What's It Look Like Now? Craft Area

This week I chose the craft area. For me it is a table in our guest room. I know it is going to be a different space for everyone. I actually took my before picture, then immediately cleaned it. So, I have a before and an after already. Maybe it can motivate everyone else :-)
BEFORE: You can tell I was really getting a lot of craftin done in my craft area.
AFTER: Yeah! I can actually use my craft table! Yeah.
No one will really appreciate this, since I didn't take a before picture, but I also cleaned out our toy/cereal closet. This is our cereal food storage stash, organized by expiration date. All of the toys were bought at 75% - 90% off and we save them for Christmas and birthdays. The cardboard boxes on the right are all number 10 cans of food storage.

Brenda's Week

So this last week I got SO close to a perfect score. It came down to Friday night when we watched a movie after dinner and went right to bed afterwards without cleaning up dinner or vacuuming. It was SO nice to have the house clean most of the time and it makes me look forward to cleaning it again this week. Here is my score from last week:

Daily:

Scriptures- 10

Sweep- 10

Make Bed- 10

Dishes- 4

Vacuum- 4

5 Minute- 10

Weekly- 20

What it looks like- 20

Laundry- 5

Bathrooms- 5

Mop- 5

Goals- 5

Total: 108

For next week my weekly challenge will be to clean out my van. My 5 minute challenges will be the upstairs bathroom drawers (I only finished my bathroom drawers last week) and I like to keep my daily cleans the old school ones because they work well for me.

This week- Charlotte

Hmm.  I think I'm going big this week. Even if Peter is out of town again.  My weekly challenge will be the big 3 nasty rooms in my upstairs: craft room, playroom, and bedroom.  I had company over last week and had to warn them to please not go upstairs.  PLEASE.  Time to fix that.

5 minutes goals will be the 2 I missed last week (washing machine/dryer & fireplace) and hallway, towels, rest of cupboard.

My daily goals will the the standard: bed, dishes, sweep, vacuum, & scriptures.

Happy cleaning!

I did not do well last week.  I did most of the daily cleans, but that is about it.  I did get one before/after of a "five minute" clean that was really a 45 minute clean.  I totally meant to take a picture of the bathroom sink, too.  Peter out of town + Joseph's birthday + preschool at my house + busiest Saturday is a long time = my trash kicked:

Dishes: 10
Sweep: 10
Vacuum: 10
Bed: 10
Scriptures: 2
5 minutes: 3
Goals for week: 5
Bathrooms: 5
Mop: 5
Laundry: 0
Weekly Challenge: 0
What it looks like now: 0

Total: 60/120

I'll just look at these a while longer:

Weekly Challenge WAIT

I decided the I would clean out the garage. It really needed done and so today was a hot sweaty dusty dirty day. It is now done. Yeah!!!!!!!!

Pantry again

I feel I have to keep cleaning the pantries over and over again. This is my weekly challenge and I have spent all day today doing it. Here are my before and after pictures.

Already Done!!

I have been a busy bee today and have already done under my bathroom sink and 3 bathroom drawers.....good luck keeping up with me.

Kim's Weekly Challenge

So, I didn't embarrass myself enough because not only did I not clean my challenge room, it looks A LOT worse. Thus, it is my new challenge again this week.

Five Minutes are:
Mop Stairs
Mop Bathroom #1
Mop Bathroom #2
Mop Bathroom #3
Mop Downstairs Landing/Hall

My 2 additional daily are *making bed *pick up family room

Brenda's Week

I did ok last week, especially considering the fact that I had 5 sick kids and got sick myself. Here is how I broke it down.

What it looks like: 20

Weekly Challenge: 0 (I never did pick anything)

Five Minute: 1 Vacuum under couches

Daily Cleans: Dishes 10 (missed once, made it up on Sat.)

Sweep: 4

Vacuum: 3

Make Bed 3

Read Scriptures: 10

Goals: 5

Laundry: 5

Mop: 0

Bathrooms: 5

Tips: 5

Total: 71

For this week here are my goals:

Weekly Challenge: Deep clean master bathroom

5 Minute Challenges: Bathroom drawers (I am counting each drawer as 5 minutes and I have 12 bathroom drawers total in my house so that is a lot of bonus points if I get them all done.....they will each take more than 5 minutes by the way)

I am on a bathroom kick this week (having 3 so called "potty trained" boys will do that to you)

What does under your bathroom sinks look like?

I have three bathroom sinks and I hope to get to all of them, but one will do. I have high hopes for getting my extra bathroom supplies organized under here. Good luck, hope yours looks better than mine!

Challenges this Week- Charlotte

So this week my weekly challenge will be my bedroom.  It needs cleaned desperately!

My five minute cleans will be:

1. Top of cupboards
2. Pantry
3. Computer Desk
4. Top of washing machine/dryer
5. Around fireplace

Happy cleaning everyone!

Bookshelves- Charlotte

So I did really well last week. I went through my books and cleaned off the shelves. Regathering the sets of books together. Now I just need to figure out where the kids have scattered the misssing books from the sets!

I did really well with the rest of the week, too. I made my bed and read scriptures with the kids every day (we are now half way through the B of M chapter wise!). I vacuumed every day but one (which I made up for on Saturday). I did dishes and swept 3 days. This is the best I've done in a LONG time. I made my goals, but didn't get two done (what can I say, the other cleaning exhausted me!). I mopped, did bathrooms, did laundry and finished my 5 minute cleans (those cupboards were NASTY!). I believe that gives me a total of ...

10x3 + 3x2 = 36 (daily)
3 (goals)
3x5 = 15 (weekly)
10 (5 minutes)
20 (weekly)
10+10=20 (what it looks like now)

Total- 104/116

Brenda's Tip

Here is another product that I really like and I think it will come in handy for quite a few of us if not now, then in the near future.

Greased Lighting is the only product that I have found that effectively removes certain things from clothes. I know it does more than laundry but that is mostly what I use it for.

Baby Spit-up (breast milk does not stain but formula does, and this takes it out)

Baby Poop (one of the hardest things to get clean off clothes)

Paint (got some red paint off my good gray sweats the other day)

Pen (when kids color on their clothes or I accidentally get a pen mark on myself.....no that never happens right?)

I used to buy the stuff at Costco but I haven't seen it there lately. From what I can tell you can still get it at Home Depot. I am nearly out so I will have to look there.

Brenda's Bookshelf

This was a tough one. The bookshelf in my bedroom becomes a catch all for things that I don't really know what to do with, along with being the spot for my jewelry box, cell phone charging station, change bowls and books. I was so glad I got it cleaned though. The before picture I took was what it looked like after I cleaned my room, and after looking at it next to the after picture I realized that I have not been cleaning my room very well. I expect my kids to do a better job in their rooms than I have been doing in mine. Guess I should take a closer look at my own bad habits.

I was just wondering if at the end of the cycle if we should update our 4 "what it looks like now" spots to see if we were able to keep them up through the whole cycle. What do you think?

Embarrass Myself into Working

It worked earlier to embarrass myself. So, here is a picture of my "Man Room" that I made my challenge this week.

Kim's Bookshelves - FINISHED!!

I was so blasted embarrassed by my last pictures that I spent naptime today cleaning my bookshelves and the rooms they are in. I'm glad to have them done! Hooray.

Kim's Bookshelves

This is embarrassing. I promise the rest of my house doesn't look this terrible. I was very tempted to clean up some before taking this picture, but I didn't. A few higlights: 2 nasty sippy cups on top, groceries from last Tuesday that have yet to be put away, the ward canner that we used last Monday to put up 40 #10 cans for food storage, and our church diaper bag.

My 5 minute challenges are: *windows *glass surfaces *fireplace mantle *mop bathroom *try new recipe
My 2 daily cleans are: *make bed *clean up clutter spot
My weekly challenge is: The Man Room (otherwise known as food storage pantry and costume room)

What does is look like now? Book shelves

Mine looks like it needs some major TLC. Ignore the fort behind the shelves. That was put away last week.

I plan on cleaning these book shelves this week. My weekly challenge will be the bathrooms. They've gotten bad enough to need their own challenge. The five minute cleans will be one cupboard each day. Daily cleans will be to vacuum and make bed (Peter is out of town so I can do it.)

Show me your bookshelves and Happy cleaning!

New scoring system

If you noticed, I changed some things up here.  I am still working on the design, but I thought we could respark some excitement by changing the scoring up a bit.

One of the things that most people felt held them back was the lack of adaptation in the choosing of challenges.  So I've tried to add adaptation into the scoring.

Instead of other people choosing the challenges, we've made it so you pick your own weekly challenge, your own 5 minute cleans, and 2 of your 5 daily cleans.  See the lovely tabs on the top of the blog for more information.  Please add any 5 minute challenges or daily cleans you can think of to the list.

The weekly challenge will now be worth 20 points, the daily, weekly, and 5 minutes are the same.  Although we've added a new way to get bonus points.  After completing your original 5 5 minute cleans, you can do up to 5 more for 1 point each.

We are also adding a new feature.  Every week, instead if posting a weekly challenge, we will take turns posting an area of the house for "What it looks like right now."  You have to post a picture of what that area looks like without any clean up (10 points) and then another picture at the end of the week with a follow up post (10 more points).

Tips are no longer going to be assigned.  Instead it can be used for 5 bonus points ONCE during the 4 week cycle.  You can post more tips whenever you think of them.

So at the beginning of the week post:

• Your goals for the week (still 3 points for posting and 2 points for completing)
• Your chosen weekly challenge
• Your 5 minute cleans
• Your daily cleans
• A picture for "What it looks like right now"

Then at the end of the week:

• Follow up for "What it looks like"
• Score for the week
• Follow up on goals for the week

Make sense?  If not call me!

Clean Fridge

This was hard for me because I really didn't want to do it. It took me a long time but I finally got it done then I saw that it was to clean the fridge and freezer. I refuse to do the freezer today so I think I can claim half the weekly points. I really did work hard and work a full time schedule at the institute this week.

The late Five minutes challenges

Sorry this is so late but working full time at the institute really is putting a hamper on what I can get done. (Dad thinks it is great)

1. Clean the kitchen sink

2. Sweep off the porch

3. Wipe marks off the entry doors

4. Clean toothpaste off the place where toothbrushes are kept

5. Sanitize door knobs

These shouldn't be too hard to get done quick. Sorry again.