Spring Cleaning Mastermind Notes part 1

Sometimes, it's really difficult for me to get moving on spring cleaning. In fact, most years, I tend to just ignore it, because I'm so busy working.

But this year, no matter how busy I am, I'm going to be getting busy on spring cleaning!

So, one thing I've started to do is make a list of things to get done. After deciding that the list itself was overwhelming, I tossed it out and started over. Now I'm working on prioritizing it.

One thing I needed to get done (which was low-priority) was to clean out the mountain of magazines in my rack. Don't get me wrong; I don't just toss out everything - just the ones I didn't like or won't look at again. So, instead of having a pile on top of a pile (still organized, mind you), I cleaned out the magazine rack last week. I tossed out all the catalogs (we don't order from those, anyway), and sorted the autumn and winter magazines into separate piles. I rotated the stock of what we've got out in the rack now, and put the oldest towards the back, and the newest up front.

There's about 20 magazines in the rack now, ranging in category from food to household and photography.

This little exercise only took me about 5 minutes to complete. And you'd be shocked to see how much better that little area of our living room looks! Robert even noticed without my saying anything that I'd purged those things. :) It's so nice when I hear from my husband how thankful he is for my efforts here! He even went out of his way to flip through and see what magazines we had out after I'd changed the stock of them. I definitely don't do things like that for his compliments, but I feel so happy that I made him happy!

An everyday task I have been slightly stressing over is the floors in our house. We do not allow shoes to be worn in our home, in an effort to keep our carpeting and floors nice. Not to mention, no shoes = way less allergens and dust being tracked in and forced into the air. :)

I generally vacuum twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. I have some reasons for choosing those days to vacuum each week:

1) If I purpose to set aside a specific day or two to vacuum, it gets done consistently.
2) The days I've chosen to vacuum are days that are less busy than others for us, and are before and after weekly gatherings we host in our home. (Sunday nights, we host our small group. Thursday nights, I host a Ladies' Bible study).
3) The feeling I get after vacuuming is so good!

Well, I've come to realize that my OCD tends to get to be too much of a burden to me when I am so focused on simple tasks like vacuuming. I've decided to let go of some of the control, and I got out one of the coolest tools I've ever owned: my iRobot Roomba Scheduler!

You can see the Roomba docked next to my front door, and beside the end table in the living room. :)

I've set it up to vacuum for me two or three times a week, and once a week I clean it out. (This is very important for optimal functioning of the iRobot). That way, if I miss one day of vacuuming, it's no big deal. It's definitely better than my worrying and obsessing over keeping my house clean, which is a huge struggle for me. (It's actually a sin issue at times, as I feel like it's something I can control, and I really don't like being thrown curveballs with my cleaning. Sometimes, the Lord has other plans for my time, and I fight back with my desire for a clean home - which can be a sin.) Not only did I find and set up 5 components of the little iRobot system, but I've been pleased with the results so far.

Today, for instance, I won't have time to vacuum before we have company over (about 12-15 adults who meet here weekly for our small group), and the little Roomba does a great job of spot-cleaning and helping me out.

There was a spot by the back door that really needed the vacuum's attention, and I just put the Roomba on "Spot," and it got everything picked up! How neat!

This also allows me to enjoy my home rather than obsess over it's appearance. :)

Don't get me wrong; I'm a firm believer that my home ought to be in order all the time. But that's not always realistic! So, in order to get a grip on my spring cleaning, I'm starting out a new system for daily/ weekly chores - find a way to get those on track, then move my way through my spring cleaning list.

Here we go!