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My mother was a wealth of knowledge. After she passed away, one of the things I did was sit down and try to remember and write down all of the life lessons she had taught me before I forgot them. However, they were so ingrained in me that there was no possible way for me to forget all that I had learned from her.

If you have gotten to know me well, personally or through the blog, one of the things you have noticed is that having a clean/orderly house is important to me. Today's post, More Lessons From Mom will probably shed some insight as to why that is.

Hanging the Laundry

We have been hanging the laundry again since the beginning of the year.

 

I haven't hung the laundry since just after Ian was born. At the time, I didn't realize,  how much I missed hanging the laundry.... the process of getting everything ready and the benefits I get from it.

 

Like with everything, there has to be some preparation before I take the clothes out to be hung. There is no way I am hanging the laundry so the world gets a full view of our "unmentionables." My rule is, if you can't see it when you are wearing it, you shouldn't see it when it is hanging.

 

There is a way to prepare everything so that you don't have to go searching for the right item to hang.

 

Obviously, I have to check the weather before I throw my load in the wash. If it is going to rain, I don't even bother to wash my load of laundry. I would rather do two loads of laundry and hang my clothes than get my load done for the day and have to use my dryer. Addie usually pipes up in the morning, "Mom, don't forget to check if it's going to rain."

 

Once the load is done, I pick through it and lay my larger items in my basket first. Then the medium sizes, and lastly the smaller items that are normally hidden when you are wearing them. This takes about five minutes at the most.

My line is considered an umbrella line, so the shorter lines are on the inside and the longer lines are on the outside. The smaller, personal items are hung on the interior of the line, and because I picked through everything before I came outside, they are already sitting on top of my clothes pile.

We also have a smaller rack that stays on our back porch.  I have Addie hang washcloths and socks on. She enjoys it, but it is also teaching her how to hang laundry so she can continue to help me later on when she is big enough to reach the lines.

I love that hanging the laundry forces me (the indoor person) to go outside. Not only can we hear the chickens, cows and horses from the farm behind us, but the other day I also heard a donkey. Nothing compares.

We noticed an increase in our electric bill when I stopped hanging the laundry. Hanging the laundry means I do not use my dryer unless it cannot be helped (three days of straight rain....it has happened). There are no quick 20 minute dewrinkle cycles multiple times throughout the day because I was too busy or forgot to take the laundry out when the timer went off. For me, it actually makes things easier and causes less stress to hang the laundry.... and is cheaper.... and I am all about saving money.

Do you hang your laundry? If you do, what are your "tricks" and benefits for doing so?

Spring Cleaning Time

I am in the Spring Cleaning mode right now.

My home is a bit disorganized because of it. Yes, everything looks neat and tidy, but I am making different piles in different places that make sense to only me, and I am allowing a bit of dust to stay (ugh!) so that my efforts aren't taken away by the day-to-day jobs but can be thrown into my bigger project..

The first order of business was cleaning a few of my appliances. I went on Pintrest for some ideas and came away with these two sites that I followed as I worked on Monday night with my dishwasher and Tuesday with my washing machine and my shower floor.

20 Mule Team Borax, white vinegar, bleach, and Awesome are my favorite cleaners for this big job. Awesome can also be found at Dollar Tree and Walmart.

My Spring Cleaning focus this week will be my laundry room (I tend to be slow and methodical... and I have to keep reminding myself that my kids need me more than my house does.)

Here is the plan:

• Empty the laundry room of all except the washer and dryer (Ha! Could you imagine! I'm laughing just thinking about the look of surprise Brian would have on his face if he walked in and found that I had removed the appliances from the laundry room!)
• Move the appliances (so I can clean under and around them)
• Scrub the floors
• Clean baseboards
• Clean the appliances
• Clean the hanger shelf above the appliances
• Replace the hamper (we have begun looking for a hamper that we "love")
• Clean decor
• Decide what decor stays and what will be purged
• Replace everything staying

I'll give you an after photo when I complete Operation Laundry Room (ummm.... do you really want to see it before?).

More Lessons From Mom

Today's lesson from Mom is "Keep your home neat and clean."

As early as I can remember, my mother had always taught us about keeping house. Whether it was folding our clothes, dusting, washing dishes, helping with the laundry, cooking, etc., she always taught us to do everything "nice and neatly."

She was famous for that phrase in our home.

"Put this away nice and neatly."

"Fold these nice and neatly."

"Put this in your drawers nice and neatly."

Everything was to be done nice and neatly.

In fact, there were times when Mom would go into our rooms without warning and check the state of our drawers. If they were not up to her standards, she would just dump the contents into the middle of the floor. When we came back from playing or school (I was home-schooled after fifth grade), we would see our little pile in the middle of the floor and knew what we needed to do. Mom didn't even have to tell us. We would just start folding and putting our things back into the drawers "nice and neatly".

When we were moving once, someone had my mom's drawers and was carrying them to the moving van. The person commented to my father that he had never seen someone's drawers so neat and orderly.

My mother practiced what she preached.

If you were to open my drawers right now, you would find that I learned my lesson well. All of my clothes are folded or hung, and everything has been placed in its spot "nice and neatly".

Our rooms were also our responsibility to keep clean. When we were little, Mom would help us make our beds, but as we got older, the job became ours. As with the drawers, if Mom saw that we didn't make our beds to the ability that we were capable of given our ages (my mother was no drill sergeant, but she did expect us to do what we were capable of), she would undo the bed and we would have to start over.

Today, if you were to look at our bed, you would see that I learned my lesson well. The bed is made first thing in the morning, pillows arranged just so, and the bedspread smoothed out "nice and neatly".

You see, my mother was preparing us for the real world- real life.

Her house was always very much lived in (we had no problem walking in and plopping down on the couch or hanging out in the kitchen if that was where she was), but everything was in such order that we could have unexpected guests and no one would be made to feel uncomfortable.

My mother's home was always so comfortable (to us and others) that people used to come over and leave late in the evening. Why? They felt comfortable in her home, and she felt comfortable having them (and, boy, did she know how to feed and serve her guests!). She didn't have to worry about the state of her house, the condition of the bedrooms, or what her bathrooms looked like.

She wanted us to know that feeling when we had homes of our own.

She used to call our bedrooms our "little house". We needed to take care of our little house, because one day, God would bless us with our own houses and we needed to know how to take care of them.

Today, you would see that I learned my lesson well. Anyone could walk up to my front door, ring the bell, and I would be ready to receive them because (almost) everything in my house has been put away "nice and neatly".