jen
Charitable Lady
Posts: 229
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Post by jen on Sept 10, 2012 11:50:55 GMT -5
Does anyone here genuinely love housekeeping? Why do you like it? Have you always liked it? Did you dislike it once, and did that change?
I hate housekeeping. Nothing about homemaking has ever fired my imagination or enthusiasm except maybe decorating for Christmas. I don't even feel a sense of accomplishment when the house is clean, just a sort of pessimistic relief. (Pessimistic because everything I "accomplished" will soon be undone. That may even be the root of my problem; at the moment it's simply not in me to care about work that won't stay done.)
I keep telling myself that the children need a clean place to live and play, that germs make people sick, etc. I just wish I were one of those ladies who enjoyed it. (Or seem to enjoy it, anyway, haha.)
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tbhas6
Senior Member
Posts: 1,146
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Post by tbhas6 on Sept 12, 2012 10:58:06 GMT -5
Hi Jen,
My heart goes out to you because I also find housekeeping a never-ending mundane chore. The only up side for me is the the fact that I HATE living in a dirty home much more than I dislike the cleaning chores.
When our children were young I often found housekeeping to be overwhelming because they were always creating so much clutter and all my cleaning & tidying would be undone in moments. However, as they started growing up, they've become terrific helpers.
I agree with you that a clean and tidy home is beneficial to your family. I know that when young children are in the home it is difficult to keep everything tidy, but remember they will grow up and with your leading example and guidance they will become efficient helpers.
Ideas that have helped me and others reduce the clutter and maintain a more organized flow:
**Make a cleaning schedule or routine - certain chores/tasks on certain days or at certain times throughout each day. Remember to assign each child age appropriate chores.
**Keep floors cleaner by never allowing shoes to be worn inside the home. We line up our most frequently worn shoes (work boots & kids play shoes) in a row under a bench in our mud room.
**Do not allow food or drinks outside the kitchen. All meals and snacks are ate at the dining table or breakfast bar.
**Reduce the number of dishes to be washed by assigning everyone a specific glass for the day, (colored plastic glasses work well) rinse out after each use and store on window sill above the kitchen sink.
**To minimize clutter on counters & tables keep frequently used items for that room in a decorative box or basket - remember to put the item(s) back when finished using.
**Minimize toy clutter by storing 1/2 of each child's toys and rotating them out every two weeks or once per month. When a child receives new toys for b-day or Christmas, teach the child to donate an old toy for each new one to charity.
**Minimize the mountains of laundry by reducing the amount of clothing that comes and stays in your home. Every time you purchase a new item, donate one old item to the local thrift store. We keep & maintain only 8 changes of seasonal clothing for each person. We buy separates so we can extend a small wardrobe by mixing and matching. To keep children from throwing all their clothes on the floor while deciding what to wear, box up and store off-season clothing under beds, in the garage, attic or basement.
**Reduce children's art work clutter by hanging the artwork in a magnetic frame on the fridge OR by tacking it to a specified bulletin board. Each time the child creates a new work of art replace the old with the new. If a particular work of art is spectacular or exceptional and you want to save it use a plastic file box for each child's work & store it in an out of the way place like a closet or cabinet. Remember to save only the BEST.
**When selecting new or replacement home furnishings, select items with storage such as end tables & coffee tables that contain drawers, shelving units that have doors. Remember drawers and doors offer maximum amounts of storage while reducing the appearance of clutter.
**Reduce mail & paper clutter by having a designated area to open mail each day. Keep a trash can or shredder in that area so you can immediately dispose of junk mail, and discarded envelopes. Our children place our in-coming mail on the desk in my office where I open it, sort it and file it all in the same place everyday.
**Since we live in a VERY rural area I use a magazine file rack to hold the mail order catalogs I often purchase from. When a new catalog arrives I immediately throw the old one away and place the new one in the file rack.
**Large binders with the plastic page protectors are a GREAT way to store and organize appliance & equipment manuals. I have one for household appliances and one for outdoor farm equipment. I store the binders on the top shelf of one of my kitchen cabinets.
**As much loved as they are, nick knacks can make a room seem cluttered and they collect lots of dust. Purge the nick knacks. Those that just can't be parted with, store in box and rotate them out (like the toys) with the change of seasons. Also, the fewer the nick knacks the more practical dusting is for children.
**We swiffer dust 2 times per week and use polish and cloth once every two weeks. The swiffer duster is FAST and super easy for the children to use.
Well, this is a long reply but I hope it brings you some encouragement and provides a few ideas to help reduce the clutter and feelings of too much housework.
tb
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jen
Charitable Lady
Posts: 229
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Post by jen on Sept 12, 2012 13:03:12 GMT -5
Thank you, you have some good organizational ideas there. I've found that having a routine and getting rid of clutter does help me to get things done, but it doesn't make me any happier about it. Maybe I just have to accept the fact that I'm going to spend the rest of my life doing something I hate, and make the best of it?
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tbhas6
Senior Member
Posts: 1,146
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Post by tbhas6 on Sept 14, 2012 10:59:07 GMT -5
I agree, Jen. House chores do not bring a smile to my face either and after 30 years of managing a household and training up children (only 2 left @ home) I still haven't found any secrets to finding any eagerness or joy in it. However, maintaining an organized home has brought a HUGE reduction in the feelings of burden associated with house chores. When I don't have to "pick up and put away" prior to every cleaning job the time, effort and energy spent on that particular job is less than 1/2. A FAST finish is what brings a smile to my face.
tb
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jen
Charitable Lady
Posts: 229
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Post by jen on Sept 14, 2012 12:15:30 GMT -5
A FAST finish is what brings a smile to my face. tb lol, you are so right!
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jalynn
Senior Member
Posts: 512
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Post by jalynn on Oct 2, 2012 13:06:08 GMT -5
My house is clean enough to be healthy & thank goodness the girls have doors on their bedrooms! I have learned over the yrs. to pick my battles!! I clean the bathroom every morning before I leave the house between 6-6:30 a.m. I'm a SAHM who is lucky to be home most days....raising DH 2 granddaughters...explains most of the clutter...I always tidy the living area before I leave the house so when I walk in the door it looks nice...laundry is an alomost every day deal so I do my best & that's it....! I find I do better if I tackle small portions that way it's not so overhelming!!
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jen
Charitable Lady
Posts: 229
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Post by jen on Oct 3, 2012 11:44:50 GMT -5
We go through a lot of laundry here. On average, I have to do two loads of laundry per day to keep up.
I know the Flylady says you can do anything for 15 minutes. I wonder if she has a saying for how long it takes kids to undo what you do in 15 minutes!
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Post by Kristi_M on Nov 6, 2012 9:08:36 GMT -5
Hi Jen, I know I'm late on this thread, but I wanted to share a little. I don't know that I can say that I genuinely LOVE housework, but I'm not bothered by it on the whole. I do have a few jobs that I dislike. I used to have an awful attitude about it, but there was a time when I read many books about the Amish and one of the attitudes that I perceived about them was that they made work part of their fellowship. Now, that's not really feasible here, but I got the idea from them that work was supposed to be enjoyable, so I set out to learn how to enjoy my work. I do think you are correct, it's pretty much all in the attitude and the way you think of it. Perspective. We can learn to endure almost anything with the proper perspective. I believed this concept for the area of my homemaking/housework. For the jobs that I really don't like doing---scrubbing the tub, cleaning the toilet/bathroom, emptying the dishwasher---I think of those things as "crosses to bear" I suppose. They cut across my preference (meaning, I'd just prefer not to do them. Ha!). However, as Elisabeth Elliot says: "When the will of God cuts across the will of man, somebody has to die." (I believe that it is the will of God that I take care of my family in this way, so this is why I consider those chores the will of God for me.) With that in mind, I choose to "die" so to speak, and rather than cursing the fact that the mess is there for me to do (and believe me, that can and does happen if my attitude is left unchecked), once I get complaining thoughts in my mind, I oust them quickly and begin to thank God that I have a family that makes messes for me---some have lost their children, husband, etc. This kind of disciplined thinking goes a long way in helping me to persevere through the times when I've just finished cleaning the bathroom/ washing the bathroom rugs and someone decides that it's a great time to cut their hair. ;-P
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jen
Charitable Lady
Posts: 229
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Post by jen on Nov 7, 2012 19:25:05 GMT -5
It's true... perspective makes a huge difference. I confess to watching episodes of "How Clean Is Your House?" just to scare myself into keeping the place clean! I feel like I'm hopeless, and my house is hopeless, too. It isn't filthy, but it isn't organized either. There are so many renovation projects on the go that are half finished I've just about given up hope of ever getting organized.
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Post by Kristi_M on Nov 8, 2012 10:15:02 GMT -5
LOL! I used to love that show, and watched it for the same purpose! Then I lost track of it.
Renovation projects definitely do have the capacity to make things feel overwhelming. Perhaps you can work on just one room, get that under control and then move on to the next?
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jen
Charitable Lady
Posts: 229
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Post by jen on Nov 8, 2012 21:03:47 GMT -5
I would love to do it one room at a time and be done, but there's also siding and roofing to be done outside, and the long and short of it is, DH is doing what he likes when he sees fit. Not that his way is a bad way when I look at it from his point of view, it just wears on the nerves a bit!
The whole renovation story started off badly when DH knocked out a wall in our room on a Saturday night. I tried to convince him that redoing the closet (the room next door was going to be the laundry room and nursery, so we were stealing closet space from that room to give us more storage space) might be a better idea on Monday, since Sunday was the one day we really used the closet. (It was only big enough for our dress clothes.) He was gung ho about it, though, and went at it with the sledge hammer happily. We went to church the next day with a hole in the wall, and that night even though it was four weeks early, my water broke and we went to the hospital. So we brought home Caleb to a hole in the wall.
And that's pretty much how renovations have been going since, lol. We were going to leave the new living room empty and just finish it, but then our pastor retired and moved back to North Carolina. He could only take so much in the Uhaul, and gave us a LOT of his furniture. We accepted the generous offer, of course, but then we were no longer talking about finishing an empty room... yup, that's about how it's been going with us. lol
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