Monday, March 8, 2010

The Cleanest House Ever

LOC: The Jeppesen family spring cleaning outside their home, 1940 Utah.

 

 I have been working hard on my Spring Cleaning Plan. I am having so much fun! Last night I stayed up super late to organize and tidy and scrub. I was only going to work for 20 minutes each day, but can't seem to stop... (smiles)

I have a wonderful idea to maintain a clean house. I just came up with a fun way to keep the children busy and get the cleanest house ever!!

Here's the plan:

1. I will come up with every single possible chore and make chore cards. Possibly hundreds!! (smiles)

2. One chore will be written on one index card. Here is an example: "Go through the house searching for cobwebs and destroy them!" .... or ... "Clean all the window sills.".... or... "Clean out the car" . . . or . . . "Organize the bookcase."

3. I will have 5 days of heavy cleaning. We will only do this on weekdays. I have an index card file box and days of the week divider tabs. - Monday through Friday.

4. I will put an equal amount of chore cards behind each day's file.

Now here is the super fun part. I don't have to do any of the chores!!! These are for the children only!

This is how it will go:

On each weekday morning, after breakfast, I will pull out the index card file box. I will take out all of that day's chore cards. I will shuffle them and hold them up (like a deck of cards) with the words facing me, so the children cannot see them. I will let each child pick 3 or 4 cards for the day. They will have no idea what they are getting until they look at them. All the work will have to be finished before lunch. What fun!! (Mom, make sure you are busy in that kitchen, making a wonderful, rewarding lunch for those dear, hard-working children!)

I can just imagine it..... (looks dreamily at the sky).... (smiles).... John will be out in the car, polishing the dashboard, taking out trash, and vacuuming the floors... Amy will be washing all the windows in the house.... Matthew will be sweeping down the stairs.

Now this is a dream come true!! I can't wait to get this started!

What will make this fun for the children, you ask? Well, the excitement of never knowing what chore they will end up with!

If you are a fun Mom, you might want to include a couple of random chore cards that say things like, "Bake cookies and eat two of them before you tell us they are ready." ... Or .... "Make everyone an ice cream cone." ..... That will keep things exciting!

How about you? Are you ready to have the cleanest house ever? I can't wait to hear how housekeeping is going at your house!

Blessings,
Mrs. White

 

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6 comments:

Lovalynn said...

Spring is near!!! Spring reminds me of Jesus' resurrection. Our church is having revival coming soon. (although i work on keeping revival in my heart always =) i will want to have the cleanest house ever!!! i will begin by asking my heavenly father to forgive me for having little faith at times, forgive me for being judgmental of others, forgive me for not always following my husband (he has a Godly discernment) as if sometimes I am not thinking clearly =). That is just to name a few!!! Then i will go to a specific person & forgive them. i will continue to clean, clean, clean what ever the Lord shows me! & i will encourage my children to prepare & clean, clean, clean & ask the Lord to show them as well!!! You see, we will do our “Spiritual Cleaning” of our home. A home (heart) fit for a king (Jesus).

Deanna said...

Hello Mrs. White!
I really like this picture of the interior household items on the lawn!

I remember the time I saw a similar sight for real with a household that had their custom cut carpets displayed on the front yard.
It was an interesting sight for a little girl to see.
Getting mentally prepared for Spring cleaning.
I pray your son is doing better. God bless you all.
d

Anonymous said...

Hi Mrs. White!
It sounds like you have a great idea on your hands. However, I know how much you love cleaning so my question is will you get some index cards too? ;) My children are still quite young to be doing a lot of my daily chores. I do have them sorting laundry, drying dishes, cleaning up after themselves and a few other small things. Most days just keeping the basic order of house is all I can manage to do. The joys of motherhood with young ones around. I hope you have a fabulous day!!!
Sarah L.

jodi said...

love the idea!!! can't wait to hear how it works for you!
jodi

Christy, The Simple Homemaker said...

I'll help with the cookie chore! :)

Anonymous said...

When my children were little (6 boys 1 girl) we did the chores on card thing and it worked great. I also included fun cards like "seat choice in car" or "free card" (which counted as one of the cards they had to draw so they had one less chore) I do recommend that you not let the kids have personal access to the cards. My older kids figured out how to mark the cards so that if they saw a job they hated coming up they would slow down to allow a younger child to get that card. Good luck! and good job for giving your kids a good foundation for when they are grown and have places of their own. Carole G.