movie monday - yep, i can ramble on thursdays too!

Watch me ramble for 3 min about coffee, routines, kids and well...not much else.

All the cool kids are doing it!



And I am cleaning the basement.

Have a lovely Thursday!

routine-ing

I like routines.
Back in the good old days (2003ish) of newlyweddedness (why is this not a word?) I found the Flylady and I loosely used her system to set up cleaning routines, etc for each of our houses.
It was great, our house was generally presentable, bathrooms were company ready, and I had time to care for my family and do some fun things. The biggest bonus was that listing each of those houses wasn't as big a deal as it could have been.

But when we moved last year, I never set up routines for myself.
As we tell the 4 year old - that was a poor choice. I added two bathrooms and about 1000 sq. feet to my cleaning tasks. Let me rephrase, I didn't add them - I only clean the basement bath before over-night guests arrive (our guest room is in the basement), the rest of the household chores are completed randomly when I decide that the cobwebs are too numerous to ignore or I can't remember the last time I vacuumed the stairs.

Combine that cleaning methodology with a pretty awful bout of morning sickness (did you miss my announcement yesterday?), two little boys, and a husband who was traveling for most of my first trimester.

The house felt like some sort of experiment.
Or one of those terrible air freshener commercials.

(this also explains the blogging hiatus)

And now I feel like I am digging my house out of the mess. It's no fun. I need routines.

Here's what I have been doing the last few weeks, and there's a noticeable difference around here (yay!).

Mon.
*change bed sheets
*clean bathrooms (haven't ventured into the basement yet)
*chuck old fridge items
*laundry - sheets, one load of clothes

Tues.
*errands
*dust (in theory - hasn't happened yet)
*vacuum 2nd floor
*laundry - towels, one load of clothes

Wed.
*clean some widows or mop kitchen floor
*vacuum 1st floor
*laundry - delicates

I didn't list all of the normal stuff - making beds, cleaning the kitchen, etc - and there is a bunch of things I'd like to add to my routine - baking day, closet organizing time. This is good for now, I have a cleaner home and doing super fun stuff with the kids is not guilt-inducing.

we like to do fun stuff! and summer buzz cuts - hello cuteness!

Yay routines!!

Do you have a household routine? 

Ever heard of the Flylady?

sometimes...

Sometimes, when the kids are being really quiet, I think "They're being so good, quietly reading and playing so I can enjoy my coffee and catch up with the internets." And then you snap back to reality and realize...they are being quiet because naughtiness is happening.

And you walk into a living that looks like this:

monkeys, blonde monkeys

Hmm...yell? throw your hands up? one more lecture on not destroying the nice furniture?

Nope, I decided it was a nudge from above to vacuum the furniture.

So now it is clean and put back together...

And of course I couldn't stop with just the vacuuming, the train table (which we hauled up from the basement playroom in Jan.) is heading back downstairs, everything's dusted (finally!), mantle is freshly made up and I have grand plans of picking up some summer throw pillows.

My living room is going to feel so fresh!

Sometimes...all you really need is a little bit of happy chaos to add to life's wonderfulness.

And that's just what is happening around here...baby #3 is due the end of Nov!!

We are thrilled, I know three kids (and let's face it, we all know this will probably be another boy :D ) will create even more chaos, but along with the chaos is so much love. I can't wait :)

Anything exciting happening in your world?