Missed this morning’s assignment? Find it here.
Today was a bit different than our normal schedule because I had to finish up all of the handouts for the Cincinnati Conference so that I could get them into the printers by tonight so that they’d be ready in time. And in order to finish the handouts, I had to, you know, finish my four talks — or at least have a fairly good idea of what I was going to say so that it somewhat meshed with the handouts we’ll be passing out. 🙂
So after an abbreviated morning routine, homeschooling, and a quick shower, I spent a big block of time working on the handouts while my wonderful assistant helped and played with the children.
Joy and I finished them up just in time and Christy (Jesse’s fantastic assistant who has been helping me organize all of the details for the Cincinnati conference — I’d be so sunk without her!) took them into the printers.
{See? Those of you who think I’m superwoman can now breathe a sigh of relief. I’m so not superwoman; I just have a great team of people who work for me!}
Whew! So glad to have that project done — especially because these are talks I’m giving multiple times this year so now that we have most of the legwork done for them, the rest of the conferences shouldn’t require so much prep work ahead of time!
After all of that was finished, I spent some time with the children and tackled the bathrooms. Oh did they need help — especially the children’s bathtub.
I decided that all of the miscellaneous toys in the bathrub could go in the 7-things-to-get-rid-of pile for today. {By the way, in case you are wondering why we have so many of these stacking toys, they came free with some online deal awhile back. Silas has had fun playing with them at bathtime, but I think we probably don’t need to hang onto 20 different stacking cups for bathtime!}
Much better! 
Jesse and I went out on a date tonight (woot!) and then I came home and the children and I worked on the light switches.
Silas really got into the cleaning the light switches business. He loved it!
And then he took his cleaning cloth and started cleaning the mirrors and the walls. We could hardly pull him away from his cleaning when it was bedtime!
While today was definitely different from a “normal” day (though I’m not exactly sure what “normal” looks like since every day is somewhat different around here!), it was a good day and I’m thankful for the many things that were accomplished.
And I’m very ready for bed!
How did you do on Assignment #9? I’d love to have you share your progress and success with us so we can be inspired. Either post a link to your blog post below or leave a comment with your update.
Ahhhh. Sigh of relief, you aren’t wonderwoman. I can stop stressing now, thank you thank you thank you.
We have 2 main weekly cleaning days at my house and the children have chore charts for upstairs and downstairs.
2 older kids- clean downstairs bathroom, vacuum, dust, clean their bedrooms, sweep steps and hallway, clean shelf in kitchen
3 younger kids- clean main upstairs bathroom, dust living room and den, clean mirrors in bedrooms, dust in bedrooms, fill dog food dispensers
Daily: make beds, do dishes, fold laundry, brush dogs, clear table of school ‘stuff’, everything in order before bed
Once a month- cushions and couches are ‘explored’ and cleaned.
Twice a year- closet clutter is cleared. (We’re running late upstairs but downstairs is done- yah!)
Your kids have the most ADORABLE smiles!
Can you upload the handouts that go with your talk here? I’d love to see them 🙂 since I am not able to attend the conference.
They won’t make a whole lot of sense without the workshops to go with them. But maybe someday soon I’ll be in your area!
Last night I made time to clean all the door knobs and light switches. I was surprised at how dirty the light switches were. I have to admit… I haven’t been keeping up with all the assignments, but I am proud of what I’ve accomplished so far. As for my yard sale box… it’s got about 40 things in it already!
Thank you for posting these daily assignments Crystal!
You’re doing a great job! Way to go!
Light switches and doorknobs done! Since I am just jumping in on the tasks I have to say that with getting ready for our yardsale tomorrow I am caught up on my “7 things” to get rid of each day. Starting Monday it should much easier to get the cleaning tasks done without the clutter 🙂 One thing at a time has been my motto today!
Crystal, I’m loving this series! This month was not a great time for me to tackle it, but I’m planning to do so once school gets out and our schedule is more predictable. Will you have all of the assignment posts in once place where late people like me can find them and follow them each day?
Yes, I definitely plan to!
Awesome. I’m really looking forward to tackling this. I don’t think I’ve ever in my life said that I was looking forward to cleaning. :/
Thank you!
I’m loving these challenges. I would also love at the end of the month if you could give us a condensed list of the daily items so I can print it out and just keep doing them over and over! (Probably can’t keep getting rid of 7 things indefinitely, but there is no telling how long I could!)
My daughter is always motivated to help around the house. My 4yo son however,is not. He drags his feet and usually asks if he can take a nap instead, take a bath instead, or do more homeschool instead of clean.
He transforms around bedtime, though. He frequently asks if he can fold laundry or help clean something at bedtime. Sometimes I take him up on it!! He gets to stay up a few minutes later and I get a folded load of clothes.
since I did the light switches when i did the door knobs, that freed up some time. After i wiped down the bathroom(which i have to do every other day anyways since we only have 1 and there is 5 of us), I set out to put away laundry.
I was able to pull out 18 pieces of clothing(mostly the boy’s and youngest girl’s) for donations, including little daughter’s winter coat that she got 2 years wear out of. Now I have 3 walmart size bags stuffed of items to drop off at the thrift store!(just from this week!)
if the weather would hurry up and decide which direction to go, my 5 year old has some long sleeved shirts that need to go that are short in the arms(she hit a growth spurt over winter) but im holding onto them for chilly days.
What will Silas play with now? The tub looks pretty bare not nearly as much fun!
😉 I realized I should have mentioned that he’s been playing with the stacking cups less and less recently and I think it’s just because there are so many of them that it’s almost overwhelming! Before the stacking cups, I often gave him a squirt bottle and some plastic cups from the kitchen to play with, so I’m thinking we’ll go back to that — as it will probably seem exciting and new again for him and it won’t leave such a constant mess in the bathroom/bathtub!
I was about to ask how your kids do with having to give their stuff away. I find that and what to do with their school papers/crafts one of my biggest issues. It seems like whenever I want to get rid of something of theirs, either they complain or I wonder will I one day regret not having it and then give in and keep it because it’s just easier. Anyone else with that problem, or just me? Sometimes I try to get rid of stuff on the sly but if I did what you did and got rid of something that they obviously see every day and would obviously notice was gone, I would have a million questions to answer. So my question to you is how do your kids deal with this and then if they are upset about it, how do you deal with it without feeling guilty or giving in? Thanks.
I was wondering the same thing. My kids notice when anything is missing. I have gotten rid of things on the sly that they’ve later asked for and were very upset when I’d told them I’d gotten rid of it. I no longer do that to them. Truthfully, I’d be upset if someone got rid of something of mine without asking, so I just don’t do it to them anymore.
It’s a little tricky for me too, I have a 5 year old son and he “needs” every silly stuffed animal he has ever received 😉 I have a one in/one out rule… If he seriously wants something he knows he’ll have to get rid of something else. This doesn’t apply to Christmas/Bday completely, but we do a cleaning out before each of them. I simply explain that having too much makes the work harder and you can’t play with it all at the same time!
As for papers, consider scanning them or taking a photograph with your child holding the item, then special stuff go ahead and save! 🙂 We are using Project Life this year, which is great because it’s a place to actually put all of that “stuff”, like cards, tickets, playbills, whatever, that you like to hold on to! They have big envelopes you can put in the back of a 12×12 binder to staff stuff too (like the playdoh heart he made for me one afternoon!).
Best of luck!! 🙂
Thanks!
as a teenager, i babysat for a family that kept 1 tote for each child to keep their school papers in. The totes were low enough that they could be stored under the children’s beds. also, to build on this, you could go through the tote periodically to weed out the items and keep the really special ones (maybe in a separate scrapbook your child creates.)
I would have kept one set of the stacking cups under the cupboard to bring out a month from now. They’d seem new again! One set probably would end up in the sandbox.
This series is really starting to change my thinking about how to attack cleaning a home, for the better. Thanks so much for this opportunity.
Yay! I’m so thankful that it’s been helpful!
agree! i am eager each day to see what i need to do. i am amazed at how excited i am to clean. my husband is amazed too 😉
My 4year old helped me clean two bathrooms…. She loved it. She said to me, “I’ve got an idea, Mom, we could talk while we clean!” how cute is that? Truth be told, I don’t think my house has ever been this clean and organized! Thanks Crystal!
Love it!
You are so lucky that you have your little ones to help and include them in the tasks. It takes a little extra time and patience but so worth it in the end. They will have such a positive outlook on cleaning and know how to do everything. It’s getting to be where I can’t wait to see the next project and that seems odd for me acutally eager to the next chore. 😉 Thanks for that!
Your children are sweet! I can’t believe how big they are getting. Silas has long enough hair to part now! What big helpers they are.
I was able to host 15 ppl at my home last night with only 1 hour of real extra prep thanks to the “homework” I’ve been doing. Thanks!
Woot! Go you!
I got all my light switches done. Then while I was cleaning the bathroom the kids went to work on picking out 3-4 items they no longer need. I was even able to get all the laundry done today and went out to grocery shop tonight. Thanks for posting these assignments, it has been helping me keep on track and get extra things done. I actually remembered to make my list of items I wanted to get done and was able to finish them all today.
I’m still sick, and 43 weeks pregnant. I spent a good part of the day holding a sick 2-year-old. By the end of the day, 2 more children were sick. I had been hoping to tackle the door handles yesterday since I knew sickness was spreading, but I was holding the 2-year-old almost all day yesterday.
But tonight, with the 2-year-old in bed and the other 2 sick children in the bath, I quickly knocked out the doorknobs (and around them) and the light switches in the house. (iused a spray bottle of homemade orange cleaner that contains vinegar). I did this fairly recently, and I was surprised at how dirty they were again! Before I go to bed soon, I’m turning the rags and towels on to wash as well.
WOW did you just say 43 weeks! Girl i will pray you have that baby quick.
My 6 previous children were all born between 42-44 weeks. The last one went 44 weeks exactly.
Wow. God bless you!
Bless your heart Prudent!! You need to call in some help!!
My husband has been cooking 🙂 But my oldest got sick today and if my husband gets sick and my second oldest, too, we might be in big trouble! Of course, no one will want to eat anything if they’re all sick, so I could probably open some home-canned fruit and put it out for everyone and call it dinner 🙂
I am seriously impressed. If I were 43-weeks pregnant with 3 sick children and sick myself, I’m pretty sure I’d be sprawled out on the couch watching tv reruns and not be wiping down doorknobs and lightswitches! 😉 Hope you all get better very soon!
Well, my light switch plates are still dirty, but we’ll get to that tomorrow. I spent the day sorting through the storage room, and was able to get 8 trash bags of things to donate. I also made a meal for the freezer. I’m feeling so much more organized. I can’t wait for you to make a print-out of these tasks so I can continue them on a regular basis! Thanks for the inspiration, Crystal!
8 trash bags! WAY TO GO!!!