November Projects

• Christmas wrappers for zucchini bread gifts
• Christmas wrappers for canned gifts
• Christmas cards
• DVD
• Photo book
• Thanksgiving invitations
• Thanksgiving meal plan

Zone 4 this week... master suite

Today starts the week of Zone 4, the master suite. I spent more than 15 minutes on it today, but it's been a LONG time since I've deep cleaned our room! So today I started with the bed, stripped it, washed the comforter, bedskirt, sheets, and pillowcases. Then I flipped the mattress, since I think you're supposed to every 3 months and I KNOW I haven't done that in the last 3,6,9? months! (By the way, flipping a queen size mattress is NOT a one woman job. I always forget that. I always do it anyway, but next time I should remember to employ Leif's help.)

I cleaned out underneath the bed (wow, there was a lot of "lost" stuff under there!) and replaced the bedskirt, then made the bed with new, clean sheets (flannel, because it's chilly out!). 

I also cleaned the shower this morning. Woohoo!

The whole bedroom isn't clean just yet, but I've got a week to work through it, 15 minutes at a time. In the meantime, it's nice to know that I've gotten some things accomplished today!!

My new laundry system...

I am back to doing Flylady, and that means a load of laundry a day. I am notorious for leaving the clean laundry in a pile to fold and put away "all at once." Instead, what usually happens is that it comes time for bed and there's still a load in the washer or dryer so I haven't dealt with all the clean laundry yet - it's still piled high on the bed! For some people, Mt. Washmore is a pile of dirty clothes. For me, it's a pile of clean clothes that are now all wrinkly and overwhelming! So, I do what any normal person with a deep down need for order is and I... dump the pile onto the window seat to deal with later. It, of course, spills onto the floor because there are too many clothes to fit on the window seat!

So... when I wake up in the morning, not only do I have to remember that I have clothes in the washing machine, but I am greeted by a giant mound of clothes on the floor. It's too overwhelming to deal with, so I just make Leif fish his clean underwear out of the pile for the next week and pretend like it's not there.

But it is.

And it weighs me down, keeping me from doing anything I really want to do. I feel too guilty about the pile to do anything fun, but I am overwhelmed by the pile and avoiding it, so I sit around and do nothing but eat to soothe my stress.

But last week I went back to Flylady and started tackling my problems 15 minutes at a time. And do you want to know something? For a week now, my laundry has been under control. I'm not saying every article of clothing we own has been clean and in the closet every day, but the laundry is not hanging over my head. I started doing 1 load a day and I established a new laundry system for my home.

I got one of these:

to keep next to the washer and dryer, and I got 3 canvas bins to go with it. Here's the theory... dirty laundry comes downstairs in a laundry basket. I load 1/2 or 1/3 of the laundry from the basket into the washer, because we have giant laundry baskets that I love. Because I'm only doing a load a day of laundry, the rest of the dirty stuff stays in the basket. But where does the clean stuff go? Well, the hanging stuff gets put on hangers immediately, and hung on my new laundry rack. Then, the rest gets sorted and folded based on which person it belongs to. One bin for each family member, or to use however works best (e.g. Leif, Elizabeth, Towels, if I don't have any of Ellie's laundry in that particular load). Then, the hanging items and baskets go upstairs one at a time to be emptied and brought back down. If there are any empty hangers in the closet, they go back in the basket to head downstairs and get stored on the laundry rack. I can deal with one small basket of clothes at a time. That is not overwhelming, and it takes just a couple minutes to put everything away. I don't have to do all 3 loads of laundry in one day, because it's fine if the dirty clothes stay in the basket until tomorrow to do the next load. Dirty clothes go in the laundry basket, clean clothes go in the canvas totes. It's great!

And so far, it is working wonderfully - and my laundry's all caught up!!

Updating the control journal...

I'm updating my control journal.

I'm tired of my house controlling me.

I'm tired of the clutter.

I'm tired of the lack of focus.

So I'm going back to the only thing that has ever worked for me. Flylady.

Why do I keep getting away from it?

I went to bed last night with a clean house. Shiny sink. I didn't go to bed early, but I went to bed with a clean house. It made a big difference this morning, so I am working on updating my routines and printing them out for my control journal. Thankfully, I can do it in stages because the old CJ is still intact, but I'd like to get it done. It's my project for today.