Powered By Blogger

18 December 2007

Day 9: Help Me do My Chores!


Last time I posted about my favorite dish towels, which have the days of the week and a motif of a kitten doing different chores embroidered on them. Then over the weekend I got a little touch of whatever Julien had last week, and I'm finally starting to feel better. But, I was really trying to get to the point of asking this question, which is:
Do you have an overall weekly plan for doing your chores? If so, would you please share it in my comment section?
I'm always looking for new ideas (or old ones that I've never heard of or tried before) to help me improve my skills as a housewife. While reading the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, I learned that the pioneer women used to:
Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Mend on Wednesday, Churn on Thursday, Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday, and Rest on Sunday.
I don't have my routine set quite so firmly, but I'm working on it. So far, I'm aiming to wash on Mondays, mop the kitchen on Wednesdays, clean the bathroom on Fridays, make pizza on Saturdays, and rest on Sundays. It's not quite where I want it to be, yet, and certainly is a far cry from the churning, mending, and milking that those pioneer women used to do every day!



Personally, I tend to loathe Mondays. Mainly because we rest a little too much on Sundays, and I find I have a sink full of unwashed dishes and an overall messy house to contend with on Monday morning. When we used to have to go to the laundromat, I got very used to only doing laundry one day a week, but it wasn't always on the same day every week. Now that we have our own laundry facilities, I find it's harder to keep up with it on a daily basis. Sometimes I'll wash load after load, but then take days to get around to folding it and putting it away. I'm beginning to try something different, and I'll let you know how it's working in a future post.

Please! Help me to improve! In the comments section, please answer any or all of the following questions:
  • What's your overall weekly plan for doing your chores?
  • How often do you clean the bathroom?
  • (How often do you think one should clean the bathroom?)
  • How often do you mop your kitchen floor?
  • (How often do you think one should mop the kitchen floor?)
  • What tips, tricks, or bright ideas have you found to be helpful to you in getting the jobs done?
  • What's your favorite chore?
  • What's your least favorite?
  • What cleaning supplies, tools, or appliances do you find to be most useful or helpful?
  • What Scripture verses, slogans, songs, or ideas have you found to be most encouraging in being diligent and getting those chores done?

Your comments are greatly appreciated! I would prefer you comment here on my blog so that other readers may benefit from your input, but if you prefer to e-mail me directly, you can do so at merrilee.stevenson@gmail.com. I hope to get lots of good ideas! Thank you in advance for your help.


5 comments:

  1. Hey Merr :)I'll take a stab at your questions. When I was staying home full-time - I had it down to a science. Now I'm having to be more flexible since I'm working part-time again. But one of the benefits to going back to work is that I hired a housekeeper!

    Monday - laundry (clothes)
    Tuesday - meal planning, groceries
    Wednesday - kitchen, general pick-up
    Thursday - errands
    Friday - bathrooms (I alternate the girls & guest one week - master the other)
    Saturday - wash sheets & towels (kids are home to make their beds), vacuum, dust (kids help)

    How often should you clean the bathroom - I go on the every other week plan - but girls aren't quite like boys with the toilet.... I do as needed touch-ups with antibac wipes.

    Kitchen floor.... weekly - but our dogs are good at licking up any spills :)

    Favorite (or one I midn the least) is laundry
    Least Favorite - bathrooms!

    Favorite tools/supplies - I got a great book about cleaning called "Speed Cleaning" and I generally use their method. And I love their cleaning products - www.thecleanteam.com. They are reasonably priced and don't have a strong scent - and since you buy concentrates - it is very economical.

    My biggest thing now is getting the girls involved more in cleaning. They've always helped fold and put away clothes - but now I've been teaching them how to clean their own bathroom. We'll see how it goes.

    Happy Clean House!
    Karen

    ReplyDelete
  2. Karen,
    THANK YOU for being the first to respond! (I was beginning to wonder if anyone else does chores!) I will probably answer my own questions in the comments section as well, but was hoping more people would respond first. I know, it is a busy time of year. Chores are probably not on a lot of people's minds these days...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Merrilee;
    Oh bummer, I typed all of this and then realized that I had to get "signed up" for it to show. By the time I got in the system, I lost my entire post. I will try to remember it all again.

    When the kids were still all at home, I did have set days that I did chores. Monday & Thursday were wash day, Tuesday was ironing -- since I dried all the clothes on a line, there was a lot of ironing. Friday was cleaning the bathroom. Dusting and vacumning was done daily in the living areas. Sunday was church, and Saturday was usually an open day. I then made a list of all the other chores that needed to be done. You know all the fun stuff like cleaning the frig, defrosting the freezer, cleaning the stove, cleaning the oven, washing the windows, deep cleaning vacumning. I would then do one or two of these chores on Wednesday. That way, everything got done at least once a month. I also found that if I kept to the schedule, nothing got super dirty and the job always went much faster than I figured. I always tried to get the cleaning chores finished before lunch, that way I would have the rest of the day to do other fun/creative things. It was also added incentive to get my work done quickly so I could have "play time."

    Hope this gives you some ideas.
    Mom S.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Weekly schedule?? Mop?? Ugh! I keep thinking about the friends that drop by for a minute, but in that minute someone from their party has to use the bathroom...I've got kids assigned to the front bathroom, and it is embarrassing most of the time. So fear of shame is the motivator here...
    I don't mind the laundry. I'll do several loads after another, when there are full loads to do. I usually pile it on our bed, and catch the news or whatever while I fold. Or get the girls to do it while I read school books to them.
    What I don't like to do is put away the Christmas decorations!! I'm ready for them to be gone, I just don't want to figure out how to put them away again. Maybe I need labels...
    I vacuum whenever, maybe couple times a week. Right now I need to get the Bissel out and shampoo the carpets. Its pretty easy to use and does a fair job. Makes me feel like I've really done something.
    I don't mind grocery shopping either. Only I like to go first thing in the morning when the meat has been marked down and there is hardly anyone else there, and not on a weekend but Tues or Wed or Thurs. Without kids is best, or after they have already eaten. I used to bring a little plastic shopping cart for the girls to take turns pushing up the aisle. Some times it just ended up under the big cart and they had to ride. I did push and pull two carts sometimes. It was a season.
    Afraid I'm not inspired on house cleaning. Amy unloaded the front games/video closet Christmas eve about 11:30p, so she could unload the carpet cleaners and seasonal boxes out of her bedroom closet. We did lighten the load, but it was a mess--and friends came over to watch football on New Years day, so we had to hurry. Did I say ugh already? I really like the hire a housekeeper idea...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I would love to have a weekly schedule for chores. I try to laundry every other day. This seems to help me stay on top of it and Lauren is starting to help with it and it makes a huge difference. I try to vacuum every other day in the rooms we use the most and the upstairs gets vacuumed once a week. I mop on Thursdays because we usually have people over for Survivor. Since our dog died I have to do a lot more sweeping in the kitchen...he cleaned up after me and the kids like a hoover. I dust when family is on their way. The bathrooms need to be done weekly but that seldom happens so I try to keep up with those cleaning wipes each week and do a thorough cleaning every other week. Josh just informed me that he looooves to clean bathrooms so he will be taking over that chore...so far he already missed a week. My least favorite is dusting and my favorite is vacuuming...it drowns out the noise of my kids screaming MOM!

    ReplyDelete