WFMW — Scheduling Deep Cleaning and Organization

I seem to be getting hung up in my house, not being able to get any one room cleaned and organized properly for going on to another. Same with an organization project or any project in general.

One of the best things about being a military family was moving around. Not necessarily leaving friends behind, but the actual moving process. It made you go through your things. You actually had to physically touch everything you owned every time you moved.

As long as you weren't someone who left boxes unopened from one move to the next, which we typically were not.

Now that we don't plan on moving again, I know that it's important to go through our things regularly. I always did to some degree about once a year because we would have a yard sale, I would really try to weed things out before we would move, and when I would open boxes from a move I would wonder why we ever decided it was okay to move some things.

And I was always amazed at the amount of dust and dirt that could accumulate behind a piece of stationary furniture.

I think having a plan to deep clean every room in my house throughout the year would satisfy several issues.

• By spreading it out over the year it doesn't seem like such an unmanageable task.
• I can weed out all the things that we no longer use or need.
• I can deep clean each room at least once each year.
• I can see if organizing the room differently would be of some benefit.

I've come up with a rough plan for one year, from February to next January. It includes the room and then in some cases additional organization. A couple of times there are not actually rooms but organization projects. Those fall around the Christmas holiday, are Christmas related, and I think it would be difficult for many of us to find time to add deep cleaning in to our holiday time schedules. It's going to be hard enough for me to do the organization projects I planned!

• February — Family Room/Den/Rec Room/FROG/Bonus Room/Basement...You might have one or more of these. I know I do. You could save one for a month when you know you won't have much, or just do one this year and one next February. For my basement, I have Christmas decorations, but I'm not touching them until later in the year since they are in one area. I'll just do everything else.
• March — Children's or Guest Closets and Dresser Drawers (Clothing)
• April — This one is a bit of a hodge-podge...Coat Closet/Mud Room/Launching Area, Laundry Room or Area, Bathrooms to include Linen Closets and/or Bathroom Cabinet Storage.
• May — Master Closet
• June — Garage
• July — Master Bedroom
• August — Living Room, Dining Room, or School Room
• September — Kitchen, to include Pantry, Cabinets, and Drawers
• October — Children's or Guest Rooms (good time to go through toys before the holidays)
• November — Christmas Decorations...this one isn't a room, but when I get out my decorations I'm going to seriously go through them and get rid of things I don't use anymore that just take up space in my basement.
• December — Another non-room...get my Christmas card list organized once and for all, streamline my address book at the same time, and figure out what to do with not only the new Christmas cards and pictures I receive but also all the old ones I've hung on to.
• January 2011 — Office/Loft Area/Scrapbooking or Craft Area

I have found that I tend to excel at things when I have accountability and not so much when I don't, so I thought others might be interested in doing this along with me. If you are, leave me a comment so I can get an idea how many people might be. I could put up a Mr. Linky at the end of every month and everyone could put up before and after pictures if they have them. If I get enough interest to do it and put up the Mr. Linky I'll even try to have a little random giveaway with it every month.

Since I know this list is specific and everyone might not have every exact room or feel like doing the one(s) listed that month, there could be some switching around and it wouldn't bother me. I just do better with lists and goals and specifics.

And I don't even want to think about working in my garage in Michigan until at least June!

This post is linked to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

2010 Motivated Moms Planner

Looming in front of me was one of my new lofty goals for 2010, incorporate a successful plan for keeping the house neat and picked up where the kids are helping regularly. Yesterday when I was reading The Happy Housewife, I saw what I think is my answer.

The Motivated Moms Planner.

There are several options, including a page per day, page per week, and others. I chose the Full-sized Page Per Day Planner. But it doesn't matter which one you choose. Each one is only $8, and you can download it immediately and print it out right away. I just love immediate gratification. You can also view a sample of the options.

What I love about it is that it gives you a list of daily chores to check off, plus a list of extra chores. By doing these things I don't expect to have to spend a day cleaning before having guests over, like for small group tonight. For example, today's extra chores were:

Clean bathroom mirrors
Clean light fixture — bathrooms
Clean out purse/wallet
Pay/File bills
Dust hallways/entryway
Clean toaster (wipe out crumb tray)

I can assign many of these extra chores to the kids, leaving the pay/file bills and clean out purse for me. I chose the page per day because I want each child to sign or initial on the daily chores when they make their bed, etc. Then I'm going to highlight in their color what I expect them to do for the day, both from the daily chores area and the extra chores.

The Happy Housewife shared a coupon code that Motivated Moms gave her to save $1 on your order through January 14, 2010. I don't know if it's proper etiquette for me to give it out here, so if you plan to order and want to save $1, go here to get your code.

2010

I have never been one to make resolutions. I think it probably goes back to my dislike for journaling and writing things down. I'm getting out of my box and writing down some goals for 2010. Sharing them no less. That's a biggie for me. I don't usually share important written down stuff with people.

Just stuff that would embarrass the daylights out of me.

Spiritual

• Read the Bible in 90 Days. I started yesterday.
• Pray my daughter to and from Togo, West Africa, in February.
• Do the purity study with the girls.
• Work with all the kids on integrity and character training from Proverbs.

Personal

• Get to bed earlier so I can get up earlier without being so tired.
• Remember to take my vitamins regularly for my health.
• Exercise for my health, with the side benefit being weight loss.

School

• Be more regular about our daily start time.

Home

• Incorporate a successful plan for keeping the house neat and picked up where the kids are helping regularly.
• Incorporate more new meals into the meal planning.
• Get all my recipes organized into one recipe binder system, including computerizing.
• Organize pantry better, especially for stockpiled items.
• Contact friends that we've neglected for the past few years of moving.

Well, that's it. It'll be a year before we know the results, at least for most of the things on my list, but I'm curious. Do you make resolutions or goals?

WFMW — Holiday Planner

Years ago when I was still getting a subscription to Family Fun magazine (which I still love by the way), there was an article about "Ann's Amazing Holiday Planner." Or it might have been a blurb. I'm not really sure.

I just know that my organizing side kicked right in and had to know all about it. There was a link to access it on the Family Fun website, which is what I did within less than one minute.

I was hooked. Here's a picture from the website which shows absolutely nothing, but it looked cute and gives you a visual. Plus mine is not together enough to show you right now.

Holiday Gift List:
I love the printable holiday gift list and print it off on different colored sheets of paper for each of my kids (simplicity for me) and then one other color for all other gifts.

Holiday Card List:
I actually keep my card list on the computer since I print out labels, but keep a copy in my folder. I might tweak it now that we don't ever plan to move again.

Holiday Memories:
Shamefully, I have nothing in the holiday memories section. I really need to focus on this.

Crafts & Decorations:
I have an entire folder of Christmas crafts and decorations. I just recently weeded them out and kept the ones I wanted in page protectors. Now I'll add that to my holiday binder rather than storing it somewhere else. Makes sense to me.

Holiday Recipes, Menus & Party Plans:
I do have some holiday recipes (that of course haven't made it in here yet), but we've never really done holiday parties, so I don't have any party plans. But if I did, this is where they would be!

If you are in need of a holiday planner with printables, here is the link to Ann's Amazing Holiday Planner.

Best of all, it's free!

This post is linked to Works-for-me-Wednesday at We are THAT Family.

I Love Lists!

I'll just get it out in the open right now since I didn't do much of an introduction about myself last time, like my friends really needed it, but I'm a little bit of an organizing freak. And I might have underestimated the little and the bit just a little bit.

So while we're on the subject I'm also a little bit OCD, again prior reference apply. And I love lists! Handwritten lists, checklists, grocery lists, homeschool lists, my homemade computerized Wal-Mart and Sam's Club lists...I make lists when we travel, when we have to move, for Hubby if we're going somewhere separately so he remembers what to take when I leave the house first. Hubby is not a list maker. That is all I will say on that matter.


Well, Karen over at The Master Plan is having an exciting contest to win an online interactive Master Plan of Lists, Lists, and more Lists. Ooh! I would like to win that and satisfy some insane left brain tendencies for a while. Here's the link to her contest here. If you don't win, because I sure hope I do, you can purchase it right now at $10 off if you go to The Master Plan. You can also see the complete table of contents and some sample pages.

Another day will bring my obsession with baskets, bins, organizing, and labeling. I think I mentioned OCD?