Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Spring Clean!

It's time to get our Spring Clean started! My guess is most of you fall into one of two groups on this - you've been eagerly anticipating this series knowing it provides motivation to work on this together or you've been dreading this series knowing you will guilt yourself on why you're not participating.

I would never knowingly post anything that would be intended just for the purpose of creating guilt! So, if you aren't interested in participating or can't for any other reason - you can just ignore these posts over the next month and please feel no guilt! My purpose for hosting this is to motivate myself and have accountability from all of you to complete my much-needed deep cleaning. Truly, once a year is not enough - but right now I consider it better than nothing.

With all of that said, let's get started!

If you're interested in joining, here is how this will work:

* Each room you clean counts as one entry in the drawing for a fabulous prize. For example a bedroom and bathroom would be two entries.
* Rooms must be cleaned between March 4 and March 31, 2008. Sundays will not be counted as these are for rest and worship.
* Spring cleaning is defined by you - we'll operate on the honor system. We all have different ideas about what spring cleaning means, so I'll leave this pretty open.
* Leave a comment on one of the Spring Cleaning posts or send me an e-mail sharing which room you cleaned and how you cleaned it. NOTE: This is a bit tricky for me to keep track of, so please do follow this rule!
* Any comments that are left which include no e-mail address, blog link, name or way to contact you will be automatically deleted.
* Please feel free to share the above button on your blog and link others who may want to participate over here for more fun!

A few thoughts:
* I usually don't do any other chores on a spring clean day!
* Making a plan for cleaning does not make it set in stone. I know that I will need to be flexible, but it can act as a guide.
* I know I can't do *everything* I want to do for my Spring Clean this year - but I will do some!

The first step is to define the rooms we're going to clean and go ahead and schedule them on our calendar. Yes, you can always switch a day if something comes up. But, for me this has proven invaluable to completing a seemingly monumental task!

To motivate everyone to get started, if you post your schedule and link here - I'll give you your first entry in the drawing for the prize - but only if you actually complete at least one room. This will prevent someone from just posting the schedule and then never cleaning!

Here's my plan:

Kitchen: March 4
Dining Room: March 7
Master Bedroom and Bathroom: March 11
Living Room: March 13
Car and Porch: March 14
Den: March 17
Laundry Room: March 18
Hall Bath: March 19
Emily and Rachel's room: March 19
Samuel's room: March 19

Now, aren't you all getting curious about the prize?! Here is what the winner of the drawing will receive:
A springy purse:
An apron to freshen up your cleaning routine! (Made out of a thrifted pillowcase.)

And, these goodies including a Pledge duster, Crock Pot recipes from Gooseberry Patch, a homemade dish cloth and some Satin Hands for when your cleaning is done!

Let's get our homes clean! Also, Carrie and I did come up with something fun for the First Day of Spring - so be watching!

30 comments:

The Stepford Stepmom said...

Hurrah! It's spring cleaning time!! I can't wait to participate. :)

I did an entry about spring cleaning with you, and Blogger seems to have eaten it. I'm sure by the time you check this, it'll have been recreated and posted. LOL!!

Happy spring cleaning everyone!! :D

Anonymous said...

I would love to participate, but spring here doens't normally start until April sometime. We will still be burning wood for most of March.

Anonymous said...

I thought of you & your spring cleaning on Saturday as I was cleaning the huge closet in our master bedroom.
Maybe I'll be motivated to do more deep cleaning this spring too as I follow your progress.
angela
Towanda, PA

Leanne said...

I desperately want to participate in this... but my time constraints will not allow! I started a few things...
deep cleaned light fixtures,
deep cleaned bathroom dwarers, and
clothing dwarers.
Today I am organizing the boys clothes (so my 3 month old isn't wearing at 4T sweater in June!!)
After baby gets here, we will do more...but for now, I'm too tired!!
I can't wait to read everyone else's posts!

*carrie* said...

Monica,

You are so motivated! The wonderful thing is that I came home to a clean house. Thanks, Mom A!!

Wendi said...

Yeah! I can't wait to get started. I will try to make my schedule during nap today and post it tomorrow. Great timing since we are having house guest over Easter.

Happy cleaning everyone!

Katy said...

I would like to participate as well! I will need to write up a schedule for me to do all this! Hopefully I can keep up! :)

Are we allowed to use your button and link to your blog to make a post about this on our own blogs to spread the word? :)

Tracy said...

Honestly, I was sitting here this morning thinking "I should spring clean something..." I can't believe you started this today! I can't wait- now I have some serious motivation! Even if I don't win the fun Monica prizes (that purse would make a great diaper bag!) I love knowing we are all cleaning together!

Unknown said...

How funny! I was just thinking I need to get my Spring cleaning done before the 24th (kid's spring break) and lo and behold...a challenge and motivation!! Woo Hoo! God is so good. He knows I have to have a little incentive...lol! I'll post my plan in a bit...have to get it all wrote down and scheduled. Thanks for the motivation to get moving on this!

Crafty Mom said...

I'm in! I'm in! I'm ready to refresh my home :) Going to post my schedule now!

Charlotte Cushman said...

OK Monica Here it is:

March 5 - Laundry Room
March 7 - Hall Closets 1, 2 and 3
March 10 - Cubbie Closet
March 11 - Living Room
March 12 - Porch
March 14 - Office
March 17 - Bathrooms
March 18 - Kids Rooms
March 19 - Master Bedroom and Closet

Unknown said...

My schedule is posted here;
http://gingerbales.blogspot.com/2008/03/im-joining-monica-in-her-2008-spring.html#links

Anonymous said...

This comes at such a good time for me. I have been thinking about how it feels like it is time to start spring cleaning. I love how you spaced out your cleaning room by room. I am going to sit down and do this also. I am in. Will e-mail and let you know how it goes. It won't matter if I win the wonderful prizes you are offering or not. Just to have the spring cleaning done in the Month of March will be the reward its self. Thanks again for kicking me off.

Andrea said...

I like the idea of scheduling rooms.

I wonder if you do that for certain chores that are done for the whole house, too? What I mean is, when I (for example) get out my carpet shampooer, I may do the carpets on the whole first floor that day, not just one room.

Or do you do EVERYTHING in that room before moving on to the next? In my example, that would mean you'd get the carpet shampooer out quite a few times.

I'm anxious to see how others do this. I'm always looking for ways to streamline my operation. Thanks for this great topic.

Andrea
the7gerbers@earthlink.net

Anonymous said...

I just had to laugh this morning when I read this because something very A-typical for us has happened: we are completely snowed in! This rarely if ever happens in March!
But inside my home, it is still time for Spring cleaning! I started today with my kitchen.
Having kiddos, I acknowledge that this will take me a few days to finish each room. And guess what, that's OKAY!

I am a little confused, though. Do we put our planned schedule in the comments here as well? Or are you going to have a mr.linky and we just all link up posts from our own blogs?

Paige said...

Count me in, I've been waiting for you to get this started. My schedule is
March 6, living room
March 7, foyer
March 10, laundry space
March 12, guest room
March 17, master bed room
March 19, rec room
March 20, boys room
March 27, kitchen
March 28, pantry
March 31, office

Anonymous said...

Hey Monica,

You could try leaving a post up with a Mr Linky so we can just add to that everytime we add a post. I think OrgJunkie does her cleaning challenges that way. Once a week or so you can move the "Clean Report Post" :) up on your blog.
Just a thought!

Michelle-ozark crafter said...

I love to clean period! Spring, summer winter and fall! Right now I am just trying to keep the dust and debris down from all the work we are doing on the house!

~Babychaser~ said...

Ok... here's my plan. It isn't much, but seriously, I'm due to have my second baby on Sunday, so if I can get anything done it'll be worth it! Because I am 39 1/2 weeks pregnant, I'm going to try to be realistic. Instead of doing a room in a day, I've set two goals.

By Friday night, 3/7, I want to have the bathroom (our only one) completely done.

By Tuesday night, 3/11, I want to have the kitchen done.

These are two rooms that, though they are often surface cleaned, floors etc are often neglected! Basicly, they need a good mopping. I need to clean the ceiling and do a deep clean on the shower in the bathroom. Cobwebs are taking over in the less seen areas of my kitchen, etc. If this baby comes ontime or (dare I say) early (DS was a week late), I have plans to take a friend up on her offer to clean our house after baby comes. I'm thinking to ask her if she'll come while we're in the hospital. I won't enter for the prize if that happens, but my house will be clean just the same. :)

Really, I've been working on "spring cleaning" type things for a couple months now, trying to get things done before baby comes. :)

Thanks for hosting this, I'm excited!

Jenn said...

I am anticipating eagerly and dreading at the same time...LOL, I know i will LOVE the results though! I liked getting it done early like this last year also, it was nice to be enjoying a fresh house when others were just starting or about to start their spring cleaning. =) Eventhough it's still quite cold here, the sun is starting to beam brightly so I am up for the challenge!

I will do an entry on my blog sometime today or tomorrow and then link back here. On my post I will list my schedule, which I've already put onto paper.

March 6-upstairs family bath and hallway

March 8- Boys' room

March 12th-Mikey's room

March 13th-My room

March 14th-Main hall and stairway/front porch

March 19th-Living room

March 20th-Dining room

March 21-kitchen

March 24-back porch

March 26-Laundry area

March 27-van

March 28-extra day if needed to finish the above goals

March 31-extra day if needed to finish the above projects

Jenn

Jenn said...

Ok, the post is up already and can be viewed here:

http://jennsnook.blogspot.com/2008/03/march-6-upstairs-family-bath-and.html

Jenn M.

Anonymous said...

Yey!I feel so excited to get everything organized and clean. Mine will be more decluttering than spring cleaning but it is things I have put off for far too long.I will let my teen girls do their own rooms. My bedroom may take more than one day since it seems to be the catchall.I think if I could work on a room with no interruptions(which is impossible-lol) then I could finish faster.But here goes.......

Here is my schedule:

March 5- Den
March 7-Kitchen
March 12-Living Room
March 13-Master bath
March 14-Guest bath
March 18- Little girls' room
March 19-Master bedroom
March 20-Linen Closet
March 21-Laundry Room

Thanks Monica for inspiring us!

My email is:
gigglestoo@aol.com

Anonymous said...

I made my cleaning schedule in anticipation of your spring cleaning kick-off. However, I plan to do just one room/area per week. I have set aside every Thursday from now until mid-May. I would love to be done by the end of March, but I know that it is not realistic for me.
(I cleaned the living room last weekend since my hubbie just finished painting it!)
March 6 kitchen
March 13 dining room and powder room
March 20 family room and foyer
March 27 windows and screens
April 3 master bedroom and master bath
April 10 office and hallway
April 17 guest bedroom and hall bath
April 24 Son's bedroom
April 31 Daughter's bedroom
May 7 front porch and deck

Now, what I want to know if anyone still cleans walls??
Let the cleaning begin!
Angie from NJ

rohanknitter said...

I did some spring cleaning yesterday, but I didn't do a room....instead, I took every curtain down in the whole house, washed them all, ironed them, and re-hung. Wiped me out but did they ever need it!!

Farmhouse Blessings said...

I saw your challenge at Katy's blog, The Country Blossom, and though a bit hesitant that I could actually complete the challenge, but after a bit of encouragement I decided to jump right in and post my schedule.

I even got started on a room today! Hurray! Thanks so much.

Blessings,
Lea

Lynette said...

I would love to participate, I just got my schedule posted, I have already finsihed two rooms, my extra bedroom and hall closet. I do not know if the hall closet counts as a room or not??? This will be fun to have some extra motivation to et this job done! Thanks!

Lift Up Your Hearts said...

Thanks to my friend Lynette for telling me about this! I'm going to work up a plan now and then I will post it on my blog!

Anonymous said...

I would love to participate with all the other wives and mothers in Spring Cleaning. Hey, misery loves company, right?!?
Blessings,
Jodi

Lara said...

http://laraloulou.blogspot.com/2008/03/spring-clean-2008.html

Here's my schedule and I am starting today. Thanks for the motivation!

daisy said...

What a great idea. I'll be a little behind because I just found your blog, but I'm going to make a schedule. I've been cleaning off and on since January, but I need a more concrete plan.

We're in the middle of remodeling, so that makes it tougher. But where I can, I will. I'll catch up with you a little later. It's getting late and I have to work in the AM. Toodles.