Cleaning House - Schedules That Don't Work For Me, Things To Whine About, A Few Ideas That Have Worked.

Authentic image of someone who cares much more about ironing than I ever have, or will.

I'm at home all day with my three children, but I'm teaching, or reading, gardening, making stuff or cooking something.  Activities I enjoy doing, for the most part.  The part of staying home I'm not that fussy about is keeping my house clean and tidy.

I don't want to do it, but I like it having been done.

Also, I find that a clean, organized house is actually much easier to live in.  I know where everything is, for real, not like in my messy house when I SAY I know where everything is but who knows if I really do.  Also those things are much easier to access.  I can very easily walk over to the shelf with the book I need instead of plowing through a pile of Lego, moving a chair, shuffling a bunch of papers around, and THEN getting the book off the shelf.

I have tried a lot of ideas to keep the housework from getting me down, and for the most part none of them have really worked.  Partly this is because I can't commit to an actual system for more than a few days/weeks since my life isn't structured around housework.  Any schedule that says 'On Monday clean the bathroom' assumes that every Monday I'm waking up to a clean slate of time that begs to be filled with bathroom cleaning.  Some Mondays, sure, I clean the bathroom.  Some Mondays I have three dentist appointments scheduled in a row and our library books are overdue and I need to hit the grocery store and my husband is going out of town the next day.  I'm easily confused by these life events - what am I supposed to do?  Wake up at 5am to clean the bathroom?  Delay making supper to clean the bathroom?  Ask my eight year old to clean the bathroom?  

So cleaning schedules don't work for me.  Every day is just too different.  The only way I could guarantee to get any scheduled task done, I realized, is if it was so very small that it could be fit into any day.  Like 'make your bed'.  I could find time to make the bed every day even if the rest of the day was packed to the gills.  And that's great but it doesn't clean the bathroom, or mop the floor, or any of the other things.

The other problem is that housecleaning isn't something I enjoy, and it isn't something I prioritize. 

If I happen to have 30 minutes to myself I'm likely not going to fill it with sweeping.

Anyway, with that long, whiny explanation over, I have collected some ideas that DO work for me.  Mostly.  Somewhat.

1) No Unfilled Time.

A Youtube cleaning video taught me the idea of 'No Unfilled Time'.  You fill the little free moments of waiting (for a kettle to boil, a cup of tea to steep, an oven to preheat, the washer to finish the last 3 minutes of the cycle, someone to take you off hold on the phone, a child to find their other shoe...) with some task in your immediate vicinity.  Straighten the shelf of books beside you, wipe the counters, etc.  I keep reminding myself of this and when I implement it regularly it makes a difference.

2) Trash First.  

One blog I used to read a lot suggested the idea of doing a first sweep through any area to be cleaned with a trash bag in hand.  I do this all the time.  Even if I'm absolutely certain I have nothing to throw out I always, ALWAYS have something to throw out.  The old teabag sitting on a plate, a child's crumpled tissue... a broken crayon...what is that on the floor?  Toss. Toss. Toss.

3) Clean As You Cook.

My father liked to say that you should clean as you cook.  I try to do this. I've sauteed the onions and now, rather than moving immediately to the next thing, I wash the saute pan.  Takes a minute.  One less pan after supper to wash.  Cough.  Like I'm washing the dishes right after supper.  Cough.

4) Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  

A Clorox wipe over the toilet and a squirt of shampoo in the toilet bowl, swish, scrub, flush.  Done.  You know what that's better than?  It's better than nothing.

5) Use one tool for as much as humanly possible.  

One cleaning product, preferably in a spray bottle, to clean as much as you can.  One vacuum to do the rug in the livingroom, to run over the shelves as 'dusting', to vacuum up things around the edge of the kitchen, to run over the sofa cushions.  Just one.  Complexity will make me throw my hands up in the air.

I've stretched this to other areas as well when decision making fatigue has taken over in my life.  One meal plan (Cook meat in the oven, defrost a frozen vegetable in the microwave, serve store-bought, seedy whole wheat bread.  Every evening meal.  Until the stress goes away.)  I buy one kind of bread, one kind of milk, one kind of snack, one kind of apple.  If I can manage the decisions, then that week you'll get the fancy mangoes and the weird leafy green we're going to try for the first time.  If I can't, you get what you get and you don't get upset.

6) Figure out the blockage.  

There is always a point in a chore where you hit a wall, and although you may not have thought about why that wall exists, it's there for a reason.  This was the case for me and laundry.  I was happy as a clam to toss a load in the washing machine, switch it to the dryer, and then put it in a basket.  But that's where my blockage was - I simply couldn't seem to manage to fold and put away the clothes.  I tried folding from the dryer, and that drove me crazy and just moved the blockage earlier into taking things out of the dryer.  Now laundry got backed up earlier in the system.  I tried getting the kids to sort the clean laundry into piles for me so at least I didn't have to sort, but that didn't work either.  Trust me when I say I tried all the techniques I could find to just get myself to FOLD THE LAUNDRY AND PUT IT AWAY WITHOUT A GIANT FUSS.  And they didn't work.

You know what worked?  Figuring out why the blockage was there.  What specifically did I detest about sorting, folding, and putting the clothes away?  It was the process.  I didn't like all the bits and pieces of the process.  I found it all very frustrating and overwhelming and annoying and I delayed having to do it because of that.  So I thought "how can I remove the whole blockage from the laundry system?"  And I realized if I sorted the clothing before I even washed it, according to type, then the end product would require zero decision power.  Now I wash according to the following groups:

Stuff for the boy
Stuff for the girls that gets hung up
Stuff for the girls that doesn't get hung up
Stuff for the parents that gets hung up
Stuff for the parents that doesn't get hung up
Sheets and bedding according to the bed
Kitchen
Cleaning rags
Other categories as necessary

I don't sort according to colour or fabric.  I don't wait to have a full load.  These things are sacrifices because I would prefer to do them but I have to remind myself of  #4 - Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Better to wash this 1/4 load worth of kitchen towels and dishcloths than wait until I have a full load but no towels and am all stressed out.  Do it imperfectly, but at least do it.

7) Something In Every Room.

When I leave a room, or enter a room, I try to do one small thing.  I don't want to have my hands empty as I walk.  If I'm going into the bathroom, I'll take the thirty seconds to tie up the bathroom trash and carry it with me to the kitchen when I leave the room.  Now I'm in the kitchen and I can put that cup into the sink from off the table.  And as I head back into the living room where I was to start with, I can put the dvd into it's case and tuck it in the cupboard before sitting down to hear lessons.  I was going into the rooms anyway, and three more little things got done.

8)  Keep A Spot For Donations.

I keep a cardboard box on top of my chest freezer and throughout the day I put things there as I find them to donate.  It's a box I will also donate, so I don't have to worry about changing out the container when it's time for it to go.  Also it is not too big, or bulky, just a plain cardboard box.  I only put in items that are already clean and ready to go so that there isn't another layer of 'I have to remember to wash those hats first and make sure the books don't have bookmarks still in them before I send off the box."  When the box is full, I put it in the car.  And put out another box.  Books and media to the public library donations spot, clothing and household goods to the thrift store.  Period.  No deviations from the system.

9)  I Am Not Responsible For The Emotional Well Being Of My Things.

Continuing from #8 - my stuff is stuff.  I look at the options for how to get it out of my life, I pick a good choice, I stop thinking about it.  Again, #4 - Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good!  Maybe there is a needier charity, a more environmentally conscious recycler, a generally worthier place to give my things.  Maybe.  But I have made a choice, and I don't spend MORE valuable time and energy researching better choices.  The thrift store I donate to is not a charity, it's a business.  They are going to sell my used stuff to customers.  But it's better than the landfill, it's right on the route to a lot of my shopping, and they'll give me a 20% off coupon if I donate a box of things.  Decision made.  No more thinking.

10)  Find A Way To Include Others That Isn't Horribly Dull

My suggestion here is the powerful weapon of The 10-Minute Tidy.  Gather the peoples.  Explain that for 10 minutes we will race around as fast as possible and clean up.  When the timer goes off we will stop.  It helps to give newbies to this process a few hints and ideas of what they might do so you don't end up with someone playing with dolls and whining "I don't knoooooow what to dooooooo!"  Then set the stove timer and work as fast as you can.  Upbeat music helps.  Lots of yelling and shrieking and encouragement helps.  Frantic, comical running around like a crazy person helps.  There are five people in this house and that equals 50 minutes worth of high energy tidying.  If everyone is focused it's enough to tidy my whole house.

Image of ironing lady is from here.

Homeschooling Update - March, 2019

Here was my update from the end of the first semester.

I'm using this post to record what the children have done for the two months of 'no man's land' between the end of December, and the beginning of March.

I haven't been homeschooling for very long but I have learned that this two month period is, essentially, a complete write off in terms of school.  As March is starting to show us slightly better weather, we're getting back into school more and more.  I feel as though I should record this sort of thing so that the next school year, when it happens again and I find myself in February wanting to cry because my children all insist they can't spell, tell time, complete basic arithmetic or sit still for more than a few minutes, I won't think it's something new.  It isn't new.  It has always been thus.  

The 8 Year Old

Math

We have continued working very slowly through the Kumon workbooks I purchased in the fall, and are picking up speed on those again.  I am still trying and not succeeding at implementing Saxon Math 5/4, which is approximately his level but so far away from his interest.  Our main focus for the past two months has been to memorize the multiplication tables and to that end we are fairly steady up until the 10 times.  We took this book out of the library as well:

Link

Which introduced the idea of prime numbers, which led to us practicing the Sieve of Eratosthenes, which turned into a rabbit hole of discussing patterns.

Spelling

The 8yo finished Spelling Workout B and started Spelling Workout C.  Printing is smaller and clearer.  We are working on cursive handwriting.

Reading

In terms of reading lessons, we have completely failed in the past two months with that.  However winter always brings on a big upswing in free reading and so far he has 35 titles on his list of Books Independently Read This School Year.  We are entering another reading stage change where he is moving beyond simple chapter books and into longer chapter books, but is still fluctuating between the two levels.  If this goes as his change between advanced readers and early chapter levels went I imagine he will be firmly into longer chapter books by the end of the year.

Music and Physical Education

Swimming lessons were on hold for these two months and have just started up again.  Physical education was mostly the occasional trip to go tobogganing, or else playtime outside with siblings, but not structured.  We need our weekly structured P.E. and I need to remember this in future years.

Music lessons continued but his teacher feels like he is now beginning to reach the end of her teaching ability so I'm researching music schools/teachers to move him to.

History

Still reading A Child's History of the World.  I keep it in the car to read and we rarely go anywhere in the winter.  Sigh.  So we're not too far along at this point.  Really would like to finish it up this Spring and start our next history book.


The 6 Year Old

Math

The 6 yo has plodded faithfully through math and is now 30ish lessons from finishing her year's work. 

Spelling

Problem, she's also four lessons from finishing her year's spelling book.  I started implementing spelling tests to see if she was just floating through the work but she's getting, on average, only one word per list incorrect.  So, I've ordered Spelling Workout B for her and she can do that in the next week or so once she's finished Spelling Workout A.

Reading

This is the reading-est child.  She's reading on level with her older sibling and is set to pass him very soon.  This is her latest book:

Link

My plan is just to keep shoveling literature at her.  Suggestions for a six year old who reads like a twelve year old are welcome.

Music and Physical Education

The 6 year old is set to take the 8 year old's space in piano lessons when he moves on to a new teacher.  This hasn't happened yet.  

The 4 Year Old

At the 4 year old's insistence, we are 'learning to read'.  In our house this means the well-worn copy of Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons.  We're on lesson 9.  She's a trouper.

Seven Quick Takes - March 1st

Seven Things I Would Totally Buy If Money Were No Object

Right-o!  Onward to the capitalist extravagance!

1)  I think it goes without saying that if you can request a swatch before buying your custom made sheets, we're talking serious bedding.  That's not the price per sheet SET, either, we're talking per sheet.

2)  First read this article, then tell me you don't ALSO want to own Anthony Bourdain's favourite chef's knife.

3)  Now, I've never eaten out at a restaurant specializing in molecular gastronomy, but you had better believe I could.  Alinea, in Chicago, would be my choice.  A cool $395 per person for a set dinner menu.  Minus tips, of course.

4)  For the price of a decent used car, or a year's worth of groceries, I could take a zero gravity flight and oh my goodness I would totally do this.  Do normal people do this sort of thing?!

5)  I have wanted to stay at Hazlitt's Hotel in London for years now.  I will likely never do this in the real world but imaginary wealthy me would go here yearly.

6)  All the books, of course, but especially all of the books from The Folio Society.

7) I can't even think.  A unicorn?  A giant bedazzled unicorn?  That does dishes?

Picture books

Here are some of the picture books we've been looking at these days.

Seven Quick Takes - February 22

1)  Here's an NPR article about 'champing' (camping overnight in churches), the brainchild of the Churches' Conservation Trust.

There seems to be a little fluttering about this.  And I can understand because...camping in churches?  Is this something we should be encouraging?

On the other hand, and just to offer another side of it, churches throughout the centuries have rarely been JUST places of worship.  They've been all sorts of things.  Schools, hospitals, hiding places, places to crown monarchs, places to learn how to play the piano, places to sleep (we've had people sleep in our church before, when they've needed a warm place to lay their head).  The Churches' Conservation Trust does state in its FAQ section that: "The church building has passed to the care of the Churches Conservation Trust"  So these churches aren't 'working' churches anymore, which I think changes the conversation quite a bit.  The CCT does call the churches "consecrated" but I have a feeling they don't fully understand, or at least differentiate, what that means from "commissioned".  Because no denomination I've ever heard of, once finished with a building, leaves it as a fully commissioned/consecrated holy place and turns it over to a church trust for camping.  I think it's probably safe to assume these churches are decommissioned buildings.  It's actually quite a nice thought to me that these beautiful old places of worship will remain standing and cared for for future generations, and be used in a respectful way.  It's better than turning them into houses.

2)  Here is an article about an Icelandic scholar who came to Lincoln in the 12th century to study at the cathedral.  I'm always surprised at how cosmopolitan the Medieval world was.

3)  Something very true that came across my desk recently.

4)  Look at the cross stitched stockings this woman made for her family!  That's just stunning.

5)  I don't need to make this cake.  But I want to.

6)  I bought two pairs of these leggings because the sales clerk informed me that they were this year's version of the leggings I fell in love with last year.  They are not.  Three washes in and they are already pilling.  I'm disappointed.  Thick, sturdy, winter leggings that are more slim pant than skin tight polyester are not the easiest to find.  Especially if you aren't a size 2.

7)  I just bought a new swimsuit for the summer but now that I've seen this one I want it as well.

There's your weekly glimpse into my mind.

Blogs!

I asked a while ago about favourite missionary blogs, and then I thought about it and decided I would make my own list.  Here are the blogs I check every week, missionary families AND other ones.

Ellisons In Mongolia - A family of three who moved in 2018 to Mongolia as missionaries with Global Partners - the missions branch of The Wesleyan Church.

The Kubackis In Angola - Medical missionaries who have served for many years in a small outpost in rural Angola, taking two weeks out of the month to fly with MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) into the bush to bring medical care to unreached isolated tribes.  I believe their sending organization is SIM (Serving In Missions).

The Knitting Needle And The Damage Done - Funny blog with knitting magazine reviews.

Swistle - Goodness I've read Swistle for such a long time now.  She's a personal blogger, so not really any particular topic but I check her every week.

Pleasant View Schoolhouse - I used to love reading her but I think she's stopped blogging now, which is a shame.  She's essentially the Dora Saint of the blogging world - gentle, gracious, classy.

Hearth Ridge Reflections - Just found this one but have been checking regularly for updates.  Charlotte Mason style homeschooling and lots of books, which I love.

Book Review - Book Scavenger (spoilers included)

Book Scavenger - by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman

published 2016

Read aloud to the 9yo

The Good

Emily comes from a family that embraces adventure and travels around the country trying to live in every state once, and although Emily spends the book starting to resent the constant moving, she seems to also enjoy the excitement and new places at least a little, especially the most recent move to San Francisco, home to her hero and the creator of Book Scavenger - an online book hiding/finding game.  She makes a friend, there is some conflict between them at one point that actually blossoms into a short estrangement, but things work out in the end.  She also appears to resolve her rocky relationship with her brother, who has grown away from her as he becomes a teen, and she confronts her parents eventually about her feelings with moving.  I wouldn't say the relationships were all GOOD (there is a lot of name calling between brother and sister, for example) but they are BETTER at the end (like when big brother stands up for his little sister).  Emily loves reading and there is a lot of book and author type information scattered throughout.

The Bad

I had to do a lot of on the fly editing to read this to my children, who are much younger than the intended audience.  There are two 'bad guys' and in the first scene they shoot the creator of the Book Scavenger game (he remains in critical condition in the hospital for the remainder of the story) in order to steal a book he has.  Emily thinks nothing of keeping a book that doesn't belong to her.  There is a lot of sneaking around.  The parents know nothing about any of the Book Scavenger games and seem to be hands off to the extreme.  Emily sneaks all over the place looking for clues and really acting, well, not very kindly actually.  There is a bully at school who sneers at Emily and her friend, and steals from them.  The older brother calls her 'phlegmily', which I found repugnant.  The creator of Book Scavenger gets estranged from his best friend years ago.

My Thoughts

Because we really enjoyed another title in the 8-12 year old middle school reading level I picked up this one because it was well reviewed on Amazon and had books, reading, adventure and mystery in it.  But this book was way too old for my crew.  I had to edit so much out it was awkward to read in parts.  The actual story of a girl who solves a book mystery using clues she finds in a big scavenger hunt is very compelling and probably would be fine for a child who could read about, say, a shooting, and not be bothered.  Everyone is ok in the end, and Mr. Griswold, the Book Scavenger creator, recovers, but this was much to old for us.  I would think in this case twelve is probably a good age for the story.  Almost every relationship was also ridiculously difficult in this book, which probably speaks to a middle schooler and their own challenges navigating that stage of life, but for me was pretty heavy handed.  Emily is in conflict with her parents, her brother, her friend, her teacher, and probably someone else I've forgotten because everyone was upset with everyone else at some point.

If I'm making this sound like an unworthy book to read, that's not my intention.  We got through it and actually we were interested to see how the mystery ended.  I think the main problem was just choosing to read it to younger children.