she teaches the essentials, like: shine your sink , get dressed up to you shoes drink your water, do your exercise, what's for dinner,you have too many things- through / give etc.
lately i learned from her that keeping a house takes three different kind of actions: daily, weekly and monthly.
i made lists for each, and i try to keep them as much as i can, and the level of stress around the subject drop down for me.
==================
here is a favorite post from her facebook feed:
Saturday is family fun day. If you have been putting of weekly home blessing hour then get your lovely family involved. After you bless your home go out and do something fun! Go to the pumpkin patch, go for a hike in the woods or play some board games if the weather is bad.
In order to get their full participation, it has to be fun and there needs to be a reward afterwards.
Let's look at our Weekly Home Blessing Hour.
We have 7 items on our list to do:
1. Empty Trash(all over the house)
2. Dust
3. Vacuum
4. Mop
5. Cull old magazines
6. Change Sheets
7. Polish mirrors and door.
Now how can we get the family involved? By making a game out of it.
Save the jobs that are the hardest for you. If you are going to be picky about the way they do it, then don't play this game; it won't be fun for you or them.
KEEP THIS RULE IN MIND!
HOUSEWORK DONE INCORRECTLY, STILL BLESSES YOUR FAMILY!
Have fun!
Decide on a good reward for getting the home blessing done without complaints, fussing or fighting. Go to the park. Take in a matin?or rent a movie and pop popcorn. You know what your children love to do.
Take the list of items and write them on slips of paper. Fold the papers and place them in a bowl or bag to have your child/children draw from. Do not hold the children to your standards; this is supposed to be fun, not perfect. Do you understand this?
Set a timer for 10 minutes and go to have some fun. After the buzzer goes off; draw another assignment. Afterwards go have fun.
You can hold your older children to a little higher standards, but not perfection. I don't even hold you to that tough goal.
Baby Steps, the more they do this, the better they will get at it. Another way is to get the
children to work along side of you. For instance if you are dusting, give them the feather duster and
teach them how to use it without knocking things over. You take a dust cloth. Together you can dust the furniture top to bottom. Remember children are short and can get the lower spots easily.
Have them help you vacuum. Put a basket in the middle of the room and have them put everything in it before you run the vacuum cleaner. You could even aim for the basket, if you allow tossing in the house. LOL Then let them push the vacuum around the room. Remember just the middles, we are not doing under the couches just yet.
Now for mopping, you sweep the kitchen floor while the children get on their bathing suits. LOL This is from one of our members. Put some wet towels on the floor with a little more water, and let them scoot around on the floor on the their frannies. Have a spray bottle filled with plain water to add to the excitement. You could also put a tiny bit of baby shampoo on the floor for soap. Remember it doesn't have to be perfect, just fun. You get the floor clean and they get to be silly. They will love it. You can let them play as long as they are having fun. Then toss the dirty towel and swim suits in the washer. Oh you can do the bathroom this way too, then put the children in the tub and let them play, but they have to be cleaning in there too.
It isn't the type of cleaner that gets things clean, it is the act of doing the cleaning that accomplishes the task. We don't have a magic potion. A little shampoo on a wash cloth will remove a bathtub ring.
As of culling magazines; you can turn this into a learning event. Have them look for magazine with last month's date on them. Changing Sheets is not that hard, one of my fondest memories is when my father taught me to make hospital corners. Every time I put clean sheets on our bed I think about him. You can set a timer for this too and race to see who get them in the laundry room first. Each bed needs two sets of sheets, so you don't have to wait to put the fresh sheets on the bed.
Polishing mirrors and door doesn't have to be perfect either. Just a little spray of your favorite cleaner on a paper towel or clothe andlet them get the worst of it off. You will be surprised at how good
the doors will look without dog nose prints and hand prints on them.
As for gathering up all the trash in the house; teach them that emptying the trash means putting a new bag in the trashcan. Keep extra bags in the bottom of each can then they don't have to go searching for them. Blow your whistle have them run to their rooms and gather up trash.
You can also put on their favorite music. You can stand anything for an hour! It is Weekly Home Blessing Hour! Let them know this is the way you get in the mood to clean; you have to set the stage for fun. This goes for you too. Create a fun time for blessing your home with the children helping. You can do this. Ask the children for suggestions and have fun.
Home Blessing with FLYing Children Power,
FlyLady
We have some fun music for you to play! Our Up Kind of Day CD gets your family moving to a lots of types of music with a good message about routines.
http://www.flylady.net/pag
