June Cleaver & Martha Stewart step aside...

I can pretty much guarantee that if you were to walk into my home at any given time, there will be toys from one end of the house to the other. I am okay with that. It used to be that I would follow the kids all day long picking up after them for fear that someone would come over and think, 'what a slob.' That didn't last long.

Life is about so much more than having a home that is entirely too neat & clean. We live here. We play here. This is who we are.

Now don't get me wrong. My house is not "dirty." It may be a bit cluttered at times, and there may be toys on the floor, but all in all, everything is clean.

So, I thought I would share some Quick Tips to Cleaning...

1. Clean up after yourself (and teach your kids to do the same)--if you put stuff back in it's place as soon as your done using it, you won't have things piling up all over the place. You'll end up having to do it sooner or later, why not now?
2. Kitchen Duty...If you have a dishwasher, Use It! Anytime someone uses a dish, make it a point that it is rinsed and placed in the dishwasher just as soon as they are done with it. If you make this a habit, especially in your children, it will definitely save you alot of time after supper. Speaking of supper...clean up as you go when cooking, and make it a point to clean the kitchen & dishes as soon as your done with the meal.
3. Bathroom...quite honestly my least favorite task of all. Everyone has their own way of doing things. I personally keep a spray bottle with Clorox/water handy so that I can spray down the shower/bath tub as we go. It saves me from having to scour for 45 minutes to try to remove the soap scum.
4. Laundry...Make sure you have enough socks & underwear to last everyone 14 days, then place them all in great big trash bags, stuff in the closet, and make it a family outing to go to the laundry mat every other Sunday. Just joking...buy one of those clothes dividers so that you can sort your laundry as you go. Again, your kids can sort their own as well. Then each morning when I wake up, before I wake the kids for school, I throw in a load of laundry, get them up & ready, off to school. Come home, throw them in the dryer. Go take a shower. Dress. Then fold laundry & put away. All done before 9am.
5. Multi-Task...Instead of walking from one end of the house to the other empty handed, pick up anything that you find needs to go that direction.

To sum it all up...do it as you go. It will only take a couple extra minutes, sometime a few seconds, to do most of the things I stated above. If you put it off and wait until later to do it, it will most likely take you 30 minutes instead of the 3 minutes had you done it right away. It's also nice to get into a routine of things with your children. It will just become habit for them and will save you the extra work, and the stress later on in life.

So I hope this helps! Housework doesn't have to be hard or time-consuming, the key is to tackle it before it has a chance to get to that point.