I’m back! We actually got back on Saturday night, but yesterday was so busy and I was exhausted, so I’m just now getting back to the blog.
The wedding went well, and I did forget mascara, the one thing my mother doesn’t have. Oh well, I just looked like I was half-asleep. The great thing about having the flower girl for a daughter is that no one looks at you anyway.
I’ve been considering my new non-negotiable for the week. Last week was laundry, which went okay, but is nowhere near being a habit yet. I considered just keeping laundry as the habit to work on for the week, but I decided to go at it from a different angle.
I’ve mentioned that a before-bed routine, as I believe Flylady calls it, has always scared me. There are many days when I plop on the couch as soon as the kids are in bed. Or I try to get some project done, like cutting coupons before my grocery trip the next day. There are things I know I need to get done before bed, but I never even think of them.
With my other daily tasks, I often remember to do them when I sit down at the computer during my daughter’s nap time. If I have not done something, I can go do it quickly at that time. With the before bed routine, though, I don’t have that. But it is something I need to do.
So, for this week, I’m going to complete a list of before bed tasks.
I decided to do this because the reality is that I have to remind myself to make sure the laundry is folded and put away before I go to bed. If I’m out during the day, I may miss getting it into the dryer, or getting it out of the dryer.
I am going to go ahead and make a list for my before bed routine. There are things that I usually do, but often forget, which HAVE to be done daily, so I am going to put them on the list.
Make kids’ lunches.
Lay out kids’ clothes for next day. (I hope that as I do better at laundry and put away, I’ll be able to give this responsibility over to them.)
Wipe down bathroom counters and toilets.
Check to be sure one load of laundry is finished.
I just made a sign for myself with these four tasks. I’ll let you know this week how it goes.
The fly lady scares me!
LOL
🙂
The flylady scares me too,!!! She wore me out just reading her. If housework takes all that, I think I WILL give up.
I think Flylady’s can work, but I liked her control journal more than the endless stream of emails. I even have my own control journal around here somewhere. I’m just not sure where. It’s more fun to read Nony’s blog. And more motivating. 🙂
You might have figured this out in the four years since you wrote this, but your clothes will be fine if you set a load to wash before you go to bed. They will be clean and ready for the dryer in the morning during your morning routine. Now, I realize that it might not be an option if the washer is close to the bedrooms and is loud, therefore making it disruptive to your family’s sleep. It shouldn’t start to smell musty by the time you wake up. If it does, you might have to run a cleaning cycle of your machine using hot water with baking soda in the wash and vinegar in the rinse. That is also a great thing for towels that still smell a little funky even when they are freshly clean.
So this is an old comment but thank you! I’m going to try that for my towels they seem to always smell a little funky, it drives me nuts!
My before bedtime routine was definitely more pathetic: It started with, “Make sure kids brush teeth & 2 youngest have clean diapers.”
Then I added, “Brush my teeth.”
I’m trying to add, “Wash face, even if a No-makeup day, & make sure 3 teenagers do same”. It’s definitely taking more than one week for each addition.
Granted, I have 7 kids. Life has been nonstop crazy for too long. 3 moves (including a cross-country move after which I was non-stop sick for 10 months straight, even though the kids would get well for a while before the next bug), adding 2 more pregnancies (along with nursing and caring for babies), as well as building a “shop” to live in while we save for building a house–all in 3 years time just exhausted me and put everything out of kilter, so I’m seriously starting at ground ZERO on EVERYTHING.
Like everyone else, I’ve been enjoying reading your blog from the beginning and find it interesting how in my own journey I’ve kinda been doing the same things, except it’s taking me MUCH longer. I think you have something with choosing a specific routine, writing it down and being accountable to someone and then slowly but specifically adding one more small thing. I’ve been too sporadic and trying to do too many small AND big things, as well as teach my kids to help and be responsible for their chores. Yes, everything needs done, but a few things done well is better than the way it’s sorta getting done and then gets out of control.
I envy you in sweeping once a day and some days there’s not much to sweep. I have to do it a minimum of twice a day and it’s pretty bad–it’s also a very large area, as it includes kitchen, dining area, living room, play room, laundry area, entry area/hallway area, bathroom–basically the entire living area but bedrooms and other bathroom. I homeschool, so all the kids are home all the time. I tried having the older kids take a turn, but detest walking on crumbs and dirt, etc so much (they do a terrible sweeping job & I really can’t do the SHOE thing in the house), that for now I do it and will tackle teaching them how to do it well when I can handle it better.
Here’s an example of how chaos and clutter makes life harder and things take longer . . . . (moving so much and a big family in too small of a space with too little storage doesn’t help!): I bought an almost new Roomba vac from a friend who couldn’t use it with her little dog but in the process of moving in, the power cord somehow was separated from the rest of it (still haven’t found it after living here 2 years) and so it cannot charge and is useless for now. I should just find a replacement cord to buy so I save myself lots of horrible sweeping time and frustration–freeing up more time and energy for other cleaning/decluttering.
I guess it’s hard for us slobs and penny-pinchers to figure these things out and JUST DO THEM!
I’ll keep reading and getting motivated. Thanks so much for writing it as a process, not just a How-To like FlyLady and others. This helps us understand ourselves and what will work for us and to work on it without being overwhelmed. I’m DYING to skip to something current, but I SOOO want to appreciate your progress, so I’m trying to be strong and learn from your process.