Being Realistic about Spring Cleaning – Chores and Organizing

This past week we’ve done a heap of fun activities, but I’ve been spending most of my spare time — not blogging — but doing some spring cleaning and organizing.  I was in the mood to put some music on and clean… but to be honest, I get overwhelmed by those long, long, looonnnnngg spring cleaning lists.  To make sure I’m feeling good about the process I make sure I only choose a few out-of-the-norm chores to tackle at a time. More than that and I feel like it’s hopeless.

So my spring cleaning list looks like this…

SpringCleaning

Rather than this…

SpringCleaning2

A list like this just makes me want to give up before I’ve begun!!

So, this past weekend I tackled just a few extra jobs around the house.  The kids and I dusted all over (can you see why?!!) and I got up and did the fans in the homeschool room…

Dust-DirtI also vacuumed the basement and cleaned the ceiling corners in the basement and the sliding glass door runners.

CleaningTackling just those few chores made me feel great!  I’ve just got to keep my goals reasonable!

Meanwhile, the kids still help out with what we call “chores-to-help-the-family.”  We’ve come to say that as one word!!   Generally once a day I’ll ask the kids, “Can you please do a chore to help the family?”  We have a bowl in the kitchen that has lots of chores folded up on paper (see this post Rethinking Chores from last fall) and they can choose one from the bowl, though now the kids will usually ask if they can just (do a swish-n-swipe in the bathroom or vacuum one room or whatever).  It’s great that they’ll pitch in and help. The system has evolved, but what I love is the kids’ willingness to help out. 🙂

Chores-to-help-the-FamilyThe other thing that needed to be done was organizing the games and supplies cabinet in the homeschool room. It has felt SOOOoooooo good to haul things out of the cabinets and put the things the kids have outgrown into bins to send to Hubby’s cousin (who has an 8-month old)…

wooden puzzles–out they go…

shape matching–too easy for ED…

memory game that hasn’t been played for more than a year-outta here…

preschool pages–not relevant, toss them out!

Just look at this give-away pile as I pulled thing out!

IMG_2735GiveAwayPile

When we lived overseas lots of families came and went. Since we stayed for 12+ years (in Central Australia) our friends passed us lots and lots of great stuff (not to mention the grandparents, aunts and uncles)!  It will feel wonderful when I get all this boxed up and sent off to the cousin!

Clutter-to-Give-Away

I also went through the kids’ workboxes (which is where we store most of our day-to-day homeschool materials) and tossed out a lot of printables and papers that accumulated, but that we won’t use again.

IMG_2854workboxesIf you’re interested in seeing a bit more about how I organize our homeschool room you can check out this post from last August: Organizing Our Homeschool Room or one from a year and a half ago, Our Homeschool Setup. You’ll see from those posts that we have a patch-work of furniture pieces… a craft table given to us by a friend (we sawed off the legs to make it shorter), an old computer desk that Hubby’s work was getting rid of… cabinets that came from the 2nd-hand shop, 40 year old coffee tables from Hubby’s grandma.  Nothing fancy, but it works!

I think I was in such a rush to tackle this room because the weekends in the spring will be so busy with soccer season starting up again soon.  Both DD and LD want to play — so that’ll entail practice twice a week plus games on Saturday.  I had that bee in my bonnet that this job HAD to get done!

So that’s it… spring cleaning at the Homeschool Den… small, manageable goals that feel great when the day is done!

Do you do spring cleaning? Have you started yet?

6 Responses

  1. Kylie says:

    I’m in the process of clearing out our supply cupboard also. Baby and toddler items are on the list. I must admit that some of those things are very hard to part with!

    • Liesl Den says:

      I think that’s why it took me so long to get rid of them. I tried to remove some of this stuff last year, but the girls said they were still interested in them. Honestly though, they hardly used any of it this past year. It was definitely time to pull it all out and send the stuff on its way to a new home!

  2. Kylie says:

    I’m in the process of clearing out our supply cupboard also. Baby and toddler items are on the list. I must admit that some of those things are very hard to part with!

    • Liesl Den says:

      I think that’s why it took me so long to get rid of them. I tried to remove some of this stuff last year, but the girls said they were still interested in them. Honestly though, they hardly used any of it this past year. It was definitely time to pull it all out and send the stuff on its way to a new home!

  3. Loralee says:

    Love it! Maybe I can follow your example and tackle a FEW things. I also love the idea of Chores to Help the Family.

  4. Loralee says:

    Love it! Maybe I can follow your example and tackle a FEW things. I also love the idea of Chores to Help the Family.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *