing!
Oh and Of Course their is the Monthly Volunteering at the Kids school and all the calls for Donated baked goods and things.

I Know I don't Want to Clean my life away ... And no I Don't Say Yes to everything , I know how to say No , and I Do - But there seems to be About 50 Things I Need to Do outside of Housecleanind And I say Yes to About 25 of them cause I Like balance, and I am still VERY behind on my house work right now!
I Think that it is the can't Help it stuff that is Really Messing Me up unfourtunatly-

My father owns a cleaning business. We do commercial cleaning and I actually grew up in the company and still do work for him to earn extra cash because he will give us full profit =).

So anyhow, I'm REALLY GOOD at getting into a routine. That seems to be the hard thing to do because you get sidetracked. I usually start in the back three bedrooms. I straighten them up, dust all of them, empty the trash, then vacuum them.

Then I move on to the living room and I dust that. Then I wipe down the kitchen, sweep and scrub the floor, then I vacuum the living room (I do the kitchen and living room floors at the same time because of the dog tracking things in the back kitchen door, then into the living room and back and forth).

Then I tackle the bathroom last.

I only worry about the downstairs family room and bathroom every couple weeks because we don't use it that often and always straighten up after we use it.

Of course the kitchen needs to be wiped down and swept a couple times a week and the living room usually needs to be vacuumed twice a week. Plus I do a quick scrub in the bathroom a couple times a week.

But if you can take a couple hours, run through and thuroughly do the house, just knowing it's dusted and vacuumed...makes you feel better. Plus if my daughter was older, she would be picking up her own stuff or it would be all in the middle of her bed and she wouldn't be going to sleep until it was done!

Anyhow..that's what I do! I sometimes divide the house...back three rooms on Thurs. then the living room, kitchen, and bathroom on Friday. I like it all clean for the weekend so that we don't have to worry if we decide to invite friends over and just so we can relax and enjoy a clean house w/out being overwhelmed!

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Bekah
Co-founder and CEO of the NOVITZKE FAMILY INC.

I think after this week I will know how you feel, I start back at school for two days a week, DD starts back at school, I still have to work, I have to do work on my business, medical appointments and it is shopping week... arrrrr but to help with your problem.

Sounds like you already have a routine, with a little bit here and a little bit there everyday. Well first when they are all in bed make a list of everything that is getting on your nerves. catagorize everything into their rooms. Then arrange for your folks, that neighbour that you did the favor for etc to take them off your hands for about 4 hours. When they are gone, shut the door, crank up the music and start in the first room.

To stop getting distracted when doing this take a basket (laundry will do), a trash bag and your cleaning caddy with all your supplies in it into the room with you then first pick up all the trash, then anything that doesn't belong in that room goes into the basket. Clean ceiling down ie walls down to floors that way anything up top that falls on the floor won't mess up what you have just done.

I do this about every 6 weeks. then I do maininance the rest of the time and stick to my schedule.

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"You have to live through the rain before you experience the rainbow"

I just don't worry too much about it. There are so many more important things in my life than having a perfectly clean (or even marginally clean?) house. I am a very busy working mommy. I do the important things. We always eat, dishes are done and laundry is always clean. Otherwise I only clean when things get bad. It is just a matter of priorities and cleaning is not one of mine.

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~Happiness is a large family~

I Did Have a wonderful Routine that wasen't Clean clean clean and Not live at all -
But it was A Great Balance.

It just seems Like it is Impossible To Keep up with it!! Someone or something Always Needs to Be Done!!

Yes I could easily Fly through Here and Clean like a Mad woman ,
But there are so Many Things In my Way!!

I dont' normally change the sheets on Mondays , But Last Night DS - Leaked through Majorly, and then he crawled in my Bed at 3 Am. Thats two beds needing Changed and Monday is already a Huge laundry day and My Cat Knocked a PIcture over last night , so I Spent 1/2 Hr. this Morning. cleaning up every Remnant Of Glass.

Also DS fell and I Had to console him for 20 mins. and Then Dh called to Meet him at the Hospital ( His Grandma) ASAP! -
So I Don't Get how to Keep up !!

Don't You guys have alot of stuff Come up all day that Takes you away From Routine??


Again , I am not really looking For Perfection! Things are so Behind , I My Son Didn't Have Clean socks Today , and he Had to Wear slipper socks under his shoes

I am Going now to Fold the dryer Wash !! 7 pm and I am still trying to Get Stuff done

I have a magnet on my fridge that says " Boring Women have Immaculate Homes". My mom is that way, she can't go anywhere without the house being spotless, can't count how many wasted family fun activities she could have done with me and my brother on Saturdays but instead she insisted on cleaning everything.

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"Go on, get outside, get the stink blown off ya!!"

I don't like to have schedules. We have so much going on that keeping to a schedule is too much unneccessary stress for me. I like my house to be picked up and clean but life and what's going on in it is more important to me. Some weeks I have more time so I can do more and some weeks I have less time and less gets done. I have learned that when it's time it will not take long for me to catch up.

I certainly don't want to be boring

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Marie - SAHM of DS Benjamin (april 2004) and DD Rose (march 2006).

I have been thinking the same thing lately! I have always had a clean and organized home. It was ready at ANY time for guest, etc. ((And my idea of clean was REALLY clean)) But ever since my ds was born I find it so hard. I will work really hard one night and get it looking good....but its back to toys everywhere, cups everywhere, and the table full of paperwork I have no idea what to do with. It's driving me nuts. My Dad (who analyzes housework---but does none his own b/c his wife does it) has come by twice and I am frantically trying to do some straightening before I answer the door. For the most part my house looks good. I just feel like.....I'm a SAHM---my job is taking care of my son AND the house...and I feel I'm failing on the second part of my job. My house should be BETTER than it used to be....because I'm home all day.

Ok, I rambled sorry. I am just letting you know that I feel your pain!!

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Mom to Ryan ('06)

I clean as I go. One minute of doing something that very moment saves me 5 later. At night when I'm done getting ready for bed, I swipe my washcloth over the faucet and sink. A swipe over the toilet real quick and the bathroom is good for the next day. When you do it daily, you don't have to scrub it to get 5 days worth of grime off. (Not that I don't scrub it once a week anyway, but if you don't get a chance, it will be okay for a few days if you're wiping it daily). I fold laundry out of the dryer and put it right away. No fussing with cold wrinkled heaps of laundry (that my son ALWAYS tackles or wants to help me "fold").

Having less helps a lot, as does having a place for what you do have (as I've found this past year). No moving 50 things on the counter to wipe it down, no clutter on the table to stack & restack and shuffle just to wipe it off. Dusting is quicker.

For toys - DS has a toy shelf in his room with those plastic dishpans (you can get them at the $1 store); he brings one out into the living room at a time and a few times during the day I chuck all the toys back into it and tuck it into the corner of the room.

My sanity saver - 10 minute cleanup. I set the timer and race around like a maniac, wiping counters, chucking toys into the living room toy bin, switching laundry, sweeping the floor, wiping down the bathroom (gotta love baby wipes). I grab a couple rags, tuck a microfiber cloth in my back pocket (for dusting) and grab my all purpose cleaner and do a quick wipe down. I can do A LOT of stuff in 10 or 15 minutes when I'm racing the clock.

For me, keeping the house clean is about living up to a certain standard and providing a relaxing environment for our family. Set a realistic standard and work to achieve that on a "regular" basis (for the most part). Then when you can do that, if you feel you want a standard upgrade, set the bar a little higher and work to make that the "norm". Sometimes it's easier to do it in steps.

Above all, if you're a godly woman, pray that He will direct your steps. He will direct you to do exactly what needs done for the day, not one thing more or one thing less. Give yourself grace now and then, and enlist the help of your kids (if they're old enough for activities that have practices, they're old enough to put away their own clothes, wipe down the counter after making their lunch and putting laundry in the hamper, etc) and husband (even if his only job is to keep track of his own stuff! LOL).

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Sounds like you need a hug!

I heard somewhere that you always have to remember to prioritize the IMPORTANT over the URGENT. For example a ringing phone is urgent but you can let it go to voicemail where as a DS who has fallen, is crying and needs his Mommy is important. So, most of the time we need to pick people over things (unless the situation is a neighbor who ALWAYS has an emergency that you have to take on to be your own and you said you know how to say "no").

That being said, I really like the concept from the website FlyLady.net: Your personal online coach to help you gain control of your house and home. She is big on starting where you are and doing maybe 10-15 minutes of housework a day, eventually you will have a clean house. I have a routine where I have a chore of the day, Tuesday is dusting and since I do it most every week, my swiffer duster and I are done in a couple of minutes. I also have started purging our house of clutter. It takes up too much of my time to dust the hokey little bear figurines that MIL bought for me that I don't even like - so off to the Goodwill they go!!! We all keep fewer clothes so I have to do laundry once or twice a week to make sure everyone has underwear but that is easier than catching up two week worth. My DS is 2 and he "helps" clean, we even sing some made up song while we work together, this way he has Mommy time and Mommy has time to make our home a nice place to live.

Keeping up on the daily chores (no more than 15 minutes) and getting rid of the clutter make our home the sanctuary it is meant to be.