Vocation Improvement

I very recently read a good book written by a woman with some sound advice for those of us with the vocation of wife and mother. Took a LOT of notes. The gist of it was simple - schedule, organize and routinize everything possible. So I did. Here it is Friday, and the past five days (I started Monday morning) have been revolutionary. My house stays clean, my kids are helping with chores they never did before, and I have more prayer time and a better outlook.

I know from reading all my fellow stay-at-home mom blogs that laundry is a beast in every household. I hate it, too - but I always managed to keep it from eating me alive by forcing myself to complete every load every Monday. Faithfully. I was a machine on Mondays, but it got done and I didn't have the worry that some member of my family might be underwear-less on any given day. I can tell you honestly that I had this Monday fun every week of every month of every year for almost a decade. I don't remember doing laundry on a certain day in college or in my apartment days with roommates, but for sure starting early on in my marriage. No more! I am so amazed by this change in my life, even housework-related, that it gets its own whole blog post.

Check this out! A crucial part of my new system:



Here we have what used to be the annoying linen closet at the end of our upstairs hall. It was annoying, because WHAT THE HECK was I supposed to use that counter space for? In a model home, I suppose, there would be a perfect houseplant-y photo frame-y concoction there to dress up the blahness, but in my house, it became the kids' catch-all. In order to implement my new improved laundry plan, I ventured to Target Monday (since I wasn't tied to the washing machine and dryer and endless folding and hanging) to buy a laundry basket. Until now, our family of six shared one laundry basket that resided in the Master closet. Not a bad system since our upstairs is small so the kids didn't have to go out of their way to deposit their dirty clothes. PLUS I didn't have to skip around the house every Monday gathering up multiple piles of laundry. But, with the new system - where I do laundry almost every day - I needed help. And diversification. Bought the three fabric laundry bins at Target and voila! a sorting system that also happens to take over the annoying hall counter. The kids now do their own sorting, I do a couple loads a day, fold it on my bed, and part of their before-bed routine includes putting away their own laundry. Five days down and no one has gone without underwear, I wasn't bound to my house all day Monday, and all is good. And if you've read this far about my housekeeping - you must be avoiding your own laundry.








Incidentally, because I suspect I have a large number of aviation enthusiasts who read my blog - that is a scale model of a Twin Otter on the tip-top of the linen cupboard.
Furthermore, it is an exact replica of the Vistaliners that Scenic Airlines uses to carry tourists from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon!