my new favorite app!

You know I love organization. I love calendars and processes and sticky notes. I love anything that makes my house look good and run smoothly. I recently had a new friend tell me that she only surface cleans. Now I was standing in her beautifully decorated home at the time. Looking around, I saw nothing, nothing, out of place. Apparently, though, I would have been in total shock had I dared to open a cupboard or peek behind a closet door. I knew right then that we would be good friends, because I do the exact same thing. I keep my living spaces tidy and the behind the scenes spaces I actually use every day organized. The rest o the house has to fend for itself. This means that my kitchen drawers are beautiful and my walk in closet in the bedroom open and bright. The closet in the office, however, is totally overflowing with travel backpacks, books, old computer parts... When we move out of the house on day I will be throwing away a lot of stuff we don't need and have simply hidden away behind a closed door or in the basement.

Keeping up with the day to day work of maintaining the home I want for myself and my family has not been easy. Breaking down the chores into daily lists has helped. I'd like to say that posting each list in the room to be cleaned so that my husband can check it out and do some of the cleaning has not really helped. I still find myself making a daily list on a sticky note and tacking it up on the kitchen cupboard for him. Sometimes, sometimes, that works. It's a work in progress...

Keeping my family control journal handy was not always so simple. If I left it out on the counter it wound up with mail or school papers stacked on top. If I put in up in the cupboard I forget it was there. I even tried to combine it with my calendar, but that didn't work either. But then I found this:

This is a little app for the iPhone called HomeRoutines. At under $4.00 it is a true bargain. I have been using it for about a month now and I love it. It is customizable, so I made it my own. I added my Morning and Evening routines and then changed the Focus section to "Today's Focus", since I clean 1 zone/area a day, not a week. This app even lets me add a reminder for each day, right at the top under the date. I didn't want to be changing these reminders every week so I chose reminders that are more global, such as What can I do for Brad today? and Drink water!.

This app comes with a companion website that can sync with your phone, making it very easy to do the original set up and make any changes. But my favorite part of the app? That little smiley face under "Accomplishments". As I check off tasks or to do items I can see how much I have accomplished- and I love that! Using this app, in conjunction with the Cozi calendar/family app is all I need. From Cozi I can send reminder texts to my husband about shopping lists, tasks, or our schedule,  which is helping me to force  allow my husband to help out a little more.

I'm an organizing geek, I know. And I love my technology, always have. So now I can combine the two, and I am in geek techno heaven!

my adult ADD has kicked in this week

I am either "on" or "off". All the systems are in place for daily success. So I am not sure where the train is going off the rails here, but this has definitely been an "off" week. A huge, big, time sucking, not sure what the hell I am doing OFF week. It all started last week, really. I went back to work last Monday. My supportive husband, who really wants this whole working mother thing to, well, work, was right there by my side, totally pulling it together. He found the zone cleaning list and did some of the tasks. Now, he also did some tasks scheduled for later in the week because he read the lists incorrectly, but, to his credit, we had not yet had the "new and improved household management training in service". So he did good.

This continued for a few days. The house stayed pulled together, dinners were cooked, laundry was done. Life was good. This job, with fewer hours and less responsibility, really makes a huge difference in life here at Bethfork. (That's right, we named our home a few years ago. Bethfork. it was during our "watch reruns of Dallas on TV every night" phase.)

Then my cell phone died and I spent an hour and a half after dinner on Wednesday allowing AT&T to suck the life out of me during my visit to their retail store. Oh my, how I dislike AT&T. When I finally got home one kid was in bed, the other was still up, dinner was on the table and no zone cleaning had been done. By Thursday morning the other kid had gotten into bed, but that was about it. The rest of the chores remained undone. It was all down hill from there.

Thursday evening I had book club. Totally off topic but I love love love the ladies of book club. We came together through adoption but we truly are friends. I look forward to book club like a child looks towards Christmas and I go even if I haven't read the book. And now that I have two small children, I look forward to it even more. I love my boys. Love love love them. But going anywhere with them is far from relaxing. You know how it is. By the time I have picked up the toys thrown on the floor, cleaned up the spilled milk creeping it's way to the sugar packets, and reminded my big four and half year old to use his INSIDE VOICE for the hundredth time, I am done. So hanging with my friends in a kid free zone where I can actually drink a cup of coffee while it is still hot is something I would move mountains to do. So no catching up on life at home on Thursday.

Friday is not a work day for me,  but it is an tiny toddler day. And last Friday my tiny toddler had his six month follow up appointment at the International Adoption Clinic. He is doing great! I had no idea when I left the house at 9:30 in the morning that I wouldn't be home until 9:00 that night. Between wasting time in the car so my tiny toddler could nap to grocery shopping to throwing chicken nuggets at the boys while we raced to find a parking space at the holiday parade in Grove City - it was a busy day. Good news- we weren't home long enough to make additional messes. Bad news- we weren't home long enough to do anything.

Saturday I headed to Cleveland. I had some much needed alone time at my in laws home. (They were out of town so it was quiet, and clean, and ahhhhh.) I went to a surprise birthday party for a friend, which was also a little mini reunion of my Kent State University friends. So. Much. Fun.

When I finally returned home Sunday with the boys, who had been dropped off my my husband so he could have his alone time at the Brown's football game, it was after 6:00. Everyone was cranky, hungry, and tired. And nothing got done.

It is now Thursday. The pattern has continued, so you can imagine what my home looks like. I have been buying Christmas presents without consulting my plan. I have been dressing my kids out of the clean laundry basket. I have been throwing chicken nuggets and frozen corn at them. This morning I couldn't find my cell phone only to find it hiding under the bread bag on the counter. No one had had any bread this morning, so it must have been left out yesterday. Oh. My. God.

So I am not "on" this week. My adult ADD has kicked in. I have a new laptop I have been playing with. I have sparkly Christmas cards to read and then admire again later. (I love Christmas cards!) I have work to do for my job. I lose focus every time one of the boys says mommymommymommymommymommy....I keep stopping what I am doing to break up a fight over a beloved toy or to feed someone. Dear God these boys are always asking for things! And I have found that I am wasting A LOT of time being so disorganized. A huge chunk of my week has been eaten up by digging through laundry baskets looking for underwear for my big four and half year old. I have wasted time with my near daily trips to the grocery store. I am making more work for myself by not emptying the diaper genie because now I have to gather the dirty diapers in a trash bag and still empty the diaper genie. Today is pretty much a loss. But I have got to get it together tomorrow. I have to. My head is this close to exploding. So tomorrow it is. Tomorrow I will be "on" again. Oh wait. Tomorrow is the day my tiny toddler is home with me. And I have to drag him with me to a doctor's appointment. And I have to pack us up for our weekend trip. sigh....

I went back to work yesterday. Even though I worked for about a month after coming home from Russia I didn't travel away from home and my tiny toddler was here with me much of the time, so it really didn't feel like work. For all intents and purposes I really haven't worked since leaving for Russia back in April. Nearly seven months. Wow. I used that time to travel overseas to finalize the adoption of my youngest son. I helped to teach my son his new language. I loved him and fought with him and hugged him and told him no a thousand times. I changed his diapers, gave kisses, emptied the fridge on a daily basis trying to find something he would eat. I picked up the toys he threw, the books he threw, the laundry he threw. I bonded. And now I am back at work. At a job that is now officially permanent, after only one day!

So I packed the lunches and set the timer on the coffee. I laid out clothes for the boys. And the planning paid off because all three of my boys made it out the door on time, with lunches, shoes on, and teeth brushed. Normally after my husband leaves for work I would clean up breakfast and tackle the daily chores. By mid morning the day's zone would be cleaned, the one load of laundry in the dryer and the dishwasher emptied from the day before. By the time I was settling my tiny toddler down in his crib for an afternoon nap the laundry would be folded and ready to be put away. On most days I had it together.

Yesterday I cleaned up breakfast and then instead of heading on to the daily chores I headed upstairs to the office to start my new job. And I didn't look up. I missed working more than I thought I did! So by the time I picked up the boys from daycare/preschool, picked up yet another round of ear drops for my big four and a half year old, took the long way home so the boys could see the digger working in the dark, made dinner and fed everyone and made my near monthly pilgrimage to the AT&T store to replace my phone it was after 8:00pm. But I had planned for going back to work. I had talked and talked and talked about the daily zones with my husband. I had reminded all of my boys that just because I had to run this unexpected after dinner errand our daily zone cleaning still needed done. And I came home to dinner cleaned up- all I had to do was load the dishwasher. (daily chore). The boys had eaten their dessert and their rooms were cleaned up. (daily zone cleaning.) The tiny toddler was in bed. Oh. My. God. Score!

So not all of the zone cleaning got done. We didn't get the sheets on our bed changed and the bedrooms weren't vacuumed. Not all of the dusting was done. But what was left will take no time at all to finish up today. And my husband did ALL of it. All I did was load the dishwasher and pack the lunches. Oh, and I revamped the zone cleaning list. Instead of simply saying "Monday - Zone 1 - upstairs bedrooms", it lists every task needed to complete the daily zone. I gave my family the tools they needed to help me and they did help me. Each daily zone is now taped to the inside of a mirror or closet in the appropriate room, complete with instructions on where to find the cleaning supplies needed.

here is what our Thursday zone looks like. This is taped to the inside of a kitchen cabinet.

So, we begin day two. Breakfast is cleaned up. The dusting from yesterday is done. The laundry is in the washer and I am in the office, working. the house is presentable, dinner is planned. My boys found their Elf on a Shelf this morning and are super excited about decorating for Christmas. All is right with my world. I may just have found the key to this tightrope, the key that was missing my first time around. Organization, a manageable job, and allowing my husband to help by giving him the tools he needs to do it. I don't even need a safety net!

my family control journal

Recently I have had a few people ask me about my household organization plan. While I didn't invent the organizational wheel, so to speak, I have refined it to suit my family's needs. It works for me, on most days. Other days, not so much. I have my moments, of course. My house is frequently in clutter chaos, but the good news is that by using my system it doesn't take long to get everything back in control. I never feel as though things are "too far gone"- a sentiment I hear all too often from my friends.

I used to feel that way too, especially when I was working and gone from the house for hours, sometimes days, at a time. So I did something about it. And then I started blogging about it, and then people started asking me about it. So now I have added my family journal to my blog. Check out the "family journal" tab at the top to read about my household journal. Just promise me that if you decide to create a journal for your family you will make it your own. use my ideas, that is fine with me. But create the household management system that works for you and your family. Give yourself more time!

a return to the zone plan update

So I am deep into day three of my return to my zone organization/cleaning plan. Yesterday I kept Matthew home from daycare because he had a doctor's appointment, so after we dropped off Alex we hit up Target to stock up on the few cleaning supplies needed to keep the plan running smoothly. I would say I have been about 80% successful so far.

Monday was zone 1, which is the master bedroom and walk in closet, the upstairs hall and both boys' rooms. I thought, however, that it was just our bedroom and hall, so the boys' rooms were ignored. Sadly, I have my family journal up to date and sitting on the kitchen counter. In this journal is my list of zones. I thought I knew what I was doing though, so I didn't bother to even open the binder. Turns out, I didn't know what I was doing, so now today I have to add the boys' rooms to today's zone. Sigh. For about a day, however, I was quite proud of myself for spending less than  fifteen minutes and managing to hang up stray clothes, dust, Windex mirror and windows, vacuum and change the sheets. Stuffed into that fifteen minutes was also vacuuming the hall and dusting the shelves and pictures on the walls. So proud.

Yesterday I tackled zone 2, the master bath. Because of Matthew's long doctors appointment and then our family dinner out I didn't actually start on this zone until about 7:45pm. OK, I could have hopped right on it the minute we got home from dinner but sitting on the floor crashing matchbox cars with the boys seemed like more fun, and after all, isn't that why I have this whole system in place in  the first place- to be able to spend more time with the boys? (Side note:  large, hard cover books make great ramps for these little cars and monster trucks and then when the "giant baby" shows up and sits on the ramp you can simply pull the book out from under him and read it to the kids.)

So while my husband had the boys in the bathtub I tackled zone 2. I forgot to bring up the broom and the wet jet, so the floor didn't get done, but everything else was cleaned in well under fifteen minutes.

Today's zone is the boy's bathroom, which shouldn't be too hard thanks to the work Matthew did yesterday before his bath. I provided him with one of those dish scrubbies that has the well for the soap and he spent quite some time carefully scrubbing his tub, both inside and out. I am sure the day will come when he no longer thinks it fun to scrub his own tub, so I should enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe I should invite him and his new scrubbie into our shower... The whole mental picture of my son, ready for his bath, bent over the tub, scrubbing, does have somewhat of a Cinderella quality to it...

I have managed to complete the daily tasks very quickly as well, which means no laundry is piling up and the dishes are always either in the dishwasher or clean and in the cupboard. Tops, 25 minutes a day to clean my daily zone and complete my small list of daily chores. And it should only get easier, right? My next goal will be to get most of this stuff completed immediately after the boys leave for work and daycare, instead of scattered throughout the day. With as much done as possible before I sit down in my home office to begin my work day I will have even more reason to smile. And even more time to sit on the floor with my boys and build ramps for crashing cars!