My Semi-Effective, Practical Sounding Domestic Housewife Routine

A year or so ago, I made myself a cleaning schedule in order to maintain my sanity. I would give anything for the mess my family creates to not have a negative effect on me, but it does. It’s just not the way I’m wired. I don’t like living in a messy/dirty home.

For the record, I don’t mind other people’s messes (within reason), but I just can’t stand my own. I get grumpy, anxious, and twitchy when things aren’t clean and straightened up.

To give you a little background on me, right now I work part-time doing a number of things. Mainly, I work for myself – writing articles and occasionally editing American Cheerleader Magazine, writing/editing a few different blogs, and, of course, working on my never-ending book. I also am employed by Jill Dyson Ministries and an amazing inner-city music ministry called Angel Street.

That is, I’m working on those things when I’m not volunteering at the church or chasing honey badgers and kindergarteners around or trying to turn myself into a decent cook. (We’re still working hard on that last part.)

There are only so many hours every week, so between all that other stuff I have to do, I’m also supposed to fit in cleaning the house. So in order to tackle this on a weekly basis, I created a schedule that would be easy to stick to. I put major tasks and areas of the house divided up between days, with a few necessary items to be done daily.

Take laundry, for example. This is one of my daily items.

Laundry, if left, can consume its caregiver. (Literally. See the picture to the right. I’m laying under that pile of clothes… somewhere.)

I do one load of laundry each day, from start to finish. One. That’s it. (This includes the dreaded “fold and put away” stage at the end of it all. You know, the point where we all decide to just join a nudest colony because THIS CRAP AIN’T WORTH IT ANYMORE. But with only one load, the amount of clothes to put away isn’t so bad… relatively speaking. Unless you’re the Duggars. Can you imagine the debacle their laundry situation is??)

I also empty the dishwasher every morning, load it every night (because my poor husband’s arms are unable to reach from the sink to the emptied dishwasher RIGHT NEXT TO THE SINK throughout the day – poor guy.), then run it while when go to bed.

Below is the schedule. (Feel free to save and share if you think it’ll work for you!)

Gosh, this schedule is so great, isn’t it??

Except it isn’t.

At least, not all the time.

And that’s okay.

I specially designed it for those of us who live in reality. For those of us who have littles running under our feet or dogs tracking muddy prints inside throughout the Memphis monsoon season. (Rain, PLEASE GO AWAY!) Or for those who have OTHER things to do with our lives… such as work, CAR LINES, volunteering, making lunches and dinners, and spending time with family and friends.

I try my hardest to get this all done each week. Really, I do. Because I created it and on paper, it looks great. And you know what?

Mondays are great. Mondays stuff gets DONE. Mondays, I conquer the world.

But Tuesdays?

You can find me wallowing in self-pity as I drag out the trash and then walk straight past the dirty bathrooms to my computer because I was busy around the house on Monday from 5am to 8pm and THE KIDS ARE BOTH IN SCHOOL TODAY FOR ONLY A FEW MORE HOURS!!!

My toilets haven’t been cleaned in months. And neither has the inside of my fridge.

And I can’t remember that last time I washed rugs.

I won’t completely hate on my own creation, because there are weeks that this schedule works awesome. You know, those weeks where things don’t come up. (Riiiggghhhttt…) And I’ve pretty much got the daily operations down, so that helps.

But every week?

I have bigger issues than trying to adhere to a cleaning schedule.

Like my family.

So I’m working on letting it go and being flexible. Which is the beauty of a weekly schedule. There are some days that are filled and others that aren’t.

And if I don’t get everything done on the list, it’s okay.

My twitches will only be temporary. 😉