Home maintenance and care: Weekly house blessing (cleaning)

This is my first installment of a series of articles that I will be posting about home maintenance and care. Just skip them if they don't apply to you or you are not interested.

I have several aquaintances who are trying to get better organized for the new year, so I thought I would post some things that seem to help me run a smoother house. Of course, most of you know me, so you know that I was not born organized! I tend to have some scattered tendencies and that was just fine, UNTIL I started homeschooling. Since we first started homeschooling in 2003 I have been working to become more organized and a better manager of my time. There just seems to always be so much to do... and the presumption that because we are home we can get all the home maintenance done faster is false. I know, I fell for that one! LOL! The truth is because we are home, it is a never ending job! So here is the first installment of a series of articles on how I have worked to miantain a routine of home maintenance and care. While all families are different you may get some tips and tricks from these articles, and I hope you post and leave comments of YOUR tips and tricks, I am always looking for great ideas.

Weekly House blessing (this is a weekly cleaning that I do of my home, origionally posted on my Message board HOMEschool fellowship)

I can't claim the phrase "weekly house blessing" as my own, I borrowed it from flylady (www.flylady.net) but I have always done what I now call a "weekly house blessing" of one kind or another once a week even before I read about the concept on Flylady, I just thought the name was very cool so I borrowed it. My mom use to clean houses to suplement her income and as soon as I was old enough to dust, I went along to help her in the summers. I just took the training I got doing that and used it in my own house, it seemed natural to take a few hours (or less even) to do a good basic surface cleaning once a week, just as we did for our customers. After I got married I did some house cleaning to supplement our income as well. What I do today is a combination of things that I was taught by my mom and learned other places. It does resemble what Flylady recommends but there are some differences. I won't go into her recommendations here, you can find that on her website if you are interested. This is what I do:

Every friday I take about an hour or hour and a half to "clean house" (It use to be Monday before we started Homeschooling and my oldest dd tells me she can remember coming home from Kindergarten every Monday to the house smelling clean with cookies on the counter! funny how those things stick huh?)I am going to give you some tips but if you don't need them or they don't work for you just forget them, ok!1) Gather materials: real maids bring their cleaning supplies with them to the room they clean, you should do this too, take a few minutes before you start to gather the things you need, this is what I gather:
Duster (this can be a feather duster, dust cloth ect.)
Window and glass cleaner (vinegar works GREAT on glass)
My vaccuum, broom, dust pan mop and bucket of hot mop water with cleaner in it (vinegar works good here too, but I use Mr. Clean in the blue bottle, I just LIKE It!) and a rag that I moinstened in the mop water (used for wiping down stubborn things, like fingerprints on the light switch)
A notepad and a laundry basket (a box will work) These two items are the BEST supplies that I use, they both keep me on track and help me from getting "sidetracked" The notepad I use to make any notes about things that I need to do when I am cleaning a room that would normally sidetrack me and stop me from cleaning. I put a sticky notepad in my pocket and a pen to make notes. For example, today I noticed something that needed to be mailed that I had been forgetting when I dusted my chest of drawers, so I jotted a note on my notepad to mail that item and finished dusting my chest. I USE to stop dusting to go do something with the thing I noticed. Now, I jot a note and when I am all done with the house blessing then I either Do those items or I put them into my household notebook to be done later.THe Laundry basket I use to put things in that does not belong in that room. GEnerally my rooms have been mostly decluttered before I start, so if I had a lot of clutter I probably wouldn't put everything that needed to go into another place or to be put away in the basket, I would put those things that bothered me most, like stray toys or shoes ect. AGain, when I am all done with my house blessing I put those things away or have their owner put them away. I can't reitterate enought HOW helpful those two items are. They keep me working on task.

My kids are all old enough to do their own basic cleaning (of course the 6 year old's room will not be done to my satisfaction, but I touch it up on another day during the week or when I pass her room in my weekly cleaning IF she isn't around, I don't want her to see me redo anythign she has already done. Also, right now I am washing/changing bedsheets every 2 weeks so I do 2 beds one week and 2 the next. I just strip them or have the kids strip them first thing in the morning and go back and replace fresh sheets later in the day, I don't try to put fresh sheets on during the hour or so that I do the "blessing" it would be too much. And I find that this is one job that seems to take longer than it should.

These are the rooms I have that get something done on my weekly cleaning day:
My bedroom
Half bath
Full bath
Living room
Kitchen and laundry area
my 3 kids rooms

THis is what is done in each room:
Bedroom and living room:Dust/polish glass/mirrors/vaccuum/sweep/mop/QUICK swipe of light switch and doorknobs {and sometimes door jams on my way out}
Living room also gets a quick straightening up of the desk, entertainment center and media cart WHILE I dust them, if I have TIME I pull the sofa and do a QUICK vacuum under my sofa when I am vacuuming
Bathrooms:Clean toilet and sinks ( I do a quick swipe daily of these places so my friday cleaning consists of a more deep clean so I wipe down the outside and spend more time cleaning the bowl area of the toilet.clean out cat litter change garbage bagsclean glass/windowswipe down those light switches and knobssweep and mop
Kitchen and laundry room:Dust and polish glass/windows Wipe down appliances and inside microwave/sweep/mop/ straighten laundry room and wipe down outside of garbage can.
Kids room, they work on this themselves:Dust/polish glass/windows/sweep/mop/straighten up top of dresser and under bed (quick pick up not major cleaning)

Start in the fartherest corner of your house, finish in one room and mop yourself out (hint, swipe the mop across your baseboards to give them a quick clean)Bring your supplies with you as you go, just like you see the maids doing in hotels! Except you don't need that huge cart! Work yourself to the front of your house and then SIT And relax. Be sure to reward yourself wiht your favorite cup of drink and some REST when you are done. WE do get this all done quickly, we don't linger or try to be perfect, it is just surface cleaning, NOT deep cleaning. Go as fast as you can and just quickly get these things done. Without the kids I can do it in an hour, with the interruptions of my kids I can do it in about an hour and a half. When they were all younger and needed me more PLUS couldn't do their own rooms it took a little longer.

You will be blessed if you don't have to think about the dust on the tv cabinet or the ring around the toilet bowl... it becomes a non issue and you can focus on loving your family instead!