My Thanksgiving Daily To Do List – Monday

This is going to be a busy week for most of us. I thought it might be helpful to some if I shared the daily tasks I have on my lists over the next few days.

Monday – To Do

Normal daily chores – Sort the dirty cloths and start one load of laundry, check the daily mail, wash the dishes, and clear the counters and table.

Reset the entire house. I have a very, very active almost five year old boy. He keeps the house looking like a tornado went through. Sometimes he remembers to put something away before he gets the next toy out.  Often he does not. As quickly as he changes gears, I have decided that ‘sometimes’ is good enough for now. I ask him to help me pick up just before we prepare meals. Usually he gets distracted and starts playing after a few minutes. I do not want to spend my whole day nagging at him and fussing with him. I have faith that since he consistently attempts an effort now, he will get it in time.

And after a weekend with everyone at home relaxing or knee deep in some project, the rest of us leave a couple of messes, too. Today as on most Mondays I reset the entire house putting everything back in its place.

I grab a laundry basket and two small grocery bags and walk through the house. Trash in one bag, recyclables in the other, and everything else out of place goes in the basket to be dropped off. Usually the weekly reset takes 20 to 30 minutes. When I was working full time outside the home, This weekly reset replaced the nightly pickup on Monday night.

My Ordinary Cleaning Routine. Today I will take the cleaning routine and do all of it in one day in my home. I work all of the ‘downs’, eat lunch, move the laundry to the dryer, then take a turn focusing on each of the ‘across’ spaces.

The cleaning routine can all be done in one day if you have several hours available. It is actually how I figured out my routine in the first place. For several years I have spent Sunday afternoons working the routine at my Mom’s house because she is unable to do it herself. Until this past Spring, she was living in a 2800 square foot home. Because of her rapidly worsening medical conditions, her muscles have gotten more weak. Her ability to make spills rapidly increased while her ability to clean them up decreased. Every week that house became a bigger mess. (When a persons physical health declines that way, there is often a period of time when the person clings ever tighter to their independence and refuses to accept help. The best I could get her to let me do was to come in weekly to thoroughly clean the house.) When I started it took about eight hours to do and there was always a lot left undone.  I really spent time studying my methodology and kept shaving a few minutes here and there. I finally cut the time in half even as I added more chores.

You can do this. Enlist help if it is available to speed things up.

Fold the laundry and put it away.

Make calls. Every year people always volunteer to bring things and help out.  Today is the day I get on the phone and make sure they still intend to follow through.  If they have forgotten I let them know I was headed to the grocery anyway and let them off the hook. Adjust grocery list as needed.

Grocery shopping. I will do the last Thanksgiving grocery list which includes all of the non freezable perishables. The rest of the cart will be loaded down with drinks. The sodas and water bottles will go into the garage where they will get cold without taking up room in my refrigerator or other space in the house. Do not forget the eggnog and cocoa  to make mix!

Make sausage balls. I make enough to use for Thanksgiving and for Christmas and put them all in the freezer.

Make gingersnap cookies. I will do MANY batches. The recipe I have will last for weeks in an airtight container. I have an empty bulk animal cracker container to use for storage. Not only can we snack on them and set them out, but they are great last minute gifts when people drop in and for coworkers. Just fill up a Chinese take out style gift box and add festive ribbon.  Sometimes I will make up dough, cut out the small nuggets and freeze them on a tray until they are hard enough to transfer to freezer bags.  It depends on how many we have to do and on how much little finger help slows the process down.  They thaw out fairly quickly because I make them small and only take 6 minutes to bake.

Bed time pick up. In spite of all of the cleaning done today there will be things out of place tonight. The nightly clean up will keep everything in decent shape throughout the week and lets us wake up to a neat home each morning. I have rarely spent more than 5 to 10 minutes even though I walk the entire house.

photo credit: Jennifer13