my tuesdays…
If I had to label my typical Monday it would be errnads day. My Tuesdays would be labled my cleaning days. My Tuesdays are typically not all that exciting. Bella spends the majority of her day playing by herself in her own little world. I don’t drive anywhere on Tuesdays more out of a need to save on gas than anything. So we are home and accomplish lots of things within the home.
Tuesday mornings start with Bella waking me up (via baby monitor). I get a shower Bella chills in her crib till I am ready for the day. I make breakfast, we eat breakfast, I clean up breakfast and then Bella heads to her room to destroy all of the efforts made in cleaning her room the night before.
I then reference my favorite organizational systems (moleskine, computer and FlyLady). FlyLady is a home organization/cleaning tool that I discovered soon after Clint and I got married. She sends daily e-mails (which I don’t read daily) giving some guidence on keeping your home consistently clean and organized. The two things that I try and stick to rigidly are the weekly home blessing hour and the zone of the week. The weekly home blessing hour is where you tackle things like vaccuuming, dusting, and bigger cleaning jobs. Not deep cleaning but bigger up-keep jobs. The zone of the week is where they break the house into five zones and you tackle deep cleaning projects in that zone. You are supposed to do them daily but they don’t take all that long so I just do an entire weeks worth on Thrusdays. Flylady also encourages daily up-keep and cleaning of counters, bathrooms (toilet, mirror, and sink), and laundry.
At 10:00am I started my laundry, folded the load from yesterday and started a load of whites. In my laundry system there are whites (which are washed in hot with bleach) and everything else (that gets washed in cold). It is more economical and I never have to wait for a load.
By 10:30 I started my weekly home blessing hour which I have simplified to a science since I started making my own cleaners. I have two bottles I use. The first is an all purpose disinfecting cleaner which is made of a spray bottle 3/4 filled with warm water, 3 tablespoons vinegar, 3 tablespoons of Borax, a couple of drops of dish washing liquid, and a couple of drops of tea tree oil. The second is a glass cleaner that is made of just strong black tea. The tannic acid in the tea cuts through grease and leaves a streak free shine. It also works great on floors.
At noon I made lunch, we ate lunch, I put Bella down for a nap and then I cleaned up lunch.
I then did some dinking around the internet doing my usual rounds and then spent some time reading some blog posts about personal finances and organization. We are just now coming out of a six month struggle with finances and we are at a point where our heads our finally above water. This is the best time to establish new habits, take another look at biblical stewardship and make new plans. I have recently fallen in love with Crown Ministries book keeping software called Mvelopes. The old program I used iBank made it a bit difficult to budget and stick to a budget which is already really difficult when you rely on commission as your main source of income. Mvelopes helps me visualize and think through our budget which makes it much easier to stick to.
After Bella woke up we played with the little girl that lives behind us in the kiddie pool.
I preped for dinner and waited for that elusive daily call from Clint to start dinner.
We ate, we cleaned up dinner, I ironed (my least favorite chore), listened to Piper’s sermon on William Tyndale, and then headed to bed.
