I will be organized with my cleaning, if it’s the last thing I do

I will be organized with my cleaning, if it’s the last thing I do! Let us gird our loins, pull up our sleeves, and take dominion!

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I’m gonna get pretty vulnerable with y’all today.

So buckle your seatbelt.

Ya know, I’ve felt like I’ve been in survival mode for the last 5 years.

Most of it being self-inflicted. But survival mode nonetheless.

We’ve moved three times, fully demoing and remodeling the middle place while living in it with babies and toddlers. I’ve popped out three babies, 15 months and 18 months apart. We insist on having ALL the farm animals and dogs. For most of those years my husband worked long hours at work while I was by myself to tend the home, kids, cleaning, cooking, and also trying to run an online business. Then pile on top of all that, the fact that I have an autoimmune thyroid disease and am exhausted for big spans of time.

Sorry, that sounds like an awful lot of complaining.

But it’s all to paint a picture of how my life has been and how its happened that I let my house cleaning get the better of me. It became out of control.

I admit it.

In the trenches

You know the phase of life where you shove dust bunnies back under the couch. Because you just can’t think about it?

Or you pretend not to see how dusty and fingerprint-covered your walls have gotten. Because there is no more time or energy in the day?

It’s the “in the trenches” phase of life.

It’s a beautiful phase of life, but so hard.

The kids and husband obviously take first priority. Keeping food on the table and everyone full. Keeping the animals alive, and the garden weeded.

But recently it all came to a head.

I have gotten some major health issues straightened out so I have more energy. We also have somehow managed to not get pregnant in a year and a half so my body has been able to stock back up on minerals.

My mom actually had to point it out to me though.

Because everything had gotten so behind, I almost didn’t even see it anymore. It blended in. That, and it was too big of a task by myself so I avoided thinking about it. You know, the deep cleaning stuff.

Sure I kept the house tidy, did the vacuuming, mopping, some dusting, kept the dishes clean.

But the top of the cabinets hadn’t been cleaned off for 2 years. That sort of thing.

My mom came over for a couple days and helped me get it all sorted out. But even after that first day the ball was rolling.

I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and my motivation was renewed!

I stayed up late for the next few nights finding more and more things to clean.

My favorite cleaning supplies on amazon

Because ya know how that works, when once you clean something, it makes something else stand out? Then you clean that and that makes you notice something else? It can be an almost never ending rabbit trail.

And gosh it feels so good!

I refuse to be a victim of my home

I feel like I’m coming out of the trenches a little bit.

Ever so slightly.

Not all the way to be sure. My children are still 4, 3, and 1 1/2, and we will probably be pregnant again soon.

But I have made it a new tenant of my life and role as a homemaker, to become organized with my cleaning.

I will be organized with my cleaning, if it’s the last thing I do!

I want my home to be a truly peaceful and clear environment for my family. And I want them to remember order. Not rigid cold order and an angry flustered cleaning mom. But a well-kept peaceful space, with a clean counter and a candle lit. A cleared off entryway shelf with a flowerpot on it. Not clutter and dust. Ya know what I mean? It’s not perfect, it’ll never be perfect, but it has a different feel.

I will not be a victim of this. At this point in my homemaking journey, I for sure know what’s expected of me and I need to find a way to do it.

So I printed myself out a schedule.

Yes, slightly pathetic, but so what?

I love lists and schedules.

Part of me was worried that I let the deep cleaning things get behind because I just didn’t remember to do them. So I knew if I wrote them down I’d be wayyyy less likely to fall behind.

Here is what I wrote down and printed out.

It’s stuck smack dab in the middle of my refrigerator front.

So I’m going to have one room to clean per day and I’ll do it during the kids nap, or let them join me and teach them some cleaning skills!

Then after dinner I’ll always be sure to put my kitchen to bed. That’s been a favorite habit of mine for awhile, I’ve fallen on and off that one, but it’s something I’ve strived for for awhile.

I will not go to bed with a dirty kitchen.

Will. Not.

Even if I have to stay up late and fix it, it’s well worth it to have a fresh start in the morning.

Especially with my personality, I’m much more of a nightowl, no matter how hard I’ve tried to be a morning person. So thinking I’ll be able to just do it in the morning is not feasible for me.

We must know ourselves.

At the end of the weekly cleaning schedule I have a few things that I need to remember to do either monthly or yearly, those are the things I’m more at risk of forgetting.

So that’s my little story for the day.

I failed, then pulled myself up by my bootstraps.

And that’s the best we can do.

And blessings!

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I will be organized with my cleaning