House Chores

It's Tuesday and in my house that means I need to get started on my weekly chores. For the past few months Mr. R and I have been saving all the tidying and cleaning for weekends. We ultimately get frustrated at our own messiness and end up doing this big overhaul clean on Saturdays or ignoring the mess and saving the big clean for a rainy day (several weeks down the road). This basically means our house goes from livable to full on pigsty. I am pretty type A and I have a few OCD organization tendencies. Our messiness was literally driving me INSANE!

Over spring break I sat down with Mr. R and made a list of procedures (hey, I am a scientist, that's what we call them) for daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning. We also divided up the list to make sure neither of us was overwhelmed with work.

Here is what I came up with.

Daily chores:

1. Make morning coffee: Hilary
2. Wash breakfast dishes: Mr. R
3. Load dishwasher: Mr. R
4. Unload dishwasher: Hilary
5. Make bed: Mr. R
6. Take out trash and replace bag: Mr. R
7. Sweep and swiffer Kitchen floor: Both
8. Make/Reheat dinner: Hilary
9. Sort laundry into light, dark, or white piles using the sorter: Hilary & Mr. R

Weekly Chores: Shared by both of us, unless noted

• Sunday: Cook/prep two meals for the week, clean entry way, mop foyer
• Monday: Clean our bathroom
• Tuesday: 2 loads of laundry (towels & gym clothes)
• Wednesday: 2 loads of laundry (dark & light)
• Thursday: Mop kitchen and bathroom floors; Clean out fridge
• Friday: Vacuum rugs & swiffer wood floors in living areas
• Saturday: Dust living room and media room, Grocery shop (Hilary), Mow lawn and other yard work (Mr. R)

Today, being Tuesday, meant I needed to unload the dishwasher and get laundry going before I left for my run. I also needed to prep for dinner so that I could begin cooking as soon as I got home. The great part about our new procedures is that I walked into a tidy house after work and the kitchen was spotless and ready for me to begin cooking.

Let's hope we can keep this up.

And as you know proof is always in the pictures so here are a few from my afternoon.

(This final picture is of Simon and Sophie in the warm dryer clothes. They love to bury themselves in the clean clothes and roll around on the dryer sheets.)