I love a sparkling clean home, and I have four children. Which means I'm a glutton for punishment, but more often means that I'm not ever satisfied with the way my house looks and feels.

Oh well, right?


I have, however, become much better at keeping my house mostly clean, because I will never have a *sparkling* clean home until I'm a millionaire and can hire a full-time nanny and private tutor (so I can CLEAN ALL THE THINGS ALL THE DAYS). Anyway, having a house on the market for three months that I had to keep show-ready
helped me develop some cleaning habits that keep me sane.

1. Laundry

I only do laundry once a week. I bring all of the dirty clothes in the laundry room, sort them, wash them and then I fold the clothes as I'm taking them out of the dryer. If I don't have time to fold them right then, I don't take them out until I find the time.

Fold clothes right out of the dryer. Life changing.

(p.s. it doesn't take much to change millennial's lives these days, does it?)

I also make my kids do their own laundry, so that helps too.


2. Living Spaces

The only way I've found I can keep my house consistently clean is to spend an hour every night after the kids go to bed working almost to the point of sweating. Here's what I do during that hour:

- turn on a podcast or audiobook
- wipe down all tables, counters, front of appliances
- put all dishes in dishwasher, start dishwasher
- wash and dry pans
- do a quick pick up of the living spaces
- sweep and spot mop**
- look for anything approaching moldiness in the fridge and toss it
- 3 minute quick dust
- shine sink

I find I can miss doing this about twice a week without dire consequences - I can just pick up where I left off and scrub a little harder the next night. But if I miss more than twice a week, my life turns to chaos and I'm almost a candidate for a TLC*** horror episode. "Help, Our Mom Is Buried In Trash And We Can't Find Her". Or "Mice Invasions: It's Your Lazy Mom's Fault".


3. Daily Chores

Sometime during the day I try and finish my daily chore. If I miss it, I'll try and catch up the next day or sucker my children into doing it, which really means suckering myself into doing it the right way (right moms?).

Here's how I break down my chores****. I keep it handy on the fridge so I don't forget.




Besides making my bed and reminding the kids to pick up after themselves, I don't do a whole lot during the day. I like not worrying about the house when the kids are all in project and school mode.

So - that's all I've got in my 12 years of wifehood. If you're reading, please enlighten me with some of your quick and dirty tips.

**I've talked about this a lot, but we are in love with this sweeper. I use it on my carpet, hardwood, everything. It's so great for day-to-day quick pick up and my kids can easily handle it. I only use a broom and a mop on my floor day. Oh, and it's usually cheaper at Wal-Mart than on Amazon.

*** Is TLC even still around?

****I'm embarrassed to post this chore list because you're now a witness at my beginner attempts at hand-lettering. I've been trying to practice, but I'm not getting much better.

I'm pining for all things southern now that we've up and moved to the west* and I'm now dealing with dry winter weather and missing the green of my southern life (but I love Utah just as much, btw). I wrote this post a few months before leaving but never published, so here goes....

Most things don't keep my attention for more than a minute, so when I say I was obsessed with trying to make the perfect biscuits this fall, what I really mean is that I obsessed over it for a week or two.

So, for a week or two I tried four or five different recipes and techniques and this recipe, this technique is the best. Nothing tastes as good as eating two warm southern biscuits drizzled in some fresh muscadine jelly. I admonish you to prove me wrong. (Except homemade ice cream on a humid summer's eve, mexican hot cocoa during a snowstorm, a peanut butter and jam sandwich made by my grammy dipped in whole milk, homemade donuts on Halloween, I'd better quit now or I could go on forever).

This recipe is adapted from Southern Living, and it makes up in less than 20 minutes!

Start with 2.5 cups of self-rising flour.