Another busy monday

    My feet are a little achy, but I got so much don't today! I cleaned up the bedroom, washed and put away two loads of laundry, swapped the summer clothes for the fall/winter clothes, changed the sheets and made the bed, vacuumed the bedroom and living room carpets, cleaned the bathroom, did dishes, and now I am relaxing while the four loaves of whole wheat bread are baking in the oven! Tomorrow, all I have to do is sweep the kitchen floor and mop, then I will have the rest of the day to do as I please. I have a few crafty projects that need working on, and its so much nicer to work on them in a clean home!
     My hubby will be late getting back tonight. He is taking a hunters safety course at a local school so that this year he can get his license and bring home the venison! I'm really glad he is getting into this, I was raised in a hunting family, and though I don't hunt myself I LOVE wild game of all sorts. We hunt for food, not trophy's, so if your only experience of hunting is something you might have seen on TV, then you are probably misinformed as to the REAL reason a lot of people partake of this traditional sport. There is nothing in the world that can bring you quite as close to you food as providing it yourself!
     Anyway, I am sitting down now, crocheting granny squares and watching some Midsomer Murders:) I love me my british mysteries!!! I hope you all are enjoying this beautiful start to our week!
     ~God Bless

Cleaning Monday's

     Its Monday again, that's one of my "big clean" days. After the weekend, which I mostly take off from cleaning, there are a lot of things that need doing. There are some dishes in the sink, sheets needing changing, dust on most of the flat surfaces, and little balls of kitty fluff everywhere. I get stuck in, and get sweeping, scrubbing, polishing, dusting and generally tidying up. After a few hours the whole place is sparkling clean, fresh, and ready for my Poot to come through the door. In the winter, I use my crock pot on my cleaning days, that way I get dinner out of the way first thing in the morning, because by the end of the day I am pretty worn out, and not in the mood for messing up the kitchen again. In summer's though, I just do something easy, like a salad or corn on the cob.
     My cleaning style is very relaxed, I clean for a while, sit and sip a drink and check facebook for a few minutes, then clean some more, and take another break,,, ect. ect. I don't like cleaning while there is anyone else around, I'm not sure why, maybe its just because I don't like cleaning "around" another person. So, I guess its good for me that I spend most of my time alone, I can't use it as an excuse for why the house is untidy!
     My favorite chore,,,, probably making the bed, as its also the easiest chore!
     My least favorite chore,,,, cleaning the shower,,,,, ack,, how I loathe soap scum!
     So a quick run down of my cleaning schedule would be,
     Mondays, all over clean, inc. vacuuming, dusting, bathroom, and general tidying.
     Tuesdays, anything not done on Monday + a load or two of laundry.
     Wednesday, laundry again, and vacuuming, and of course, and tidying that needs doing.
     Thursday, I finish off any laundry that isn't done, and that's about it!
     Friday, I tend to do another big clean, to get ready for the weekend. I try to take the weekends off,
     and enjoy my husband!

     How do you clean, what are your favorite parts of keeping your home tidy? Do you take the weekend off, or do you keep cleaning straight through the week? I love to know how other ladies keep house, so please let me know in the comments. Have a good day, happy homemaking!

Catching up on the housework ~OR~ Going to War with Chaos!

     I have a confession,,,,
     I have let things go,,,
     And now they are LONG gone, well past neat and tidy and on the express to utter Mess-Topia!

     I can make the excuses that I have come up with for the past few days, I was watching the baby, and its SOOO hard to clean AND stop a child from finding a millions ways of hurting herself at the same time! Or,,,, I am running low on iron, and just the act of getting out of bed is exhausting enough to want to tumble mussy haired and rumpled self right back into it. OR,,,, how bout, I can't vacuum, my schizophrenic and extremely bi-polar cat doesn't like it, and when she doesn't like something, she tends to take it out on my much smaller, weaker and STUPID(er) cat, causing the kitty version of the battle of the bulge under my bed!
     But I won't bother you with these symptoms of procrastinitus,,,, its catching you know, and I wouldn't want you to bring it home to your tidy and well kept homes and have it wreak the havoc it has wrought on my once domestic paradise. No, I could not be the one responsible for that,,,
       Instead I am going to tie on my apron, put on my pink rubber gloves, and grab my mess by its dirty cheeks and slap it silly! Mess! Are you listening?!?! You have met your match! And just so you know, I have a black belt in scrubbing and I KNOW HOW TO USE IT!

     Watch me now, my feather duster and mop swing through the air and chase the Mess, with its arms over its head and a whimper for its mummy, from my home! Chuck Norris himself can't do as much damage to dust and fluffy cat hair "dust kittens" that I can! Chuck Norris is a cleaning WIMP compared to me!
    

 

After Christmas thin out.

     I love Christmas, I love EVERYTHING about it. The music, especially the good old carols! The lights, so warm and cozy, the decorations!

 After Christmas though, when its time to take down and put away all those things, I find that I get feeling the need to declutter. Christmas is a beautiful time, but it does tent to be a crowded and mess-making time too. I have spent these last two weeks going through all the things I have (we seem to acquire so much during the year, dont we?) in my yarn and cloth stashes, in my clothing and storage closets, and finding there is plenty of things I can't or wont or don't use. Those are the things that need to go.
     I find that a home that has too many things, even if those things are organized and stacked away, is not conductive to creativity, hospitality, or a feeling of relaxation. Have you even heard of a condition called hoarding? One of my fears is to become a hoarder. After all, we should not place our emotional happiness in THINGS, but in God, and the people we love and cherish. Do I mean throw out family pictures and grandmothers china? Heavens No!! But if you ever get to the point where you have 3 or 4 sets of dishes, choose whats of worth. Love it or toss it. (or better yet donate it!)
     One thing I DO tend to hoard is yarn and fabric. Not so much hoard maybe, more like acquire. I hardly EVER buy them, they are given to me, which is great, I make MANY of my gifts for people throughout the year from these things, and they cost little more than my time. But these stashes do need to be thinned at least once a year, or else my Hubby and I would be buried!
     We have a two bedroom apartment, and the smaller bedroom, up till now, has been used as a storage/catch all room. I would clean it, organize it, but sooner or later it would turn into a big mess again. That is a sure signal that you own too much STUFF! So I have been fixing that problem for the past week, with these results,,,,

The day after Christmas, there wasn't even a PATH through the piles of stuff that filled this room. Now, it is nice and clean. And empty, you may have noticed. That is because, in the next couple of months, Mr Evans and I are going to be doing our best to become Foster Parents. I want to make this the year that I become a Mommy:) So this room, hopefully and God willing, won't be empty next Christmas!