The Abundant Wife

Refrigerator: Before

Anyone who has known me for very long will tell you that I am a perfectionist.  Perfectionism has its good and bad angles.  As a perfectionist, I do many things well and give 110% of my effort.  On the other hand, I also procrastinate and often zero in on unimportant details.  A couple days ago I was watching a webcast interview with Lysa Terkeurst, author of “Unglued.”  One thing that Lysa kept saying really stuck with me: “Imperfect progress is still progress.”  As I’ve worked my way through the 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge this month, I’ve made a lot of imperfect progress, but at least I’m still making progress!

Refrigerator: After

Yesterday I had a really busy day, so I didn’t get around to cleaning at all.  Today I decided to go back to Project #18, and clean out the refrigerator and freezer.  As you can see, we have a crazy amount of frozen lemons and bags of breast milk.  We also have two pies that were given to Brad at a men’s luncheon yesterday.  Yummy!  I wiped down every shelf, drawer, and wall in the refrigerator and freezer.  I also managed to drop a bottle of salad dressing on Oliver’s big toe.  Ouch!

Kitchen: Before

Once I was done with the refrigerator, I went back to yesterday’s Project #25 and surface cleaned the rest of the kitchen.  I wiped down most surfaces with a wet rag, Windexed the windows, put away art materials and magnets and toys, and threw the towels in the wash.

Kitchen: After

What is a project that you’ve been working on (or could be working on) that has required some imperfect progress?

Project #24 of the 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge is to clean your linen closet.  However, our linen closet is pretty organized so there wasn’t much to do there.  Instead I decided to go back to the kids’ room.  I hadn’t cleaned up much in there since Project #4.

Our kids’ room is my favorite room in the house.  If you’d like to see more photos of how I painted the walls, you can read about “The Birch Tree Project” here and here.

As you can see, there was plenty to do in my kids’ room.  We put art materials in the art box, picked up toys, made beds, Windexed, swept, and vacuumed.  While I was cleaning, Oliver decided to use his new potty.  I promised him a few chocolate chips if he was successful.  Naomi wanted chocolate chips too, so I promised her a few chocolate chips if she would help me clean the room.  Both were successful!

I was incredulous recently when I saw photos of Crystal’s 3-year-old son vacuuming.  I didn’t think Naomi (also 3 years old) could even push our vacuum.  Today she begged me to let her vacuum, so I agreed to let her try.  I was impressed with her efforts!  I tried to upload the video here, but the file was too big.  You’ll have to go to my Facebook Page to see Naomi vacuuming her room.

What chores do your toddlers do around the house?

Well, today the 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge didn’t  happen.  However, I did sweep (every room but the bedrooms) and vacuum the entire house yesterday because we were hosting Club.

Today I recovered from getting too little sleep last night, and did the regular chores.  I washed dishes, folded laundry, picked up toys, made meals, and cleared the table.  I wrote e-mails, made phone calls, and waited around for a guy who was supposed to fix our garage door.  (Did I mention that our garage door collapsed yesterday?)  I built a lego castle, read a lot of Dr. Seuss, and watched the trash man and mail man come and go.

In one week we’ll be done the 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge!  Are you excited to be done with all this cleaning, or wondering how you’ll keep your house clean for the rest of the year?

Happy Monday!  Welcome back to the 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge.  Today I got to choose between surface cleaning the living room, kitchen, bathroom, or bedroom.  Tonight we are hosting another Club (this time in our backyard) so I decided to work on the living room.

One of my recently goals was to box up the desktop computer in our living room and move it to the garage.  Two weeks ago I moved it out of our office and listed it on Craigslist, but its been in the living room ever since.  So today I found a box in the garage, and packed up the computer and owners manuals.  Putting the computer in the garage also led to organizing another box of odds and ends in the garage.  Then I folded the laundry, and put it away, which led to sorting Evelyn’s clothes for items to give away.  Finally I straightened up the books on the bookshelf again.

And, yes there is a rocking horse in the fireplace.  We don’t use the fireplace, so it’s a great place to store it.  🙂

Do you find that doing one chore often leads to another, and then another?

Last night when I looked ahead in the 30-Day Cleaning Challenge to see what I was doing today, I had to laugh.  My husband Brad was up on our roof yesterday sweeping off all the debris and cleaning out the gutters.  He had cleaned up some yesterday, but the ground around the house still looked significantly worse than usual.

I used a push-broom and a regular straw broom to sweep the porch, path, and driveway.

The backyard was also significantly worse than usual.  We had Bigger-and-Better Club two weeks ago, so some of the treasures (like the knee board and razor scooter you see here) are still around.  Brad is almost finished building and painting our grape arbor, so that’s why the ladders were still out.

Ah, much better!  Now we just need to get around to burning those old boards in the fire pit.  I’ll save you from seeing the inside of our garage.  We’d be candidates for “The Hoarders” if you saw what lurks on the other side of that wall!

Brad swept the driveway before I was able to snap a “Before” picture.  He’s almost done with the grape arbor though!  What do you think?

The weather has been gorgeous here.  Has the weather allowed you to clean outside of your house?

This morning we went to Bible Study for the first time in 6 months.  I packed lunches last night and we ate at the park afterward.  So we were out of the house for more than three hours.  That meant I didn’t get to the cleaning challenge until this afternoon.  Oh, did I mention that the baby gave me a hickie on my chin last night?

Today’s challenge was to clean out the refrigerator and/or organize the pantry.  I was hitting my afternoon slump by the time I started cleaning, so I chose to organize the the pantry since it looked like less work.  I moved all our plastic bags to the same shelf, and put our free samples in a smaller bag.  I reorganized and “faced” other items like I used to do when I worked at Food Lion as a teenager.

Do you have any tips or tricks for organizing your pantry?  How do you organize your plastic bags and/or free samples?

Good afternoon!  This morning I was up bright and early to go grocery shopping with my girls.  We went to WinCo and back, and then I put away the groceries, prepped barbecue chicken for dinner, and made lunches.  In the midst of the melee, we got a phone call about the filing cabinet we had listed on Craigslist.  The buyer came right over, and we helped her to load it in her car.

Suffice to say, I didn’t get around to wiping down the door knobs and light switch plates until everyone was down for their naps.  I was surprised to see how dirty they were, although it’s difficult to keep any white surface looking clean around here.  Our house (which we rent) is very old, so even when things are clean, they don’t always look clean.

Have you noticed that houses with toddlers have a “ring around the bathtub” look to them?  If you haven’t, get down on your toddlers’ level, and walk around your house.  Every wall, door frame, door, cabinet, shelf, or closet will have a trail of dirty finger prints about 2-3 feet from the floor.

If you don’t have any dinner plans tonight, you should go to Panda Express for a free Samurai Surf and Turf!  Otherwise, what are your dinner plans for tonight?

We are more than half way done the 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge!  Today’s project was to deep clean the bathroom.  One of the nice things I’ve noticed about this challenge, is the that the more often I clean each room in the house, the less time it takes to clean it.  This is because 1) I know now know what needs done, 2) I can find the supplies easier, and 3) the room has not gotten as dirty since the last time I cleaned it.

As you can see, today I put away toothbrushes and shampoo.  I had to ask Naomi where the toilet paper roll holder was.  She told me it was under her bed.  Hmm.  Well, she was right, so I was able to put the toilet paper back where it belonged.  Then I cleaned the toilet, shook out the rug, mopped the floor, and sprayed the mirror, window, cabinets, and shower.  The kids sat in the doorway watching me as I worked.  We emptied all our trash last night, so that didn’t need to be done.  A friend gave Oliver the training potty yesterday, so he’s been excited to try using it.

Finally, I thought you would enjoy seeing what has become of our mud room since I cleaned it yesterday.  As you can see, things don’t stay clean for long around here!

What are you doing on this fine Tuesday?  Are you finding it easier to clean after 16 days of house cleaning?

Happy Tax Day!  I hope you all managed to get your taxes in on time, and that you’re out there enjoying some of the freebies available today. It’s been overcast and rainy here today, and my husband has a head cold, so the atmosphere here is subdued.

When I looked at the Cleaning Challenge project for today, I decided that it was time for me to mop our kitchen and dining room floors.  I also went ahead and swept the hallway and the rest of the living room.  Our living room and dining room share the same space, so when doing one I might as well do the other.

Although I’m not crazy about mopping, I do love how it makes the house look and smell good.  The picture you see is our mudroom, which is just an extension of our kitchen.  The sticker-covered box is our kids’ art box, the bag holds kitchen toys, and the shelves hold books to be listed on Amazon.  Out the window you can see some of the grape arbor my hard-working husband has been painting recently.

What did you choose to surface clean in your living room and/or kitchen today?

Welcome back to the 30-Day House Cleaning Challenge!  The assignments for this weekend were to clean out a closet or two, surface clean an extra room, or deep clean a bedroom.  I opted to go back to our home office and organize our two filing cabinets full of  paperwork.  If you remember from Project #10, this room changed dramatically that day, motivating me to continue the improvement!

Well, it took me most of the day, with several breaks, several trips to the recycling bin, and some help from my husband, but finally…the large filing cabinet is out of our office!  Yeah!  I am so happy to reclaim this space, and to have all our paperwork organized.

Otherwise, the weather here was gorgeous today!  The highlight of my day was when a friend stopped by for a visit.  How was your Friday?