Chore Chart

Motherhood has shown me a whole new outlook of life. On top of wanting to be the best mother possible to my daughter, I try to be a great wife, spend time with my family and work a full time stressful job in the ER as a nurse. On top of every day life we are trying to sell a house, living in a house that is too small for us, we just bought 10 acres of land that we have to build a house on so we are trying to get those plans together and I haven't even mentioned trying to keep in touch with my friends, probably because I'm not very good at it. If we don't make plans I tend to not make a very great effort which I know is one of my faults, I really should work on that more, note to self.

As much as I LOVE Pintrest, I now believe that I should be a crafty mom, keep my house pretty clean for all those house guests, and exercise to get my pre-baby body back. I feel like the list goes on and on and keeping up is more than I can handle. So what I did is put together a chore chart that I have been seeing so much about on Pintrest. I figure I only have an 800 square foot house and before I move into a house 4 times that size I should start getting a pretty good routine down. So I thought about how I needed to go about this because my 30 minutes everyday of cleaning isn't working when I am doing the same thing, the deep cleaning never gets done. So what I will do is start with this list and continue adding to it and maybe give an update in about a month.

CHORE CHART

Everyday

Dishes

Garbage

Empty diaper pail

Pick up toys & “stuff”

Monday – Kitchen/Dining

Sweep & Swiffer floor

Scrub counter & sink

Clean out microwave & oven top

Clean out refrigerator

Wash windows & blinds

Tuesday – Living Room

Dust

Wash windows & blinds

Vacuum carpets

Vacuum & wipe down couch

Sweep & Swiffer tiles

Wednesday – Bathroom

Scrub counter & sink

Deep clean tub & shower

Wash carpets & towels

Sweep & Swiffer floors

Scrub toilet

Wash window & mirrors

Thursday – Riley’s Room

Dust

Vacuum carpets

Laundry & fold clothes

Clean toys

Wash windows & blinds

Friday – Our Bedroom

Dust

Vacuum carpets

Laundry & fold clothes

Wash windows & blinds

Saturday – Garage/Office

Organize boxes

Sweep floors

Clean washer & dryer

File papers

Pay bills

Sunday – Outside

Mow lawn

Weed flower beds

Sweep walkway & driveway

Clean out car

Grocery shopping

Monthly

Clean under couch cushions

Clean out clothes in closets

Clean out kitchen cabinets

Wash down doors and walls

Vacuum & dust out car

Clean outside windows

Clean inside oven

So my attempt at this scheduling thing is going to be waking up and getting myself ready while Riley sleeps a little bit longer in the morning. When Riley gets up get her ready and play until she takes a nap and then attempt to get most of the cleaning done at that time. We then usually go for a walk before lunch and then another nap, more time to clean if needed or crafting! I have been getting my workout done during my lunch break at work in the physical therapy room so it is uninterrupted and that has been working fairly well.

I am fully aware that this is not a perfect schedule and that some things will come up that will not allow me to always fulfill my cleaning schedule but there are some things on this list that don't get done for months so I figure even if it is once or twice a month that it gets done then I will be pretty happy with myself.

Canvas Artwork

Patrick and I are selling our house, what a chore, I feel like I haven't had a second to do anything for myself the past month. When we first met this is the house that Patrick owned and I owned my own even smaller house. The opportunity came up when our renters wanted to move out of my old house for us to move into it so we could sell the bigger house and we bought 10 acres of land so that we could build our dream house. So we crazily bought the 10 acres, moved out of the 1250 square foot house and into the 800 square foot house. Are you keeping track of all the moving? So that is where the staging comes into play and boy has it been interesting and kind of fun. Our house officially went on the market yesterday and so far we haven't got any calls on it but we are hopeful and a little nervous, especially with 2 mortgage payments and now a land payment and no renters!

So I had this dark brown wall seperating our kitchen and dining room. Originally I had a canvas wedding picture and a sign that said And they lived happily ever after. It was really cute but now that we are trying to sell our house I had to "declutter" and "depersonalize" as HGTV would tell me to help stage my house for selling. I think this project turned out pretty good and added some color to the dark brown wall.  

Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of how I made this artwork but I can explain it pretty well. Materials needed: Canvas (I found mine at Hobby Lobby, 2 boards of 11X14" for $5.99 and they were 30% off), Coordinating fabric (I bought 1 yard of each pattern but only needed about 3/4 yards. I got this at Joanns for $2 a yard), Staple gun (my dad had one).

All I did started with the fabric upside down and centered the canvas and cut the appropriate amount of material, about 1 inch extra on each side. Make sure that it is going to cover the side of the canvas and still give you enough to have some on the backside of the canvas. I used my staple gun to staple the top and bottom, making sure to stretch the fabric as tight as I could keep it smooth and then I folded the ends like a present and stapled the sides. In hindsight I would have ironed the fabric beforehand but stretching it took out most of the wrinkles.