Cleaning Schedule

I've found a few cleaning schedules online and they were great, but I wanted to make my own, tailored to our house and our needs. Because we do have a baby, and 2 big dogs, our needs are a little different from some others. 

This schedule isn't anything fancy, but I'd be glad to share it with you if you like it.

I am SO not one of those people who does laundry or runs the dishwasher every day. I just couldn't imagine using that much water/energy every day. Those are both kind of "as needed" categories for us. Some days we use a lot of dishes and go through a lot of clothes, towels, etc. Others, we use a lot of plastic utensils, paper plates, and just don't use up that much laundry. I like to keep laundry days to 3/week, and try to just run the dishwasher 2 days/week. Our kitchen gets the most use so it gets nasty. I try to wipe it down daily, and pick up messes as they happen and clean over them right quick. That keeps things from building up. I'm a "clean as you cook" kind of person, and also try to be a clean/pick up as the day progresses kind of person. I hate letting things pile up or get real dirty, 'cause that makes means more work later. No thanks!

I've designated one big area(or maybe more) of the house to be done each day, so most big things are done weekly. Thursday is "swing day", and those things are tackled the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Thursday of each month. You'll notice that vacuuming & mopping is on there a few times. When you have a little boy, a big boy, and 2 big dogs, you have to vacuum and mop the floors a little more often. Things get dusty, hairy, and sticky around here! I reserved Fridays for bathrooms and mopping so the house will be good to go if we have guests over, which will probably be a good bit once football season starts in 9 days!! RTR!! I left Saturdays free so we can just sit back, relax, watch football, go out and play, etc, without having to worry about doing housework. Who wants to do that on a Saturday??? Sundays do have to involve some cleaning, mostly to insure we start fresh for a new week on Monday. The monthly items are obvious. There are probably a few more you can think of for your family, and some of mine may not apply to you. I have organizing and/or decluttering certain areas of the house on the schedule b/c we all know how those places can get out of control from time to time. By staying on top of them, that won't happen!

Again, if you like this schedule and want to use it, then feel free to swipe it. It might not look very good once it's printed, since it's a pic, so I'll be happy to email you the PDF file.(I made it in Pages and I don't have any file sharing software to share it online.) Just contact me and let me know! If anything, maybe this will help you as you make your own cleaning schedule. Sometimes it helps to jog the memory as you think of things to go on yours.

I hope you're all having a great week! I am so ready for the weekend with my boys!! :-)

Why We Need a Playroom, Exhibit A.....

Playroom Inspiration

I've got big plans to turn our guest room into a much needed playroom for Hudson. It would be a much better use of space for us, and I desperately need my living room back in order. It's a disaster zone. Everything's put back in its place every night, but during the days, it looks like Toys R Us threw up in there. It's workin' my nerves, y'all. Big time.

We seldom ever have overnight guests, so it would benefit us big time to make it a dedicated playroom/activity room. Here are some of the ideas I've gathered from Pinterest so far.....

I really like the idea of an alphabet wall somewhere in the room.

This is genius! A good DIY project, too, that wouldn't cost a lot of money. Hudson has a LOT of books(I am a former teacher ya know), though, so I don't know if this would work. It might be worth it to just buy some inexpensive bookshelves and maybe make them a little more special with paint or something. I may even be able to repurpose something we already have. That's the preferred option, so hopefully we have or can find something we can use. 

I am crazy about chalkboard paint now, so it has to go somewhere.(table, wall, something!) This little table is precious, too...with or without the chalkboard top. He's gotta have a little table.

I really like this. This lady took 2 shelves from Ikea, turned them on their sides, and made a very easy and expensive seat to go on top. I love the storage in this too!!!! I'm not sure we'll need all this seating, though, so I'm thinking I could repurpose one of the old dressers in the guest room (it's just going to be donated anyway, b/c it's very old and not in the best condition), take the drawers out and use storage bins instead. I also want to mount a little TV in there and could do that above the dresser.

Because I would like for guests to have somewhere to sleep if they do stay over, I'd like to get a cheap little sofa bed, or even an Aerobed to just blow up when we need it. I like the idea of having a couch to sit on anyway, then it can perform double duty as a bed if needed. 

These are just a few of the ideas I have, but there are many many more floating around in my head!!(ya know, along with all the voices and other things.....I kid!) I think Hudson would benefit from a dedicated space for playing, learning, watching his shows, etc. Since I stay home with him and he's getting older, I do want to start incorporating more structured learning time with him. I mean, I do have a degree in elementary education so I'm pretty qualified to teach him a thing or two. I feel like he's definitely ready to start focusing and slowing down to be taught. His attention span is getting better. If I'm home with him already, I feel like the least I can do is to prepare him for the day he does start preschool and big school. 

I'm hoping we can get this started in a couple weeks. It just depends on how long it takes us to get the furniture out and the room cleaned out. Once that's done, we can start doing a little at a time to get the transformation done. I'm so excited about it!! I know Hudson will love having his own space to do his thing. I'm sure he'll still love bringing things in to trash our living room with, but at least it'll all have a real home!! ;-)

I'll keep y'all posted!

DIY: Mirror Turned Chalkboard

Apparently, I've been bitten by the DIY bug. I blame Pinterest, really. 

Saturday, I just woke up with this urge to find something I could repurpose as a chalkboard for our kitchen. There's this big wall in our kitchen that had an iron piece on it, but I was never wild about it there. It just fit, there was a nail already there, so up it went. I've been wanting to do something else with it for a while, though. The dog bowls sit along it, and there's a little plant table with some faux branches in the corner. That's it. It needs something else. I decided a chalkboard would be a good place to start. I have TONS of decor laying around in closets and boxes(some I need to pack up and donate, and others I need to hang up, still). Some of that decor includes several mirrors that I just don't have places to put, or it's not my style anymore and I'm wanting to donate or give to someone else who might want it. I found a couple of old mirrors that I haven't used in a few years and decided one of them would do. And y'all, I started this process so fast that I completely forgot to take any before pictures, so you'll just have to use your imagination to figure out what it did look like. I tried to find a picture with the mirror in it, but nope.

Here it was after painting the frame.

Very ornate. It was a pewter color, but I decided to just use some leftover paint from the bedroom project to update it.(Valspar Woodlawn Colonial Gray) I would love for it to be turquoise or yellow, but I was determined to keep costs next to nothing, and since this is neutral it can go anywhere I want to put it in the future. I had to paint 2 coats onto the mirror, and it went on perfectly. 

Next was the tricky part. I have never used chalkboard paint and was a little terrified about the idea of ruining this perfectly beautiful mirror. But, it couldn't be any worse than having it sitting in the closet for a few more years, not being used, right? 

I debated on what kind of paint to use.....spray or brush-on. Honestly, I really had no idea which was better, if one was even better than the other, and how to best go about doing it. I did read some tutorials online and found that some people were partial to the spray paint, while others preferred regular. Well, this was no help! I finally headed to Walmart(ugh, the de-vil) and decided to go with just the old regular liquid chalkboard paint. I got two 4oz tubes of paint and a pack of cheap sponge brushes and that was that. Don't forget the painters tape, too!!

I got to work. I didn't prime it at all. You could if you wanted.

Don't worry, it turned out better than it looks like it did from this pic. :-) 

Waiting for it to dry was the worst! I did end up doing 3 full coats. I started out with 2, then tried it out and it chipped off in a couple places. Yeah, that was annoying! It was a little rough from the dried brush strokes. SO, I did a final coat in the OPPOSITE direction of the other two and it came out MUCH better and MUCH smoother. 

Once you've waited about 12 hours after the final coat, you need to "season" the board. Kind of like you do a cast-iron skillet. Just don't accidentally season your skillet with chalk, mmmmk?

Cover the entire board in chalk.

Then, wipe off with a wet rag or paper towel.

When it dries, you are ready to use your board!

Since applying the third coat, I have had no problems with it at all, and it is so much smoother now. The last coat made all the difference. Remember that if you do one of your own.

My paint job is not perfect, so if you're ever over, please don't look too closely. K, thanks!

There's still space on either side of the board, which is a nice size but you can't really tell. I have even more DIY plans in store. I want to put one or two old revamped shutters up, to put mail, cards, keys, pictures, etc. in, maybe a few pictures, and I also have a little sign I want to make to hang over the dog bowls on the wall. I have a couple more mirrors I might turn into chalkboards too. I plan on turning our guest room (that is never used) into a playroom so they could go in there. It just makes more sense for us right now. And I want my living room back! HA! We rarely, emphasis on the rarely, have overnight guests but we can set up an Aerobed for those occasions. Once we get the furniture out of there, which I also might repurpose a piece or two of to use for storage(think, painted in turquoise or green!), I am going to start pulling that together. I have several projects I want to do for the playroom and around the house in other places. I'm trying to pace myself and not start a new thing until I'm finished with one.
 I'm trying my best to keep costs low on everything, just like I did the mirror. It's all about repurposing! Since I already had paint from the bedroom and painters tape, the only expense I incurred for the mirror was the chalkboard paint, about $8, and a cheap set of brushes, about $2. So, $10 for a glorious chalkboard for my kitchen!!! Not too shabby!!!

I hope you have great success with your next chalkboard project. :-)

Crock-Pot Chicken Tacos

Ok, I didn't really have high expectations for this recipe. I thought, chicken tacos.....chicken, taco seasoning, and salsa....how good can it be?? Whoa...so good!! And seriously THE easiest dish I've ever made! And I didn't think anything could get easier than spaghetti! HA! 

This is one of those dishes you can throw together with staples you have in your pantry/fridge, on just a few hours' notice of dinner guests arriving, or on a day when you don't feel like putting together an elaborate meal but want to serve something your family will love. This would be great for game-day too! Now, like I've said before, my husband is far from picky (except those pesky onions, ya know!) and when he went to the Crock-Pot yesterday afternoon to taste how it was coming together, he quickly said "Is it time to eat?" I take it he liked what he tasted...not to mention he had 3 chicken soft tacos for dinner. At least they're pretty healthy. ;-)

One of my favorite Mexican dishes (but I avoid it because it's calorie city) is chicken nachos. This would be perfect on tortilla chips with some cheese dip on top! Oh my! You could even go as far as to add onions and green peppers to the crock-pot. Yum! 

Without further ado, here is the ridiculously easy recipe.

Crock-Pot Chicken Tacos

Ingredients:

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 packet taco seasoning

1 16oz jar salsa (whatever kind you like, I used Newman's Own)

Directions:

Throw chicken in crock-pot.

Sprinkle with taco seasoning, then pour salsa. Stir just a little bit to get the seasoning and salsa incorporated a little.

Cook on low 4-6 hours. 

Shred chicken and serve on tortillas with your favorite toppings.

I like to keep my chicken tacos simple and just added a dollop of sour cream, but you can add more salsa, guacamole, lettuce, tomato, cheese, etc. Or serve on nachos! YUM! A great dish to freeze for later too!

I hope you enjoy these tacos. We sure did, and I think I'll have one for lunch! :-)