I think I’ll just write these housewifery posts as I feel moved to, is that ok? I really wanted to be able to commit to a weekly thing, but I think what I have to say will be more heartfelt if I don’t feel pressured to get something out once a week. Or maybe I’ll get so excited about it, this will be all I want to talk about for a while! I want to allow for that.

There are so many chores that are on loop. Maybe every chore IS a chore because it has to be done over and over and over again (although, side note- your little ones do not think of things this way! More on that in another post).

It seems like we are never done doing dishes or laundry, picking the kids’ things up off the floor, reshelving books. Or it seems like I’m not, anyway. Here is something that helps me: starting with a clean slate.

Starting with a clean slate might mean that you have what seems like A LOT TO DO, but it’s worth it, I promise. Here’s the theory behind it- molehills are so much easier to conquer than mountains. When I have three days’ worth of dishes piled in the sink, a weeks’ worth of laundry waiting to be done, and toys and books littering the floor, I’m defeated, disheartened, and cranky as soon as I wake up. It can bring me to tears! Having a house full of clutter makes my brain feel full of clutter, too.

Starting with a clean slate might mean enlisting someone else’s help, and that’s ok. My mom has come over to help clean. So has my sister. Sometimes my husband and I take a day and just catch up. It’s both ok to ask for help (I have a really hard time with this, I have to be honest) and ok to receive it. It doesn’t mean that you are a bad mama or even a bad housewife. Really! If I thought I could afford it, I’d hire someone to get me back to a clean square one when I needed it. It makes a huge difference in the way I view the ongoing part of housekeeping to just have everything completely caught up once in a while.

After you have a clean slate, it’s really just a matter of keeping it a clean slate, and this isn’t as hard as it sounds! The thing is, keeping a clean slate as you go along is MUCH less time-consuming than catching up things that haven’t been done in ages (and when you need to take another catch up day, it won’t take nearly as long). 

Some of the ways I try to keep a clean slate here:

• I empty the dishwasher before I begin cooking or baking. That way, every pot/pan/knife/dish/bowl of mess that I create can be rinsed and immediately put in the dishwasher. 
• At night, after the girls go to bed, I take the time to clear the day’s busyness. They are quite busy during their days here at home, but I find that it never takes me more than 15 minutes to restore order.
• I try to be a living example of being respectful of our things. That means putting a book away after I’m done reading it, placing my shoes in the shoe bin when we come inside, not drinking my coffee anywhere but in the kitchen, not leaving my knitting laying about on chairs (except to take lovely photos of it, of course!), etc. All the “rules” (really reminders) that apply to the girls apply to me, too.
• When a laundry load is dry, I fold it, put it in a basket, and take the basket to go put things away. For some reason it’s much easier if it’s a load I’ve hung out to dry. The dryer is practically a closet- out of sight, out of mind!
• If there are little person interruptions during the times I’m trying to restore a clean slate, I enlist their help. They LOVE to help, and again, I feel like it’s my responsibility to emulate the joy that comes from taking care of our things. I want them to see that I feel that having beautiful things to use and enjoy is a privilege, not a curse. I try not to refer to caretaking and housekeeping as “work” or that it’s a “chore”, rather, that we are giving love to the things that allow us to live such a wonderful life. 
• Things can’t be put away if they have no home to go to! More on that in another post, too.

I know some people have routines for this sort of thing, but I have never been able to keep to those, especially for these seemingly endless types of things. I mean, I don’t need a schedule to let me know that I have dishes to do or laundry to wash!

I do them as they come up in the course of the day. For dishes that means at every meal, and every time I bake. Laundry means usually one clothes load first thing in the morning (so I can hang it out), maybe a towel load after that, and a diaper load at night (that cycle takes the longest to run). The girls’ things I tidy throughout the day when it comes up, but I mostly let them have free rein of their things, and then do the bulk of tidying after they are in bed.

I try to make sure that I follow through until the task is completed, instead of staging it out. Taking the clean clothes out of the dryer and putting them on the folding counter just means the clothes won’t get folded for another day or two. Rinsing the dishes and leaving them in the sink means that by the time they get put in the dishwasher, there are too many to go in all at once and there will still be dishes in the sink! Even with the girls’ things I can get distracted. The best strategy I’ve found so far for that has been to take a large basket, fill it with everything I find, and then walk around with the basket putting things away.

I don’t always do all of these things. But I do them often enough that missing one thing once in a while doesn’t immediately make me feel like I’m drowning in housework. I need catch up days a couple times a month. I try and do it before I get to the weepy “I want to burn this house down right now” stage! Mostly, I want the girls to see that cleaning is something that is a part of the inbreath and outbreath of a home. I don’t want them to feel like everything they do, all the living we do here as a family, is just an irritating mess that will have to be cleaned up. I don’t want to say, “don’t touch” or “but I just cleaned that!” (even though sometimes I feel that way). Messes are part of the happiness that makes a home. Cleaning those messes can be just as heartwarming if I let it.

One last note: I try to do one thing every night to make our home a little more beautiful- it just makes my heart happy. Sometimes all I have energy for is shining the kitchen faucet. You’d be surprised at how nice it is to see a shiny faucet when you get up to make breakfast in the morning! Sometimes I cut flowers from our yard and place them around the house. Sometimes I line up all the jars in the hutch so they’re all facing the same way (I don’t know why I love that so much, I just do). Sometimes I’ll set up little scenes for the girls to find in the morning, or add a little fairy gift to their nature table. It takes me away from the “I’m never done!” feeling and back to the “I love taking care of my home and making it a beautiful place for my family” feeling. I always want to remember I’m a homemaker, not a housekeeper. This is the joy of my heart, where I’ve chosen to be, not just my job. A home has a life and an ebb and flow of its own.

I’m sorry this was so long! Once I got started I had a lot to say. I hope that something here resonates with you, or is helpful in some way.

How do you deal with the laundry/dishes/toys cycle? What makes you feel “caught up”? Do you have any strategies you want to share?