Trying to Minimize the Chaos in My Life

I feel like I haven't had a clean home since I got pregnant with Layna. I have a very hard time keeping on top of dishes, Lokela's clutter, the normal chores (bathroom, laundry, vacuuming, sweeping, etc) and cooking - as well as keeping up with the challenge of having 2 kiddos that are constantly demanding my attention and I want to give it to them. When I was pregnant I felt it was an achievement just to get up with Lokela and take care of him. Most of our chores were put on hold, and Jim took up a lot of the responsibilities for cooking and dishes and things. Then I had Layna girl and although I do get more things done now, she takes up a lot of my attention and I feel lucky if I'm able to do one chore (instead of the many that have been piling up forever). In recent memory there has only been one time where all the rooms were clean, the dishes and counters were spotless, and the floors were vacuumed and swept all at the same time, since I was preggers. And the only reason that happened was because my brother Al came over to watch the kids and all I did was clean, clean, clean. Sadly, it went back to being a mess by the next week and I was once again over my head.

I recently started a job as a freelance blog and website content writer. I'm very grateful for the job (Jim was out of a job for 3 months so we didn't have any income for a while) but it also has made the whole housekeeping aspect of life get even worse, if that were possible.

-Sigh-

Soooo, even though I do have some things that are out of my reach as of yet, such as a full 8 hours of sleep because my daughter is stubbornly refusing to let me put her in her bassinet at night, I find myself very anxious to have a clean home.

I found a few cleaning/decluttering sources online. I'm still not 100% sure which one I am going to go with. But I'm looking into them both, to be sure.

The first cleaning website I thought of was Flylady.com. She helps give assignments and do baby steps to help you learn to de-clutter your home and slowly come to a place where you no longer will have to be embarrassed every time you hear a knock on your door and know someone is going to peak inside your home.

The very first assignment with flylady is to have a clean, shining sink every night before you go to bed. Even if you have dishes you take them out, put them on the counter, and clean, clean, clean that sink until it shines. That way you have a sense of accomplishment and that is done. There are other assignments once you get past this, but that's the first one I am on so I don't know what the others are.

The other cleaning one was more of a spring cleaning one that I also thought looked good. Its on simplemom.net. She has an e-book about cleaning, and on her website she has a 10 day guide on how to get your home clean and organized. On day 1 you are supposed to do a clean sweep of your home, just picking up trash and putting things in a get-rid-of box if you don't think you need it anymore. By starting with the small stuff it makes it easier to finish the job, and by cleaning off the surfaces it is easier to keep up with the rest of the basic housework for the next 2 weeks and see where you need to clean.

I, of course, already had plans to pick up and put away laundry thats been laying around forEVER so I didn't do either of these assignments yet. I'm thinking the simplemom idea seems a little less time consuming, but who knows - the fly lady may win out.

Another idea by Sister-In-Law Jes mentioned to me was to try and have a chore a day. So Monday clean and vacuum the hall and living room. Tuesday clean the kids rooms. Weds. do laundry. Etc. That doesn't sound like too bad an idea either.

I'll let you know once I decide. The challenge with the spring cleaning is to do before and after pictures of the areas you clean to see how much you accomplish with the few hours of cleaning. That may be fun to see the HUGE differences, huh? I think if I do the spring cleaning I'll do a quick picture of whether or not the entire home STAYED clean in all the areas by the end of the challenge, haha. We'll see. :)