WFMW- How I made Housework more FUN!

I don't like to clean. I don't like to fold laundry. If I had my way, I would leave dirty pots soaking in the sink til I needed to cook in them again. I would much rather be lost in a good book than be doing housework. Except now I do both... I get lost in a great story WHILE doing housework and it makes it so much more enjoyable, to the extreme that I find myself looking forward to dishes, or mopping, or folding laundry! How did I accomplish this amazing transformation???? Hypnosis???? Strong Drugs???? Partial lobotomy????



No my friends, nothing quite so drastic as that... I accomplished this life altering (okay, at least SINK altering feat) with the help of my local library and downloadable audio books! I've always listened to audio books in the car. It turned a boring drive into a chance to get lost in a terrific story and have some ME time. Recently my library began offering downloadable audio books that I could load onto my iPod. Now story time could be anytime- in the car or out! Though I find it hard to watch TV and complete my chores, I can easily stick my iPod in my pocket and mop, wash and straighten anything that I need to. It really makes household tasks so much easier, and that definitely WORKS FOR ME!

Fore more great Works for Me Wednesday tips, visit We Are THAT Family. 


Thanks to AMAZON.com for providing the photo. I'm trying to do more photos in my posts and their widget makes it easy! If you buy something through their link, I will get a small thank you from them. THANK YOU from me! 

The division of labor

All fellow bloggers, I need some perspective here. Talk to me about the division of labor at your house- you work at home, your spouse works somewhere else. What does he handle as far as child care, cooking, laundry, housework? How do you manage to get time for yourself while still making sure that all the other needs of the house are attended to? Who gets up in the night if the kiddos wake up? Who puts them to bed?

Bonus round: how did you determine who would do what? Did it just flow naturally, involve some discussion? Compromise?

Link back to your own blog posts dealing with these issues or leave me some tips and tricks in the comments. Thanks!

Edited to add some posts related to the above topic...

Rookie Moms- You May Already be at 50-50

The Simple Dollar- When One Partner is Self Employed

Equally Shared Parenting An entire website, complete with blog and soon to be released book, devoted to the idea of 50/50 parenting.

WFMW- The TO DO List

Meet My TO DO List. After spending some time (months) running around like a chicken with my head cut off feeling like I never accomplished anything, I finally put some of those free school supplies to good use and created a TO DO list. When a random though crosses my mind (as in "I really need to...." or "Wow, I've got to remember to...") I just jot it down on my TO DO List. When it's done, I cross it off. Can I tell you how great putting a nice thick slash line through something feels?? We have a little celebration and move on to another item.

My husband can also see my TO DO list and occasionally decides to jump in and complete one of those tasks that I've got listed. He can also see (as evidenced by the thick slashy lines) what I've accomplished. It helps me from having to point out that even though our house LOOKS like it's inhabited by wild monkeys, I really DO DO things around here. (Wild Monkeys, DO DO, HAHAHAHAH!!!)

Anyway, this is a simple, simple thing that has helped me from having all those random thoughts rattle around in my brain and resulted in less thinking, more doing and a greater sense of accomplishment. It doesn't cost anything and doesn't have any negative environmental impact. Someday, I might get really fancy and start prioritizing my TO DOs, but for now, this is working for me! Try it- maybe it will work for you too!

As always, visit We Are THAT Family for more WFMW.

Letting Go...

This is the post that I read first thing this morning. (HUGE thanks to Missy at It's Almost Naptime for her Wednesday Link Love, among other things!) So this is the post that I read almost first thing this morning, after walking by my dirty dishes multiplying in the sink and clean towels in the basket waiting to be folded. It brought tears to my eyes. This made me remember why I blog and why I read blogs. And after reading this, I closed my computer and played with my precious little boy, who is not always going to be little and willing to giggle at his goofy mama. Did this blog post somehow transform our day into perfection with birds singing outside? Nope, but it reminded me to appreciate every minute of this opportunity to be with my son because someday, I will regret not spending the time with him. And someday, I might HAVE to go back to work and I won't get to spend all day with him, playing and laughing. I don't think that I'll ever regret leaving the dirty dishes and a towel does not have to be folded to dry off your behind! ;-) So go read the post already. Really.

And along the same theme, since I require beatings over the head to get a point, Tips for surviving (and thriving!) in the baby/toddler phase. This post is more practical than the one above, but it's really been resonating with me since I read it yesterday. "Accept that you can't do it all." WOW. Simple, but true. For Jennifer and her husband, keeping the kitchen dishes clean is important, but letting the clean laundry pile up is okay. Great way to look at housework... what's the priority? Where do I need to focus my energy today?

So today was about letting go of the millions of small things that distract me from the little man. Letting go of the dishes, letting go of the idea that I have to be this super woman who takes care of the child, cleans the house and cooks the meals. And in letting go, I'm able to accomplish so much more.

By the way, this post is not really where I want it to be, but it's late and I want to go watch Burn Notice with my wonderful husband who still doesn't understand this whole blog thing. So I'm going to just post it and let go of the idea that it needs to be more perfect. Hopefully you'll get some of what I am trying to say.

On Housekeeping

Thanks to tandemracer via Flickr for the beautiful kitchen sink photo!

If my mother knew that I was discussing housekeeping, she would die laughing. And then take me to have my head examined. My husband would just skip straight to the head examination. To say that I am not the world's best housekeeper is an understatement. There are photos of me as a child in the middle of my bedroom and if you didn't know any better, you might think that we were the victims of a horrible natural disaster. There are dolls flung here, clothes laying there, puzzle and game pieces littering the floor. Things did not get much better with age. There were times as a teenager that sleeping on the couch was preferable to finding my bed under the pile of clutter.

I am be no means an expert on keeping things neat, organized or clean.

That being said, I have a husband who is a neat freak. He likes things just-so. On the rare occasion that I move the books on the coffee table to dust, he comes home and immediately notices. He doesn't notice (or thank me for) the lack of dust, but he does notice that his books are a few millimeters off center. And then he moves them back to their rightful place.

I also have a son who is learning to crawl and no longer stays where I put him on his play mats or clean blanket. Having a relatively clean house becomes that much more important when you have a wee one navigating on hands and knees!

Finally, I feel better when things are neat(er). Having a lot of clutter in the house does add to a sense of anxiety. Things run much more smoothly when clothes are put away in their proper place and I don't have to wage an all out search for a particular shirt or pair of pants. I am more likely to have friends over if I can focus on planning a fun menu instead of waging an all out war against the clutter and mess. I used to have a built in excuse for a messy house- I worked all day- I could not possibly be expected to keep everything up at home. No more job, no more excuse. I was here all day, I should be able to deal with the basics of keeping a home. I was here all day, I wanted somewhere nice to be! I would not take a job in a cluttered, unorganized office, so if home was to be my office, I needed it to be clean!

So what's a natural messy to do when it comes to keeping things clean? When I worked outside the home, we sometimes said that you don't have to know it all, you just have to know who to call. I apply this same principle to housework. I rely on tips and tricks I've picked up to help keep things running smoothly.

FlyLady: I don't follow this plan to a tee, but I do think that she's write about a few things. First, keep your kitchen sink clean at all costs. If you leave a dish in your sink- one dish, it announces, "Party in the kitchen sink!" and all the other dishes come climbing out of the cabinets to lounge in the kitchen sink. Really, I promise. And apparently, one dish in the sink in man language means that the dishwasher must be full, broken, dirty or on a vacation, because it there's one dish there, my husband adds more. Even if he has just seen me empty the entire dishwasher and knows that it's empty. I run my dishwasher overnight, so in the morning, it gets unloaded for the day and all of our dirty dishes just go in there, no stop to party in the sink.

FlyLady also advocates getting dressed for your day, down to your shoes. I must admit that I am sitting here in my pajamas typing this post. It's 10:30 am and we've been up since 6:30. But today is a good day- I'm not pulling my hair out, we slept all the way through the night last night and my son went down for a morning nap. On bad days, days when we've been up three times during the night, he won't go down for a nap and I feel like a crappy wife and mother? On those days, we get dressed ASAP. Everything feels better after a quick shower and putting on real clothes. And it makes it that much easier to just grab the carseat and the keys and get out of the house, which is sometimes the only way to rescue a really bad day. There is a reason that they make people in offices dress a certain way- clothing contributes to how we feel and how productive we feel. If you are having trouble getting things done, try dressing for success and see if that makes a difference. I know that it does for me!

Totally Together Journal: Stephanie is the author of this blog and upcoming book of the same name. I first "met" Stephanie through her CrockPotting blog. (It's WONDERFUL too- you should check it out!) Stephanie has a somewhat laid back approach to cleaning- do a little bit each day and you will never get to the point where you have to do a lot. I also really like her approach to laundry- do one load completely- wash, dry, fold and put away- each day. I can't tell you how accomplished I now feel when I do this. If the rest of the day is headed to hell in a hand basket, at least I can point to this one thing and say, "Well at least I did my load of laundry for the day!" For me, it's all about breaking it down into manageable steps.

Part of the reason that housekeeping is so tough for me is because I am a perfectionist. I take the phrase, "If it's not done right, it's not worth doing!" to heart and just don't do housework because I can't do it all perfectly right now today. I can't get the tile grout clean, so I might as well just not clean the floor at all. I don't have time today to sweep, swiffer and scrub on hands and knees, so I just won't do anything. Sometimes, I have to literally repeat to myself over and over, "Cleaner is a blessing to my family, cleaner is a blessing to my family." And sometimes it works! :-)

What are some of the things that help you stay on track when it comes to keeping house?

Thanks to Jenny at Babyfingers for reminding me about the FlyLady. Jenny is mom to adorable Suzy and Ivey, who arrives in 12 weeks or so. Jenny will be a SAHM when Ivey gets here!