homekeeping series-Mondays

Hope you had a great weekend!

The subject of homemaking has always been a great interest of mine. I have several books on the best ways to take care of a home that I refer to often. I take my job as a homemaker very seriously and always strive to be more efficient and create a lovelier home. Whether you work outside the home or not, you are still a homemaker and have chores to attend to to keep your home clean, running smoothly and have fresh clothes to wear. When you create a schedule, you never have to worry about something getting done or a mad dash to do the laundry because you have nothing to wear tomorrow. When you have accomplished the day’s tasks…you may can relax without guilt because you know the rest will be done another day.

So my thoughts in creating this little Homekeeping Series is to share what works for me to stay on top of the “to-do’s" and not let things pile up to where it can feel overwhelming. Maybe it will even inspire you with some ideas. I am certainly no expert on homekeeping, but I do enjoy keeping a nice home and I love learning about other’s schedules to inspire ways on how to improve mine, so I hope you do too. And if you have great tips that have been successful for you, please share, we can all learn from one another. Way back before I had kids, I was reading through Martha’s monthly calendar in one of the Living issues. Each day she had something spelled out that needed to be done to keep her home running smooth & looking great. A light-bulb went off for me and I have used that idea to inspire my own monthly calendar. These days, I don’t have much time for extras…but at least I can stay on top of the necessary things a little better. Believe me…I have not perfected this yet, some days things are just crazy, I’m exhausted or we have other pressing things come up but at least it’s a good foundation for most weeks.  If find if I start a day knowing what needs to be done, I am far more successful in getting my to-do’s done and ironically far less stressed about all that needs to be done because I know that all will be addressed during the week.

So, to start this little homekeeping series…
My Mondays are about easing back into the routine and I only have kitchen laundry & paperwork/phone calls on my calendar.

My kitchen laundry consists of cloth napkins, kitchen towels, washcloths that we use to wipe Reed’s face & hands after eating, cleaning rags and pot holders, if necessary. By using cloth napkins, it only adds one more load of laundry a week and saves on so much waste and money! One of the best green practices I have ever made. :)

{I keep a large basket in laundry room to toss the kitchen laundry in after use}

{my laundry arsenal of products, very effective yet completely non-toxic}

{I fill my little dropper bottle with straight Basic H to spot treat potentially stubborn stains}

While the laundry is going, I tackle all the paperwork that has accumulated on the desk for the week.

I’ve always wanted a desk in the kitchen. In our previous home I created a “office in a drawer” in our kitchen so I could keep everything downstairs and convenient when we turned our office into a playroom}

I am a self-confessed piler but try to at least corral all of the pile into a basket that I go through once a week.

I sort, toss and file, pay any bills not auto-deducted, and make any necessary phone calls in peace and quiet since the boys are napping.

{sad that the pile gets this big after one week}

{file folders, one for monthly statements and another for other misc ppk}

{ahhh, so much better to start the week off}

For me, the ultimate goal of this schedule is to get all the necessary to-do’s done Monday thru Friday so I can have the “weekend off” and spend more quality family time and do more enjoyable projects!

Now, today I had to add one more thing to the list…make donuts for Reed to bring to school tomorrow for ‘Donuts for Dad’.

Next week I will share homekeeping series-Tuesdays.