The House That Cleans Itself...And the gift goes on

I went over to a friend's house on Saturday to work with her on her "House that cleans itself". If you are like...huh??....I have written about the process in previous blogs. Short story...it's a cleaning book that rocks. I went over at 11am to work for a couple of hours. She was about 90% through the process and just needed help finishing. I am smiling when I type this because we spent 8 hours kicking her house's butt. We almost forgot to eat two meals. The best part was her 4 youngest kids and my two got along GREAT which made the whole process smoother since there is no way we both could have got sitters. It made me realize that I am not fully done with my process yet and also that brainstorming cleaning ideas is the best when you are cleaning impaired....which I AM! :) I want to go back through and re-read the book to make sure there is nothing else that I missed or that I want to tweak more. My house has come so far from where I used to be. Her's is shortly behind mine and I can't wait to get it there for her. I think we have another Saturday in our future once she recovers from my Drill Sargeant ways...
On a quick note I would like to share 10 housekeeping tips that I have learned.

1) Everything needs a home and need to be in it's home or else it just gets moved from room to room
2) If the object doesn't stay in the proper place tie it down. For example, if the hairbrush runs away from the bathroom all the time. Tie a string to the pipes under the sink and the other end to the brush. Viola!! You know where the hairbrush is. Her hubby really liked this one. :)
3) Wet wipes are good for everything. Get a pack of one for every room and you will see the difference.
4) A working mom will probably never get the whole day to clean so clean when you can and you will get more done.
5) You are never too old to make your own chore chart! :)
6) Nail polish probably does not need to be in the bread cabinet...just sayin'....
7) More furniture, another tote or another basket will NEVER make you more organized unless you are buying them for a specific purpose.
8) NEVER buy furniture unless you know that is has a specific place or purpose
9) Documenting everything with photos lets you know how far you have come...take pictures and lots of them
10) EVERYTHING is more fun with a friend. Find a friend to help you with the process if you can. Trust me...you will hear their voice in your head when you want to buy that really cute basket that you have no place for :) :)

Mommy and Daddy were 'cleaning their room'

So I am at a barbecue at my Aunt Vickie's house for the 4th of July. Aunt Theresa comes in cracking up laughing (almost peeing her pants) and tells me that Elisha just told them a very interesting story. Elisha is storyteller so I sit down knowing that this will be good.
Elisha announced to a group of people that "Mommy and daddy were cleaning their room today. It took a really long time and we had to leave them alone. They shut the door so we would leave them alone and we had to watch a movie so that they could get it done." If you have already realized why my family was laughing feel free to chuckle if not keep reading - it gets better. Lindsay asks Elisha, "How often to Mommy and Daddy 'clean their room'. Elisha says, "Not often" My family is known for running with innuendos and had a lovely time with this story. Several comments were exchanged. I did have to disappoint my family and let them know that the story was a testimony to my housekeeping and not my love life.
The positive part to this is the following. My bedroom is clean! My main level of my house is converted and my family got to giggle.
For the first time in my married life I can say the following
I do NOT have a laundry basket filled with stuff to do later
I do NOT have any box, tote, shoebox or any horizontal surface with a project sitting on it.
You could come over my home and look anywhere and I would not be embarrassed. Ok, maybe my underwear drawer but whatEV. :)
The support group is going great. I can't wait to see other people finish this process :) LOVE IT!!!
For now as Landon would say, "Peace out and BOOYAH!"

My biggest change when you walk in my house....

The below picture is the first thing you would see when you walked into our house. One of the basics behind the book is to look at the first thing people will see when they walk into your house. When I looked at these pictures it was a revelation.

I realized the objects that I don't see while sitting down on the couch are actually the first things you see when you walk in my front door. Applying the principles from the book, look at the after picture.

Ok, so where did it all go. I have a that is next to the front door and I put all of the video games in totes. I have a tote for each gaming system. The controllers get dumped in there when we are done. The video games are behind the controller totes.

The House The Cleans Itself - The Beginning of the Beginning

I was at Family Christian Stores one day and I saw a book on the 5 dollar table called "The House That Cleans Itself". I am house-cleaning challenged or impaired or whatever. I am horrible at it. Chris and I have talked it over with counselors and I have NEVER found a solution. Over the years, I have bought several books that would fix the problem and NONE of them made sense and were way too complicated. I have looked at this book several times and thought it sounded like a nice idea. For 5 bucks, I made the huge investment and bought another book to dust. I brought it home to much teasing from my husband.
I read it and started to get to work. It was liberating and exciting. In a meager blog I won't be able to walk you through how to do the process but I am going to lay my heart on the line and show you some before and after pics as well as how I got there. Before I post any pics I want you to realize that I had already been REALLY working on getting my house together for a year so it was not as bad as it was. I already had some really good processes in place and the book was the icing on the cake. I have taken on a second job and sometimes I work 7 days a week and travel and this system is keeping my house together in the midst of all of it. It is a work in progress and I am still learning to change some bad habits but I have come a long way, BABY! :)
I have a few friends who are starting this book. Facebook me and let me know if you have any questions or are stumped on any areas in your house and you go along. If you are interested, I think the book is 9 bucks on Amazon. I would say it is well worth the investment.
Also, digital photography has been the key for me. When I got started I took about 100 pictures of my house and printed them all. I lay them all out on my dining room table while I looked at and prayed over the mess I had created. Any time I get discouraged I pull them out and look at how far I have come.