Dee’s Homemaking Posts ~ All in One Place!

April 6, 2016 By Deanna Piercy 1 Comment

Here are my homemaking posts, all in one place for easy reference!

I’ve been blogging for about a decade and have amassed quite a lot of posts. When I started Life With Dee, I transferred something like 1700 posts from my old blogs, Tea With Dee and Dee’s Kitchen. I had high hopes of going through all of those old posts, categorizing, updating and adding pictures. Well, that’s just not going to happen anytime soon (Who am I kidding? It’s never going to happen – ha!)

Despite wonky formatting issues and the fact that we didn’t always include pictures (or very good ones) back in the old Blogger days, some of my old posts may still be of interest to y’all. If for no other reason than curiosity. So I’ve included those old posts about homemaking in this collection, in spite of their flaws.

Dee’s Homemaking Posts

These are roughly in reverse order of original posting dates, with newest posts first. As I write more posts on this topic I will add them so you might want to bookmark this post or save it in some fashion to check back periodically. I have done a little updating or formatting for a few of the older posts. If I see some of them getting a reasonable amount of traffic then I’ll take the time to polish them up a bit and add better photos or graphics. Otherwise, consider them a bit of blogging nostalgia. 🙂

Make Over Your Life With Dee: A New Facebook Group

I’m Giving The FlyLady Another Chance

How To Create a Weekly Menu Plan

Homemaking: A Personal History

Organization Videos: A Few of My Favorites

Why I’m Bringing Back the House Dress

Time Management Toolbox

Organizing With Bankers Boxes

Spring Cleaning ~ Tips and Motivation

La Maison ~ Home, the French Way

Creating a Beautiful Life ~ My Bedside Table

Company Ready in 5 Easy Steps

Decluttering Challenge

A Day in My Life ~ A Look Back

9 Steps to Take Control of Your Day

Dee’s Favorite Homemaking Books

The Value of a Homemaker

Dee’s Favorite Household Tools

Kitchen Decluttering ~ Part 1

Kitchen Decluttering ~ Part 2

Ironed Pillow Cases ~ A Little Luxury

A Clean(-ish) House in 30 Minutes a Day

Making Time For Everything

Just a Housewife

Blame it on Lucy

1950s Housewife

Dee’s Domestic Dailies

Back to FlyLady?

A Summer Routine

Some Things Never Change

Labor Saving Devices

Homemaking vs. Housekeeping

Homemaking is Back in Style

An Ordinary Life

Washing Dishes By Hand (a guest post)

My Day as a 50s Housewife

The Fine Art of Clothesline Laundry (a guest post)

A Change of Seasons

How to Fold a Fitted Sheet

A Day in My Life

A Day in My Life…Part Two

What Do You Do All Day?

The Good Housewife Guide

Monday Maintenance

This is the way we mop our floors…

Spicing Things Up

~~~~~

I occasionally write for The Glamorous Housewife. Here is the post I wrote about The FlyLady:

The Best (and Worst) of The FlyLady

One of my posts was also included in this this one:

I Didn’t Know That! 5 Fantastic Housewife Tips

Retro Housewife Goes Green included one of my posts in this roundup:

6 Amazing Cleaning Tips

I have several Pinterest boards related to homemaking. Here is one of them:

Follow Life With Dee’s board Home Making on Pinterest.

Spring Cleaning ~ Tips and Motivation

March 18, 2016 By Deanna Piercy 7 Comments

Have you started spring cleaning yet? Or do you spread the tasks out over the year so you don’t have to partake in this springtime ritual? Spreading out the cleaning makes more sense when one’s time and energy resources aren’t what they used to be (um, like me?). However, there is something rather satisfying about having an entire house all sparkling clean at the same time.

For me, it’s a moot point because I haven’t been doing the extra, deep cleaning all along. That means that if I want to enjoy a thoroughly clean house I’ve got to get busy and start spring cleaning.

I’ve spent some time this past week or two gathering resources to help motivate me, as well as some good tips for a couple of problem areas in my home. Let’s take a look at what I dug up.

Spring Clean With Dee

Disclosure: This post contains an affiliate link. Thank you for supporting Life With Dee!

First up, how about some motivation? Here is a great video by Melissa of “Clean My Space”:

If you enjoyed that video, check out her YouTube channel for more. She’s got some great videos.

Now that we’re all motivated and raring to go, let’s do some planning.

We all know Martha Stewart is the homemaking guru so why not start with her? Here is her spring cleaning checklist, including a printable chart:

Spring-Cleaning Checklist by Martha Stewart

My plan is to start with the master bedroom. Ours is upstairs and since no one else sees it, it tends to get the least amount of regular cleaning attention. Here’s a post about deep-cleaning a bedroom:

29 Steps to a Deep-Cleaned Bedroom by Time-Warp Wife

And speaking of neglected areas:

Spring Cleaning – The 10 Neglected Areas by Premeditated Leftovers

If your time is really limited, check out this 7 day approach:

How to “Spring Clean” Your House in 7 Days by Wrapped in Rust

If your time is REALLY short, perhaps you need to skip some tasks. Here are some things you can let go, guilt-free:

What NOT to Spring Clean by Ask Anna

Once you have a general idea of what tasks you want to accomplish and your time-frame, then it’s time to sit down with pen and paper and create your plan. Here is a free printable to help you do just that:

Free Spring Cleaning Printable by Retro Housewife Goes Green

Personally? I’m intrigued by The Slow Scrub by Alison of Brocante Home. I love the idea of slowly going through my home, room by room, and lavishing attention on each area. Not just scrubbing and polishing, but adding those little touches that make a home special.

The Slow Scrub by Brocante Home

My plan is to combine The Slow Scrub with my ongoing decluttering project, then throw in a few other tasks here and there. I printed off the first month of The Slow Scrub a few days ago and read through it. I’ve blocked off some time tomorrow to get started. I’m going to put The Slow Scrub pages in a binder, along with Retro Housewife’s printable. I’m then going to sit down with my planner and schedule spring cleaning at la maison du Dee.

It’s going to be clean and sparkly around here in no time!

Follow Life With Dee’s board Spring Cleaning on Pinterest.

This post is linked up at Hip Mama’s Place. Check it out for more spring cleaning ideas!

La Maison ~ Home, the French Way

March 1, 2016 By Deanna Piercy 9 Comments

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved to “play house”. No matter where I was, I nested. At home, my room was my sanctuary and I loved making it pretty and comfortable. Next door at my grandparents’ house, I would play by the hour in a corner of her den, setting up a little “house” in which to play with my dolls. On vacations I would even claim a little area as my own in which to play.

As a little girl I longed for the day I would have my own home. When David and I married, we rented a tiny, one bedroom apartment. Despite its diminutive size and our lack of furniture or much of anything else, I still enjoyed making it a home. We’ve since lived in four additional places in our nearly 35 years of marriage and in each one, I’ve done my best to make it attractive, comfortable and homey.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Life With Dee.

From what I’ve read about the typical French woman, home is of vital importance. It is her sanctuary, her respite from the world, the place where she can be herself. The French woman may decorate her home in any number of styles and yet there is always something unique and personal about it. Perhaps because the French value their history and are more likely to renovate rather than demolish and rebuild, there is a sense of permanence in the typical French abode. Likewise, the passing down of treasured pieces of furniture and other items is common-place so you aren’t likely to see a French home furnished entirely with brand new furniture and decorated to look like the showroom of a furniture gallery. It’s more personal…a look that is the result of layering new and old items in a one-of-a-kind way.

French homes tend to be smaller than the typical American is used to, with rooms doing double duty. While newer American houses are likely to have two living areas, plus a dining room, the French woman living in an apartment probably only has one living area with a dining table at one end. While we seem to keep building larger homes with more rooms, the French woman wonders why a family is afraid of intimacy. I thought this quote from Entre Nous was interesting:

“Eventually, you Americans will have a separate room for every person, including a special bathroom for each pet, and your rooms will be so large you will be able to avoid authentic human contact at all costs!” (Entre Nous by Debra Ollivier pg. 193)

Hmm…makes you think, doesn’t it? I’m a loner by nature and value my privacy, yet even I am perplexed by many of the homes I see being built these days. I pretty much quit watching those house hunter shows on HGTV because I was rather put off by all the young couples with only one or two tiny children who absolutely HAD to have at least 4000 square feet, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, one or two offices and a separate playroom for the kids. While I do know that too many people crammed into a small space, especially without adequate storage, can be very stressful, I think we often go overboard the other way. There should be a happy medium, don’t you think? While I don’t have any personal interest in the “tiny house” movement, I’m truly pleased to see that some are beginning to consider smaller homes.

Another thing that is usually different about the French woman’s home is that her living room is generally set up in order to encourage conversation rather than being centered around the entertainment center.

Where electronica reigns in many traditional American living rooms, books are king in the French one, and they’re present everywhere: lined up in built-in bookshelves, spilling onto the floor in small piles with well-worn spines and dog-eared pages. (Entre Nous by Debra Ollivier pg. 192)

Now that’s something I truly share with my French sisters. My home is filled with books. The laundry room is the one room in my house without books and if I thought the cats would leave them alone, I’d probably have some in there as well. And while we do have televisions, I haven’t yet caved in on the issue of a large, flat-screen t.v. for the family room. When we bought this house, we bought a nice entertainment center to house the television and other equipment. When the doors are closed, all you see is a pretty piece of furniture and I insist on keeping those doors closed unless the t.v. is in use. It’s located next to our fireplace so the furniture is situated in such a way that we can just as easily watch a crackling fire as the latest sit-com. I know that media rooms are all the rage but I much prefer our library. We have a separate room with built-in bookshelves, nice stereo system, the piano and organ, and NO television. It’s a quiet retreat from busy-ness and too much input.

I’ve recently had a surge of my old interests in interior design and homemaking. I’m starting to spend more time puttering about, re-arranging decorative items and planning a few changes. David works long hours in a stressful business so I feel that the least I can do is make our home a peaceful sanctuary for him. I’m getting in touch with my “inner French girl” and seriously considering ways to make our home life more serene and pleasurable. I’m sure you’ll be reading more about this from me in the coming months and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

Making time for everything

February 25, 2014 By Deanna Piercy 7 Comments

Yep, I'm going to have to do it. #schedule #routine #toomuchtodo

Free printable available here.

I’ve been resisting it for a quite awhile but the time has come. I’m going to have to bite the bullet and make a daily schedule for myself. I’ve done it in the past during busy seasons of life:

attending nursing school when I had a toddler and kindergartner
working as a nurse, first part-time and then full-time
while homeschooling my kids

During those times it was necessary but not exactly my favorite thing to do. I’ve quite enjoyed this past 8 years or so of allowing daily life to unfold in a more organic, natural way. That’s not to say I’ve not kept busy or had plenty to do. But my time has mostly been my own and the deadlines have been relatively few.

That’s changing, however. I’ll tell you the details soon – probably next week – but suffice it to say that I’m about to get much busier. I’m excited about it but also a little nervous. Can I get everything done and still have time for the things I enjoy doing? Sometimes when I think back to the days when I worked full-time and had two young children I’m not entirely certain how I did it all. And then I remember that I was taking diet pills and eventually came close to a nervous breakdown. I certainly don’t want to relive that experience. Besides, my doctor won’t give me diet pills…I asked.

I don’t have the schedule all figured out just yet but I decided to start by making a list of daily and weekly tasks.

Daily:

general housekeeping (bed made, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, bathrooms)
meals
exercise
meditation
piano practice
writing (my blogs, newsletter, freelance articles, book)
work (our new business, editing)

Weekly:

piano lesson
choir rehearsal
volunteer activities
board meetings
business meetings
deep cleaning/household organization
baking bread
gardening

Those are the basics…the things which have to be fit in somehow. I’m not quite sure how just yet. I’m sure it will take some trial and error. I’ve started looking for advice online and if you have any suggestions leave me a comment. Please! I am going to need all the help I can get.

Dee’s Domestic Dailies

June 12, 2013 By Deanna Piercy 4 Comments

I came up with what I hope will be a daily routine which can be accomplished in about an hour and will leave my house in reasonably good condition each day.

make bed
swish and swipe master bathroom *
take wastebasket and load of laundry downstairs
empty wastebasket into kitchen trashcan (and other downstairs wastebaskets if needed)
start laundry
put away clean dishes, empty dishwasher
wash (or put in dishwasher) any dishes left in sink or from breakfast
start at front door and walk through each room tidying up anything out of place
swish and swipe guest bathroom *
feather dust tables and other flat surfaces
vacuum main traffic areas
drink a glass of water

I’m not sure if I can accomplish all this in one hour. I’ll be out of town today but I’ll give it a whirl and time myself on Thursday or Friday and then report back.

*“Swish and Swipe” is a Flylady term which you can read about here. I add wiping the mirror, sink and counter to it, all of which can be done in about three minutes or less and leaves your bathroom in decent shape on a daily basis.

Back to Flylady?

June 12, 2013 By Deanna Piercy 2 Comments

It’s been a week since I mentioned my plans to implement a summer routine. I’d like to say I have it all worked out and it’s going just swimmingly. But I can’t. It seems that my days vary so much that it’s hard to come up with a consistent schedule. I think I’m just going to have to accept that fact and think outside the box.

I do firmly believe that when it comes to housework, keeping up is MUCH easier than catching up. That means that a roster of basic tasks done DAILY helps you stay afloat even if the usual weekly tasks are skipped now and then.

These are the things I consider daily, bare minimum, essentials (your mileage may vary):

make bed (even if the rest of the room isn’t perfect this makes a huge difference)
keep up with dishes, wipe counters/stove/sink
a load of laundry washed, dried and put away (most days)
tidy each room
take care of pets
meals
clean up spills and messes as they occur

If those things are done every day the house will be livable and not terribly embarrassing if you have unexpected company. And I actually do these things as a matter of course, without much thought.

I also have a few things I do every Monday:

wash bedding and remake the bed (I just have one set of sheets and put them on straight from the dryer)
refill food and water for parakeet (and again on Thursdays)
water all my houseplants (I have a LOT)
catch up on all the rest of the laundry, including a load of dishtowels/dishcloths/napkins

What I don’t have firmly in place is a plan for all those other household chores such as:

dusting
vacuuming
mopping
cleaning bathrooms

I tend to do these when they look like they need to be done and/or when having people over but not on a set day.

And there are seasonal/outdoor chores I need to work in as well:

sweeping porch, walkway, patio, balcony
watering porch plants
watering garden
weeding
wiping down porch furniture

I’ve been a little overwhelmed with the whole thing, especially in light of the fact that I also want to make sure I make time for exercise, writing, blogging, reading, porch time, etc. And of course there are also errands to run, groceries to purchase, meetings to attend, various appointments, time with family, parties, entertaining, church, date nights, etc.

I think the best starting point for me is to come up with a 45-60 minute daily housekeeping routine which covers the essentials plus at least one weekly task. I believe that if I do the same tasks in the same order each day I will get faster and will be able to do them without much thought. Because my schedule varies from day to day I’m not going to set a particular time for this daily routine but will determine the time the night before after looking at what I’ve got going on the next day. My goal will be to get this done as early as possible but some days that might be 9 a.m. and others might be noon.

You are probably familiar with Flylady and likely have an opinion on her methods. Some people swear by her and others can’t stand her. One complaint I often hear is that they don’t like being told what to do. Well, I don’t either but she hasn’t come to my house to boss me around; if I follow her methods it’s because I have sought out help and have chosen to do so. I am also perfectly capable of selecting which of her routines, methods, suggestions work for me and which do not.

After “shining your sink” and “lacing up your shoes” (another bone of contention for many; I opt for Birkenstocks rather then lace-up shoes), the next part of Flylady’s basics is the “Daily Flight Plan” which starts with a morning routine. This is where I want to put my focus for awhile. I think if I get this part down, the rest will start to fall into place. At least that’s my hope!

It’s getting late and I’ll be out of town all day tomorrow doing my monthly grocery shopping. I’ll post a tentative daily housekeeping routine before I leave tomorrow (hopefully!).

Now it’s your turn. Do you have a list of daily household tasks? If so, do you do them all at once in a set order or here throughout the day in a random order? Have you ever followed Flylady? If so, what do you think of her methods?

A summer routine

June 5, 2013 By Deanna Piercy Leave a Comment

It’s funny how, even though it’s been years since I was in school, summer still feels like a time to change up my usual routine. With warmer temperatures and longer days, winter routines seem out of place. I’ve been thinking about this the past week or so and am working on coming up with a daily routine which allows me to accomplish what I need to do while making time for the things I want to do.

First of all I gave some thought to what my priorities are. I have found that my actions don’t always reflect what I say is important to me. For instance, I would never claim that Facebook is an important priority and yet I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time messing around on it. (If I didn’t have such amazingly witty and informative friends it wouldn’t be so hard to resist.) After some consideration here are my main priorities:

serious time spent blogging and writing
exercise and meditation
a reasonably clean and tidy house
time to read
porch time

I think in order to accomplish those things I need to give my day some structure. Not a strict schedule but at least fairly regular time periods for these tasks. I’m going to set aside the major portion of the day while David is at work as MY work time. I’m still working out the details and I’m sure there will be some trial and error but my goal is to have a workable routine in place by the end of next week.

If you are at home during the day do you have a routine or do you just wing it? Tell me how you organize your time in the comments. Also if you have any good tips or links to helpful sites, I’d love to hear them.

Some things never change

January 18, 2013 By Deanna Piercy 2 Comments

I’m in the process of writing a new issue of my “Tea With Dee” newsletter. I started it back in February of 2005 but last year I pretty much let it go, thinking that surely everyone got enough of what I had to say via my blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. However, before I shut it down I thought I’d ask my readers just to make sure and was surprised to find out that nearly all really wanted me to continue. Some don’t read blogs and others just like having something they can print out and read away from the computer. So I’m working on a new issue and am going to try to put it out on a regular basis again. I decided to take a look at the first issue I wrote and realized that some things haven’t changed. I had written a section about homemaking and how I seemed to only be getting the routine stuff done but very little of the extras that make homemaking fun. Here it is eight years later and I could say the same thing. Maybe I should do something about that, huh?

I thought you might want to read what I wrote so here it is:

Homemaking:

I loved to play house as a little girl. My cousin, Sue, who was also my best friend, lived next door most of our growing up years. Our grandparents lived right behind us and the two of us spent many an hour playing in their den. We each had a favorite corner where we would set up our *house* and play dolls. We also had a playhouse in their backyard. One of my fondest childhood memories is the summer we decided to fix up the rather primitive playhouse. My brothers and Sue’s younger brother also got in on this. There was no window in the playhouse but this didn’t stop us from making a pair of curtains out of old dishtowels that our grandmother gave us. We made a little bed for our dolls out of wood and bricks. (Continuous remodeling is a family curse so there was never a shortage of building materials for our projects.) We swept and cleaned and washed all the little dishes we kept out there. We then did a bit of *landscaping*. This was the desert so we weeded the area immediately surrounding the playhouse and then raked the dirt smooth. We collected good-sized rocks from all over and used them to border the *yard* around the playhouse, complete with a walkway to the door. I think we tried to plant a tree of some sort but I can’t remember the details about that. It might have just been a branch we cut from a tree. We worked really hard for several days. We then planned a little open house complete with entertainment. I think my brother played his guitar and we all sang something. We invited our parents and grandparents for this grand event. What a fun time we all had!

I can’t help but think that if someone had told us we had to do all this, it wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun. In fact, I don’t think it would have been fun at all. Why was all that work enjoyable as a child but cleaning my house and weeding flower beds now more often seems like drudgery? Could it be my attitude about it? As a young girl I wanted nothing more than to grow up and have my own home and children (I didn’t think much about the husband part in those days. <g>). I would daydream about taking care of my cosy little house and rocking real babies instead of dolls.

I married quite young and well remember those early months of our marriage. We rented a small, one bedroom apartment for the first nine months. We started with very little and didn’t have much money but it was still a pleasure to turn that plain little apartment into our home. We didn’t have a sofa at first so I took one of those tri-fold lawn chairs, opened it out flat, covered it with a quilt, and then propped throw pillows against the wall behind it. You know what? I didn’t mind this makeshift sofa one little bit. After all, I finally had my own home and I was delighted with it. I loved serving dinner by candlelight on our pretty china, even if it was only hamburgers.

We then bought our first house. It was quite old and fairly small. It needed a lot of work but we were so happy to no longer be throwing away money on rent. I will never forget our first spring there. The elderly lady who had owned the house before we bought it had planted lots of flowers. I have always adored flowers so it was a real thrill to discover each new bloom. There were lusciously scented old fashioned roses, irises, peonies, and honeysuckle covered the entire back fence. Each day I would go out and cut a few flowers. I had vases and other containers all over the house, filled with flowers. The kitchen was barely larger than a walk-in closet, the bathroom only had a tub – no shower, I had no washer or dryer, no dishwasher, and just a very old window air conditioner in the living room, but those flowers made up for all that.

Our next home was a brand new mobile home. We were planning to build a house on an acre adjoining my parents’ land but thought we should live out there for awhile first in order to be sure we wanted to live in the country. It was only two bedrooms but it was 80 feet long and everything was sparkling clean and new. There was a dishwasher and a huge garden tub in the big master bathroom. Oh, how I loved that tub! Some of our busiest years were spent in that mobile home. Chris was 18 months old when we moved in and Lisa was born during the seven years we lived there. I also went to nursing school during that time. Despite all that, I still enjoyed keeping house there, although we were getting a bit cramped toward the end of that time.

After I graduated from nursing school we decided that instead of building a house in the country, we would buy a house in town. We found the most charming 1930s era house in a great neighborhood. The minute I walked in the front door I knew this was the house for us. It had nine foot ceilings and all those vintage details that make older homes so attractive. The kitchen was huge and still had the original metal cabinets and large porcelain sink with built in drainboards. Some cute wallpaper and some 50s collectibles turned it into the most adorable Betty Crocker style kitchen imaginable. The house only had one full bath and a half bath off the master bedroom, but the three bedrooms were huge. The house was very well designed and quality built. It was such a joy to decorate this cosy little house. And a pleasure to keep clean and tidy. We all loved this house but finally decided we wanted to move to the country.

We have been in our current home for 7 years. It is situated on 40 lovely wooded acres, complete with a pond and a guest house. The main house is fairly large and two stories. It was decorated in very unattractive 70s colors when we bought it but we quickly remedied most of that and have gradually made improvements over the past several years. Our biggest project was the kitchen. That had been my biggest disappointment with this house. After enjoying such a cute kitchen at our previous house, the dark, cheap cabinets, dropped ceiling with fluorescent lighting, and poor design did nothing to make me enjoy spending time in there. David completely gutted the old kitchen and we now have my dream kitchen.

For some reason, over the past 2 or 3 years I have lost some of my enthusiasm for housekeeping. I am a neat nut by nature so the house is generally fairly tidy and my kids insist it is cleaner than the homes of most of their friends. Still, I often feel as though I am just going through the motions and doing merely the necessary tasks. It often seems as though all I do is routine maintenance but rarely get to the fun parts of homemaking, like decorating and rearranging stuff. I also find myself rushing through my daily tasks instead of enjoying them like a little girl playing house.

I doubt I am the only one in this situation so I plan to explore this in future issues. How can I get back the joy in homemaking that I used to have? Stay tuned and maybe I will have some answers someday.

In the meantime, here are a couple of favorite housekeeping resources:

Flylady

“Totally Organized” by Bonnie McCullogh

****************

What about you? Does housekeeping feel monotonous or have you got a handle on making it feel rewarding? What is your favorite part about keeping house?

Catching up on cleaning up

August 11, 2012 By Deanna Piercy 2 Comments

Have you ever had one of those days when you look around the house and realize that, for whatever reason, things are not as they should be? Or perhaps that’s the situation every morning? That was the case for me when I started working on this post earlier in the week. Last week was busy and so was the weekend. Somehow Monday got away from me, too, although right now I can’t recall why. (*Now I do. I had a funeral to attend.) I do remember that David had a meeting which ran late that night so we didn’t eat dinner until about 8:30. We watched the Olympics and I worked on the kitchen during commercials. I rarely go to bed without leaving the kitchen clean but I still hadn’t finished it by the time the Olympics were over. Ordinarily I would have stayed up until I had it done but I got a better offer. Never turn down a better offer in order to do dishes. That’s my tip for young wives. Or older ones, for that matter.

So this is what I faced Tuesday morning:

Unmade bed – which is the case every morning

David’s unpacked suitcase from his last business trip – a week ago!

This doesn’t look as bad in the picture as it really was.

Cute dog…who sheds on the carpet

Splattered mirror and general untidiness

Clean laundry not put away

Dishes left from the night before

Half full bottle of cola from David’s rum and coke, stacks of mail, etc.

So where do you start? Here’s my general plan of attack:

Shower and dress in something comfortable but not embarrassing if someone drops in unannounced. I don’t usually do full makeup before cleaning house but I do moisturize my face, put on some lip gloss and use an eyeliner pencil along my lower lashes. Just enough that I don’t scare myself while polishing the mirrors.
Turn on some music. To this day my kids say that the sound of James Taylor’s voice instantly brings back memories of Saturday morning cleaning sessions back when I worked and they were in grade school. That was my usual cleaning music back then. These days, with an iPod and Spotify I have many options. Some of my usual choices include Bob Marley, The Grateful Dead, or my current playlist of the month. And there are times when only Nine Inch Nails or Black Sabbath will do.
Pour myself a glass of water to sip on throughout the cleaning.
Make a plan.

That plan starts by determining my goals and getting them firmly in place. In this case my goal was to return the house to what I find comfortable. Not necessarily company-ready. Certainly not “Spring Clean” levels and not even to what I would like to have happen on a weekly or monthly basis. There would be no drawer or closet cleaning. Vacuuming would not include moving furniture or doing around the baseboards with the wand attachment. Basically I just wanted the main areas of the house to be neat and relatively clean.

There are a few things I do every day which make home life comfortable. First, I make the bed:

Doesn’t that look better?

I also try to make a quick tour throughout the house putting things away.

Such as David’s suitcase

Desk area tidied and dusted

Laundry put away

Out of place items put away, pillows fluffed

I walk through the main areas of the house putting things where they belong without getting distracted by actual cleaning (that comes later). I find that having things in order gives me a little boost before I start cleaning. And if something interrupts the process, at least the house looks better.

Next up is the kitchen. I’ve shared before how to clean a true disaster situation. Unless you’re hosting music festivals for a hundred people in your back yard it’s unlikely you’ll face anything that bad but the general principles apply.

Throw away any trash.
Put away clean dishes from dishwasher/drainer.
Put dishes in dishwasher.
Wash remaining items that require hand-washing.
Wipe down counters, stove-top, other surfaces.
Scrub sink.
Sweep floor.

Much better now

I then feather dusted and quickly vacuumed the main areas of the house.

See? No more Shiloh fur.

Finally, a little attention for the bathrooms. I didn’t do a thorough clean but wiped mirrors, swished toilets, cleaned sinks and put out fresh towels.

I put away a lot of the books and magazines which had found their way to our bathroom.

Along with sweeping the porch and doing a couple of loads of laundry, this restored things to a comfortable level for me. I’m sure there are some reading this who think the “before” was good enough and others who find the “after” still lacking a lot. That’s highly individual and often depends upon your circumstances. If you have several young children, just picking up the toys and putting the dishes in the dishwasher might feel good enough. There was a time when I was much fussier about things but the older I get the more I’ve decided that there are other things I’d rather spend my time on than homemaking perfection. I don’t function well in a messy environment but neither do I need everything spotless at all times. Unless I’m highly stressed and/or unhappy. That’s when my OCD tendencies kick in and you’re likely to find me scrubbing things with a toothbrush. Fortunately (I think) that hasn’t happened in a long time.

At this point in my life my homemaking goals are simple. I want my home to be comfortable enough for us to live in (that means I need to be able to find things so tidiness is important) and clean enough that I could welcome a guest into my home without being utterly horrified. David works hard so I give a lot of consideration to his needs. That means good meals, clean clothes in his closet, and a wife not too tired to give him the attention he deserves when he’s at home. That’s why I try to have most of the housework done by Thursday each week.

Friday is the day I hopefully have time to do some of the things I like to do just for myself. I might watch a movie, read, play the piano or work on a project of some sort. I try to fill up my own bucket, so to speak, so that I have plenty to give David after his busy work-week. Oftentimes he wants to go out on Friday night. As an introvert, I enjoy social occasions a LOT more if I’ve had plenty of alone time beforehand and am feeling calm and centered. It took me a long time to stop feeling guilty about that. It’s easy to compare oneself to others and come up feeling inadequate. However, we are each unique and one of the best parts about getting older is learning to accept oneself.

So what are your homemaking goals? Do you have a routine for catching up when things have gotten ahead of you? Any good movie suggestions for next Friday?

Labor saving devices

November 22, 2011 By Deanna Piercy 3 Comments

Lisa and I went to Norman today to pick up the organic turkey breasts we had pre-ordered. We had a few other things we needed or wanted so we ended up going to five or six shops. Both of us have a lot to do this week so we managed to sandwich in this trip between lunch and dinner. Monday is my busier day in the house as I wash the bed linens, try to finish all the laundry, feed the parakeet, clean the litterbox, water all the houseplants (I have a LOT of them) and generally get things back in order from the weekend.

As I was thinking about what I am thankful for today, what came to mind are my washer and dryer. When my grandmother was a young housewife, doing the family’s laundry was an arduous chore. Laundry was traditionally done on Mondays and it took all day. The reason that red beans and rice is the traditional Monday meal in New Orleans is because it was an easy meal for a woman who would be toiling over the laundry all day.

As I said, Monday is the day I wash our bed linens, as well as catching up on the rest of the laundry. I often do a load several other days a week but Monday is my main laundry day, just as generations of homemakers before me have done. The difference is that I have machines that make it almost effortless. Before I left the house today I was able to have our bed linens washed and mostly dry, plus another load in the washer. Despite being gone most of the day, I could still fit in laundry.

It’s easy to take things for granted, like washers and dryers. Or refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers. What about something as basic as hot, running water? It’s something most of us take for granted and yet much of the world hardly dares to dream of such luxury. I try to remind myself of these things as I am washing yet another sinkful of dirty dishes, or washing another load of laundry, or vacuuming the floor again. I’m very fortunate and I don’t ever want to forget that.

November Thankfulness:

Today I am thankful for household labor saving devices.