Salmon and Souvlaki

This post is part of my series, “Kickin’ It Old Skool: Why and How We Are Old-Fashioned” or KIOS for short.  If you’re new to the series, please read my disclaimer before continuing on.  I’m keeping a table of contents to this series here so you can see what I’ve already written about and what more there is to come.

Having a cleaning schedule really isn’t all that extraordinary but it’s definitely old-fashioned!  One challenge I faced when I became a stay-at-home mom was finding order and structure for our days.  Eventually, I created a rhythm for our week that isn’t too dissimilar to Ma’s schedule from Little House in the Big Woods (by Laura Ingalls Wilder).

Laura and Mary helped Ma with the work.  Every morning there were dishes to wipe…By the time the dishes were wiped..the bed was aired.  Then, standing one on each side, Laura and Mary straightened the covers…and put them in place…After this was done, Ma began the work that belonged to that day.  Each day had its own proper work.  Ma used to say:

“Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday.”

Laura liked the churning and the baking days best of all the week.  (emphasis mine)

Who wouldn’t?  🙂

Although I am exceedingly grateful that I don’t have to devote an entire day to ironing or mending, I do like having a predictable flow to my week.  I also don’t love cleaning (shocking, I know) so I prefer to split it up to some extent, rather than having one day in which I try to do all my cleaning.

This schedule is definitely flexible, has changed over the past couple years as the other things we do in our week has changed, and has pretty much been thrown out the window during this pregnancy.  My goal is to move back towards this though, once our new baby is here and we’ve established our new normal life.

So what exactly is my schedule?  Or more precisely, what was my schedule before pregnancy threw everything off?

Monday: baking

Tuesday: clean the bathroom and food prep (as in cooking beans, or whatever else might be needed to be ready for the next few days of meals)

Wednesday: water plants, vacuum, paperwork, declutter (We have our moms’ group at church on Wednesdays so we take it easier on this day.)

Thursday: mop kitchen/dining room floors plus other assorted kitchen cleaning tasks

Friday: menu planning and laundry

I also have a bit of a system where I only do certain things every few weeks.  For example, I attempt to vacuum every week but don’t worry about really thoroughly vacuuming more than once every 4 weeks or so.  Then there are other things I just do once a quarter and I’ve got those in the schedule too.

When I am actually following this schedule, my house stays reasonably clean and I stay reasonably sane.  I try to accomplish the day’s task right away in the morning if I can and then that leaves the rest of the day for doing whatever else we need to do.

I also have a pretty rock solid policy that I don’t do housework while Ellie is sleeping.  She’s usually pretty happy to clean alongside me so there’s no sense in wasting nap time on housework!  Besides, if Laura and Mary helped Ma with her work, I think Ellie should help me with mine!

What I especially love about having a schedule like this is that if I happen to miss a day (which probably happens every week) of one task or another, I don’t feel so out of control as in, “I don’t know when the vacuuming will ever get done!!  My house will ALWAYS be filthy!!!!  Ahhhh!!!”  Rather, I can just tell myself, “Vacuuming will come around again next Tuesday.  If you don’t get it done before then, oh well.  We will all survive.”  I also like being able to look at my week’s schedule and know how I need to modify what I’m going to do based on any appointments or extra activities we have.

As far as household management goes, this has helped me feel more professional and confident about my current vocation as a stay-at-home mom and household manager.  I know every person does it differently but it’s definitely a system that has worked for me.  I am looking forward to figuring out our new schedule as Ellie and I learn how to live out our week as a trio instead of a pair.

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For the very curious, you can see my household cleaning schedule here:  Schedule Planning Chart (it will download as a Word document).  It includes my deep cleaning that is scheduled once every four weeks, my cleaning tasks that only come every quarter, and my goals for every day activities which definitely don’t all happen every day (or even every week).