Blessing the House

Today is the day for the "Home Blessing Hour." It always takes me longer than an hour because I hit all three levels, and I probably go a little deeper with my cleaning than FlyLady recommends. I just like my house to have that clean smell, so I take my time with it. It's usually okay, but I'm trying to start doing the weekly grocery shopping on Monday too, so I'm going to have to find a way to speed it up.

My work schedule is gradually getting more regular. My husband is the general manager of a hotel here in town, and I do his bookkeeping, some office stuff, and eventually I'll start helping him with sales calls. So many people say they couldn't work with their spouse, but so far we're doing a pretty good job of it. We try hard to keep it professional at work, but we do manage to flirt! ;)

Right now I don't work Mondays because that is his day to get into the office and set things up for the week and catch up on things that happened over the weekend. We share his office (his desk and his computer), so there's not room for both of us in there on Mondays. I work all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Since I have my knitting ministry on Thursday mornings, I don't work that morning but sometimes go in in the afternoon. On the days I don't go in, I sometimes work from home. It's a good schedule. He takes Kyle to school in the morning and I get off work in the afternoon in time to pick him up. It works great.

Anyway, I'm just taking a break right now from my "home blessing" to type up a schedule for the boys. Flylady has a control journal for kids that we're going to try out. Instead of having them clean their entire room in one shot, she breaks it up into zones and they clean one zone each day. With their busy schedules I think that will work fine, because it just requires them to do a few minutes each day.

The younger son (age 12) follows a list very well. I stuck a note on the bathroom door the other morning reminding them to please make their beds and swish/swipe the bathroom before school. The younger son did his with no problems. The older one didn't even register the note. Aaarrrrggghhhh. But he did do it when he got home (after being reminded). They're both great kids, so I can't complain much about that. They never argue or backtalk, and they always do what we ask -- just not always at the time we ask it!

Okay, that's it for now. I'm going to get this list finished and get back to cleaning. The lower level family room is all done. I just have to do the middle level (kitchen, dining room, living room, family room, hallway, foyer and stairs) and our bedroom and bathroom. The boys are responsible for their bedrooms and bathroom. We'll see how it goes! :)