My First Post About Home Making - "Getting it All Done"

I thought a really good place to start off posting about Home Making would be answering the question I get the most from friends and family.  "How do you do it all?"  There is a fairly simple answer...  I really don't.  On days that I do though, I spend about an hour cleaning at most.  So, keeping up with the housework will be where I start explaining the apparent phenomena of "Getting it All Done."

Yes, I get a lot done in a day.  There are very few days where a large group of things don't get done, but I have learned when to walk away.  Some weeks are impeded by the moopies, some by life and there are other days where everything doesn't get done because I don't feel like it.

Most days though, I follow a schedule.  I am a person who thrives off of routine.  Routine helps to make sure I don't forget things.  Routine makes sure I know what I need to do.  Routine also helps to keep headaches and frustrations at bay.

For years I have been in search of the perfect schedule.  The perfect plan.  The plan that doesn't workload days to the point you can't do them when LIFE strikes.  Last year, I found a wonderful frame work to base my schedule off of.  THE SCHEDULE...  Go and hit that link to see what I mean.  To be honest I followed this for the whole 5 weeks.  I was diligent, we were heading into the holidays and I needed my house to be super clean and keep it that way for 2 months.  This is fairly simple and could be done for the most part while waiting on dinner to cook after work.

The first 5 weeks were a bore and a chore, but I was starting off from a very clean house when I started moving things around.  That is the beauty of find a good starting place.  Things are already planned for you.  You just blindly follow them until you realize where the holes are for your house.  The first week will take the most time over all.  Some of the chores on the list won't have been done in 6 months or longer when you start, but once done they take less and less time to repeat.

First I moved vacuuming to Friday.  Then came cleaning my windows once a month (we don't have kids or dogs so they really don't get that dirty).  At Christmas we added our tiny tiger, Pippin, to the family so I needed to add an extra day of vacuuming to keep up with the fur.  I moved vacuuming out the sofas to Friday because I didn't want to bring out the hose (I have central vac in my new house) just for taking care of the sofas but it was simple on the day I was already doing our floors.

I haven't retyped my schedule, but it is on my list of things to do.  Maybe one morning when I am time wasting drinking coffee I will pick it up and get started.  That way my husband can join in more readily when he is off work or working from home.  When I am sick he would know where to go for the list of what I need him to do.  That is assuming he learns how to use our washer (the loading of the HE washer is harder than the controls).

The other most important part to this though is knowing when to walk away.  When is it okay to skip a day or come back to it tomorrow.  This was very hard for me in particular.  I am a very Type A person who feels like it all needs to be done yesterday.  So when life got in the way, it was impossible for me to take a step back and relax even though my work wasn't done.  It wasn't uncommon to find me picking up or cleaning at 11 pm before going to bed just because I couldn't rest without that last load of laundry being folded.

This is another place where customization is personal.  What works for YOU is key.  Accepting that tomorrow you can finish what you start is important.  Our time together is important, more so than having a house that is put together.  My husband has never had an expectation of what I will or won't do.  He just rolls with it.  He is pretty low maintenance as long as the food is good and he doesn't run out of socks during the work week.

If you come home from work (I know not every who sees this will be a homemaker), have a rough day with the kids, had a lot of extra stuff going on or you just didn't sleep well; you won't have time or energy to do your chores for the day.  That is a good thing.  It means that you are human!  My house isn't always clean.  It isn't even apparently clean every day.  My goal is to try every day.  Make an effort to at least keep the minimum done for hygiene vs organization.

A good example of life being in the way was this week...  I have been on the go all week and I don't have a day this week where things aren't on my schedule to do outside of the house.  I didn't get my dusting done on Tuesday because I was gone all morning running errands.  I forgot to strip my bed Wednesday until I was crawling into it at 11:30.  Thursday (as I am writing this) I have things that need to be done in preparation of a meeting tonight, so I might only get caught up.  Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment that could take 5 minutes or 2 hours...

All of that is okay.  It will be there tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday....  It may not get done until the next week's rotation.  And that is okay.  Your mental health and well being isn't worth the stress of a clean home.  Take what you need and just start fresh in the morning.  It is the best you can do.  The best gift you can offer yourself is a happy you.  That is also the best gift you can offer your family.  Yes, it is nice to have a clean house, but sometimes joy takes precedence and understanding that is very important to "Running a Happy Home".

Some days it is okay to just grab a glass of wine; curl up with your crafts/books/movie and just relax.  You won't do a good job if you are angry, tired or moopy; just tackle it tomorrow when you are more refreshed and ready to go at them again.

It is time for me to go and get my chores done this morning.  Maybe I can even fit in my workout, LOL, most likely not...  But I hope that there was some helpful information in here.  Especially if you know me in person and have wondered what really goes on around my house.