Cleaning the House After An Illness: Finally Starting

Okay, enough talking and planning, let's start talking about what I did.  I am pretty sure I built it up to be way more then I should have, lol!

Day One

The very first thing I did was to GET OUT OF BED.  I promise it gets more exciting.  But, when you are sick that is sometimes a big deal all in itself. 

My next step was equally as exciting...I made the bed.  

I know many of you are thinking-well duh.  But, if you happen to be {like I was} recovering from a long illness, or simply trying to start out on a new cleaning routine, this really is a big step.

I wanted to start my cleaning journey right in the room where I was.  I wanted to SEE the changes and have them affect me.  I hoped it would motivate me to go farther.  I also didn't want to have to walk ALL THE WAY across the house to get to the place I wanted to clean, because on some days that would take a large chunk of my energy.  

I got dressed after making my bed.  I even put on shoes.  I don't like to feel dirt and clutter under my feet when I clean up.  It discourages me.

Then I turned to my bedside table area.  Like I said, I started right by me.  Being in bed for awhile means that lots of things accumulate next to the bed that shouldn't be there.  A few plates, a few cups, some trash, empty medicine bottles, books, I am sure you can imagine.  

I didn't take any photos, but below is the current space.  This isn't an after photo.  This is a today photo.  Even after I picked up that first day, it looked nothing like this.  But, I wanted to show you how small of an area we are talking about.

My goals were to 1. Pick up any trash in the area.  2.  Pick up any dishes and take them to the sink.  3.  Pick up anything that didn't belong there and already had a home.  

Number three is very specific.  If an item already had a place it was supposed to go (for example a book that belonged on the bookshelf) then I would pick it up.  I made a pile of the things that had places to go.  I was NOT, however, decluttering.  

Specifically, there was a bag of items that had no home in the corner and a pile of Christmas gifts (this was before Christmas) right next to my dresser.  Neither of the clutter items belonged in that space, but finding them a space would have created another level of work.  Trying to take care of those items may have derailed the entire plan, so they stayed there.

I was also not cleaning.  What I mean by that is my bedside table and lamp had dust on it and the floor could have used a vacuum.  On this first day of recovering the house, I was doing neither one.  I was simply picking up and straightening the area.

Oh, and there were some books on top of my bedside table that belonged IN my bedside table.  However, my bedside table was completely full of other stuff.  I, again, was NOT decluttering, so they were stacked neatly on top of the table for now.

Believe it or not, it looked a TON better just by picking up the junk, trash, dishes, dirty clothes, and throw pillows of the floor.  No it wasn't completely done, but there was a noticeable difference.  The items that needed to to be put away I asked the kids to take to the right rooms.  And the bits of clutter that remained were placed in an orderly pile next to the wall.

And, that was the end of the first day's work.  

I know you are likely thinking that wasn't a days worth of work.  But, it was. I think it took as much as 20 minutes from when I got out of bed until when I had finished picking up the last item next to my bed.  

One thing I also did from day one was to put a load of laundry in the washer.  There was already tons of laundry in the laundry room, so I didn't have to drag anything in there.  I simply put one load in, and when it was done I put it in the drier.  I didn't fold anything.

It was hard to stop there.  The entire house was in need of cleaning, but I knew if I kept going I would get too tired or too sick and it would end in failure.  I had to remind myself that I hadn't done ANYTHING for almost 2 months, and that the house could wait a few more days.  

If I haven't bored you yet, come back tomorrow for day two.

God Bless,
Lisa

If you would like to read my plan from the beginning, start here.

Cleaning the House After an Illness Part 2: The Plan

First off, I just wanted to thank you for coming back!  I am so glad to know I didn't scare you away yesterday :).  Fact is, I've got housekeeping issues, so if you are a 'normal' person you may read over some of my cleaning posts and think 'people don't automatically think this?'  Actually, you may think that of ALL my cleaning posts. 

I know I have issues, but I'm hoping that documenting my recovery efforts can help SOMEONE.  And, if so, then it's worth it (and yes, if that one person is me it's really, really worth it!).

So, when I left off yesterday, I was coming up with a plan.  I'm REALLY GOOD at planning.  You should see my school lesson plans!  They are awesome!  Now, the execution of a plan....yeah not so much.  Knowing this, I had to be sure I came up with a really simple plan.  That, of course, was boring.  At least I knew I had tried detailed plans in the past and lost, so I was a little more willing to try simple.

Keep in mind, also, that I wasn't fully recovered from being sick.  Often, I would get up and be great for a little bit of time (maybe and hour, maybe 3 or 4) and then I would be DONE for the day.  D.O.N.E. 

Another consideration was that I didn't want to work so hard that I wore myself out and was unable to work the next day at all.  In the past, my idea of cleaning involved organizing and decluttering.  There's many reasons for that, but the biggest was probably because I like to do things 'big.'  Big projects produce big results that everyone can see and complement me on.  So, if I worked hard, everyone knew it.  

I couldn't clean that way this time.  I didn't have the energy.  Knowing I would be working hard (because working for even 5 minutes could wear me out at first), but no one would know and no one would applaud me.  This made it VERY hard to get motivated.

There was, however, something different motivating me this time.  While being sick there were SOOO many things I couldn't do.  I couldn't fix meals for the family, I couldn't teach them school, I couldn't take them to practices or art classes, I couldn't take them to church, and many times I really couldn't even spend too much time cuddling or talking with them since touching and talking made me nauseated.  It certainly makes you feel like a failure when your children are crying because you can't do things that you used to.  

The motivation this time was that I HAD to succeed.  I was so tired of feeling like a failure.  I couldn't start taking them places yet, nor could I start planning school or even cooking dinner.  I could, however, start doing SOMETHING to help.  

Tomorrow I will tell you about my first day of the plan.

God Bless,

Lisa

If you would like to read my plan from the beginning, start here.

Cleaning the House After an Illness: Part One

I have been considering writing about this for about the last 2 months.  But, I've been nervous to start.  Mostly, because I am not generally the person who should be giving tips on keeping your house clean (as I go through these posts it will probably become obvious as to why).

The fact is, I have never been much of a housekeeper.  I really wasn't born with that gene (too bad because my mother has a very strong one and I didn't even get half of hers).  The second fact is, that I have a house that requires keeping whether I am a keeper or not.  The third fact is, that when you are sick for a long period of time the idea of cleaning becomes a task of epic proportions.

As many of you know, I was super sick with this pregnancy. For about 8 weeks I was lucky to get out of bed and move to the couch.  Housework was not possible.  My husband and children helped with the basics (dishes and picking up toys).  And, my amazing mother came on some of the weekends.  She would clean up the main living areas for us.  Because of her, it didn't ever reach 'pit' status, but it was close at times.  And some areas, like the toy room for example, really did.

You know what the worst side effect to being sick is? No not the actual sick symptoms those are REALLY the worst, the other stuff.  Time to think.  Time to think about how dirty the house is and how you can't do anything about it.  There's also extra time to read Pinterest and see all the amazing other houses, which just adds to the frustration of the house's state.  There's even the delusion that sets in that the house looked like the Pinterest houses before you got sick, and if you could just get better that you could get it back that way (the nausea meds have strange side effects, lol).

So anyways, that's where I was...1.  The house was a wreck.  2.  I felt like crap.  3.  I was trying to recreate Pinterest.  Thankfully, I do my best thinking when I have a big project to do.

I thought about my plan for a number of days.  I considered searching Pinterest for ideas, but that only brought up pretty houses and cute organizing bins.  I skimmed over the Flylady website, but remembered the 3, 4, 5...how many times IS it that I've tried her plan and failed?  I lost count.  There was also the fact that the only think that made me TRULY sick at that point was the smell of dish soap (not making this up people).  If you know Flylady, the first thing you are supposed to do was clean your sink...and that would make me sick.  So, no.

I realized then and there that I had come up with my OWN PLAN.  Yep, the girl who can't keep her house clean, I needed to come up with a cleaning plan.  Ba ha ha ha...

The problem was, I wasn't delusional at that point. I realized that our family was one disaster away from being on the next episode of Hoarders, or some other embarrassing TV show.  All the thinking made me realize that I really did HAVE to come up with a plan, all joking aside.  

And I did.  

Over the next few days (maybe weeks or months, I haven't decided yet), I will go over what I did to start recovering my house while I recovered from being sick.  Neither recovery was quick, but I have to say that both were successful (though the house is an on going project).  

God Bless,
Lisa

Homeschooling While I Am Sick

The last month has been trying to say the very least.  There are days where I haven't gotten out of bed, 2 days I spent the night in the ER and many days where sitting on the couch was a major accomplishment.

To say that homeschooling has been a challenge is an understatement!!  For the first couple weeks our workboxes actually helped out a lot.  They were already loaded up with things to learn and all Mustang and Charger had to do was pick work and do it.

But, the workboxes are running a bit thin and I've not been able to refill them.  Sooo, I started looking for other options.  My main goal was to find something that Mustang could do, without my help, and actually learn something.

I asked around and was pleased to come up with Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool.  They offer a complete, Christian, curriculum that all Mustang has to do is read and follow the links.  I may need to help her with materials, so hopefully that won't be too demanding of me.

Mini Cooper is spending a lot of time on Starfall.com.  And I am still looking for something for Charger, though he seems to like Starfall, too.

We are also trying to read books when we can and we have found out we can stream Youtube videos through our Xbox and have found some very fun things to watch and keep us entertained.

I am very curious, though, if you have schooled through illness and not being able to prepare, what did you do?  I would love to get some more ideas to make this a good year in spite of my being sick.

God Bless,
Lisa