Maintaining Your House When There is an Upheaval

 Hello Dear Ones,

When I awoke today it was to a terrible mess, as we are in such an upheaval with reassigning and rearranging, and getting to the core of our things, cleaning, etc.  It is like going back to bare bones, like when we first began housekeeping.  Mr. S. needed shelving in his office and I happily gave him the storage units in the utility-laundry room. But that means there are things all over the floor in there right now, spilling out into other rooms.

 So, today, I decided to talk a little bit about how to keep a sane world around me when my house, my own world, is not sane at all. It always helps to have some pictures in mind of what I want the finished product to look like!  Lately I have been looking at mantel arrangements on Pinterest, which is my current interest in housekeeping.

Breaking down the job into smaller tasks, down to the last pick-up task, is so helpful.

"Clean living room" becomes:

-tidy up couch and chairs (remove cushions, clean
inside of couch, replace and arrange cushions and quilt
-put away books, papers, toys, other things.
-mantel
-de-clutter tables, piano, all surfaces
-sweep
-take rugs outside (shake, sweep)
-clean windowsills
-wipe tables
-take a picture and send to granddaughter

It always helps to have a homemaking coach in the form of a friend who will coach you on the phone just to get you going, with questions like, "Are you dressed?" Have you had your morning tea and made a list?  Is your entry or front room, (the one first visible to you when you enter the house), presentable?

There are so many housekeeping books and sites around, your friend could read a chapter from on of these books, to help you get going.

Another thing that gives me hope is to have a few pictures to look at; something to look forward to in the final accomplishment of house keeping.  Back in the day before Internet, we had catalogs, and of course, they were designed to get you to order things, but there was something quite nice about looking at a picture of a living room or bedroom all neatly arranged.  It gave us a standard of how things could look.

 Today I've collected a few pictures from Pinterest just for ideas. I will not try to imitate it perfectly, but just use what I have to get the atmosphere of it.

I have other techniques for getting out from under a big upheaval (moving, coming home from a trip, recovering from illness, family emergencies, weddings, memorial services---which all cause a disruption of housekeeping) but it would be easier to talk about it on a video ....someday.

And, as my house is a total wreck today, I have to use these pictures from Pinterest.

 I do have some semi-clean areas today, and although these spots need some work, I will share:

..and the upper half of the bathroom is clean!!!!! (Probably because it is impossible to mess it up!)

 I included this painting today as housework motivation for leisure time. When the house is in order,  it creates some free time for this!

Painting by Alexander Averin