"Work Time" in the Grissom home

I have no original ideas but I did steal this idea of "work time" from some other large family along the way. "Work time" is set 30 minutes that we do each morning before school. It is the concept of deep cleaning One room for a whole week and then moving on to another room the next week. Everyone pitches in and does something to deep clean that room for 30 minutes. Well except the baby who gets to play in the playpen. By the end of the week your whole room is cleaned thoroughly top to bottom, and it only took you 30 minutes each day.

Now I have to say we don't catch everyday of the week, with my husbands schedule but we do this most days. Even 3-4 times a week and one room can be gone through well.

This week we are working in the kitchen, laundry room, and pantry, as these are all combined as one for us. So one of the kids cleaned the windows in the kitchen. Somebody scrubbed the wall right by the dishwasher that always seems to get dirty. My oldest daughter taught the two littlest ones to scrub the lower cabinets in the kitchen. One boy didn't do anything and got in trouble, and didn't get a treat afterwards. And I cleaned behind, under and on top of the microwave cart, dryer, and shelves in the pantry.

Tomorrow and throughout the week, we will pick other jobs, such as clean the ceiling fans, clean another wall, clean the rest of the cabinets outside, clean under appliances and on them, clean out the fridge, organize inside of cupboards and get rid of anything that is to much, and any number of things we can think of . You know what I mean, the stuff that we wouldn't normally get to except when we are deep cleaning.

Now my home is pretty little compared to some, so we have our weeks broke up into different rooms like this:

1. Kitchen, pantry, laundry room
2. Dining room
3. Living room
4. Bathrooms, towel/linen closet, or any other closet that needs a quick going over
5. Kids bedrooms
6. Backyard and front yard if the weather is nice

I don't have a garage to clean out, as it is converted into a living room and I don't have the kids clean my bedroom. I just spend 15 minutes in my own room each day if needed to keep up with it. But with our home broke up like this our house gets thoroughly cleaned every six weeks, and then we start again. It is amazing by the time I get back to that room again, yes it needs it all over again. And sometimes we didn't get every possible job done during that week, but I move on anyways and we catch that the next time. Bathrooms I more regularly do a "quick clean" on them whenever they look like they need it. But wait and do a huge cleaning on them until its their week.

I truly love this way of deep cleaning. It frees my mind to know, "we will get to that". It just may be a little bit. And I love knowing that we really cleaned things not to long ago. Hope this maybe helps your family.

Love getting rid of stuff!

I don't know about you but our house seems to breed "stuff." Or that is the excuse I am using for having too much. "That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

One of the organizing things we do is always keep a bag or box ready to put stuff into, to go to habitat for humanity or goodwill. We don't wait to clean out a closet or room to get rid of stuff. We are constantly putting items in the box that must go. I do continually seem to go through rooms, closets and dressers and organize or declutter. (I generally do a few of these projects a week.) But I also have that box on hand for areas I am not particularly working on, but if I find something I don't want anymore, or have too many of, then I just go put it in the box to get rid of. Example: Today I was getting a pitcher out for juice and saw I have 6 pitchers in my cabinet. Well I don't need that many, and realized it at that moment, so I just put 2 in the box while it was on my mind. I don't have a garage to save all these items for a garage sale, so my "stuff" goes on the porch and any number of different non-profit organizations will come and pick them up. So that's my tip... Get rid of stuff as you go.

Sunday morning Shoes and Socks

Sunday morning shoes and socks are hard for the little kids to get out. So Matthew gets all of the boys shoes and socks out and puts them all in a row. He puts the socks inside their shoes so they know whose is whose and then lines them up in our dining room. So when they are all dressed and it's time for their shoes they can grab them and all we have to do is help them put them on.

Cynthia

Cookies Anytime

To have a fast cookie snack around, make your dough and freeze it on cookie sheets. Then put them in freezer bags for when you want them. This is a great way to have just a few cookies at a time or a quick thing to take somewhere on a busy day. I love to just bake a few for my husband right before he comes home on his late work nights. Fresh homemade and quick. We have a baking day, where we make our own bread and do other baking and freezing items. This is one of the easy things to do on that day. Along with muffins, waffles, and rolls. The kids all love to help in the kitchen and we get lots of items made and frozen.

Waffles, Waffles and More Waffles

We make our own waffles and freeze them flat on cookie sheets. When they are frozen we put them in bread bags and freeze. Easy to reheat in toaster or on cookie sheet in the oven. We use wheat flour so it is healthier than frozen store bought ones and way cheaper. This is one way to have quick breakfast on hand.

I just use a Betty Crocker recipe for this:

2 eggs

2 cups whole wheat flour (I use pastry wheat flour)

1/2 cup canola oil, or butter melted

1 3/4 cups milk

1 Tbls. granulated or brown sugar (I never put this in, since we use syrup on top of our pancakes)

4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Heat waffle irons. Beat eggs with hand beater in medium bowl until fluffy. Beat in remaining ingredients just until smooth. Pour batter from cup or pitcher onto center of hot waffle iron. Bake until your waffle irons says done. (When I use this recipe I always think it's a little on the thin side, not thick, but once it sits for a few minutes it seems to thicken. )

We let the waffles cool on wire racks then freeze them flat on cookie sheets and then put them in bread bags that I get from Debbie Barton.

Picture Problem

Ok, I can't stand 20 different coloring pages all over my fridge. And half the time the magnets don't hold, so they are constantly falling off. But I love seeing my children's art and coloring pages. So we solved this problem with giving each child his or her own magnet for them to place there pages. They were pretty cheap, about $1.50 each and good and sturdy. (Just found them at Wal-Mart). My daughter stamped each of the children a little square of cardstock with something cute for each of the children, so they know who's is who's. And they were all so eager to color a new page to put up with their magnets.

Sunday Morning Breakfast

Well Sunday mornings can be quite crazy without planning ahead. I don't find time to cook big breakfasts on Sunday morning, and make it to church on time. So we make meals ahead of time that are easy. Here's one of our favorite easy to heat meals. And if your kiddos are already dressed in Sunday clothes before they eat, then this is a pretty no mess meal.

Sausage Balls

3 1/2 cups Bisquick

1 lb. sausage

2 eggs

10 oz. grated cheddar cheese

1/2 cup milk

Mix Bisquick, sausage and cheese with hands. Add eggs and milk. Mix until all moist. Roll into balls. (I use a small ice cream scoop to make balls) Bake 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

I always double the recipe and only use a 16 oz. block of cheese for the double batch. This makes four sacks of sausage balls that I freeze and we pull out for Sunday breakfast.

No more pieces all over the house

Why does it take me so long to do things that are more organized and more productive? I don't know, but I have finally solved a few problems with one organizing tip.

My boys love legos and Knex, and I mean love em'. But I was constantly finding them all over the house. This being especially dangerous with a baby crawling around, and was really bothering me. So we decided to put them up high in containers on top of the school cabinet. Only to come down during school or special times. I was already making containers of things for little ones to do during school time, play doh, etc. So I have been solving two problems at once. How to keep little ones busy during school time? and how to keep all those pieces from being all around the house? We put all kinds of things in the containers to keep kids busy, crayons & coloring books, play-doh and cookie cutters, legos, magnets, puzzles, games with pieces, rice with scoops and spoons, mini-puzzles from dollar tree, polly pocket dolls and all their pieces, knex.