Keeping a Clean House

 "An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels...She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness."

-Proverbs 31:10, 27

"Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled."

-Titus 2:3-5

     As a Christian woman I am exceedingly grateful that God has given us an example of what a godly, excellent wife looks like in the Bible. However, in the hustle and bustle of this Martha world, I find it rather difficult to keep my heart in the right place and to keep in mind that as a wife, the things that I do for my family are rather important - regardless of what this world tries to tell us about being old fashioned (or worse).

     For the majority of our first year of marriage, I struggled immensely with two things that I was VERY convicted of on a daily basis. What were they? Making dinner for my husband and keeping the house clean. These are things that I personally feel are important things to do as a wife, and yet I was unable to keep on top of it. Part of it had to do with the fact that I worked 40+ hours most weeks and was exhausted by the time I got home and the other part of it was that I had NO idea where to start. I've already posted about meal planning which has helped me GREATLY learn how to budget my time in order to make dinner for my husband (you can read about that here), so this post will focus on my other major struggle: keeping the house clean. 

     The fact that I have been greatly convicted of these things indicates that they are something that I should be doing to the best of my ability when I can; and since I have spoken with other young married women who have said similar things to me - I'd like to share with you all my cleaning list. I thought I had already posted it, but I haven't located it - so my apologies if this is a repeated post.

     I found this list on RealSimple.com, however I have not been able to locate this exact list on their website anymore - so here it is. I appreciate that it is broken down into daily, weekly, and seasonally things to do and my husband appreciates it too. He now comes home to a pretty neat home and doesn't have to think about doing anything after a long day of work [[trust me though, there are still plenty of days where he comes home and it's a disaster, but instead of being an issue or a huge frustration which it seemed to be in the past, he more joyfully and willingly helps me get the house straightened up again because I'm putting forth effort more than I used to]].

Kitchen

Every Day:
Wipe down sink after doing dishes/loading dishwasher
Wipe down stove-top
Wipe down counters
Sweep, Swiffer or vacuum floor

Every Week:Mop the Floor
Wipe the cabinets, backsplashes and appliances
Wash the dishrack
Wipe the switchplates
Take out the trash
Wipe the inside of the trash cans (I don't do this - I just spray it with lysol)
Throw out old left overs
Clean the stove burners

Every Season:Empty & Scrub down the inside of the refrigerator
Empty & clean the insides of the utensil drawers
Scrub down the cupboard exteriors
Clean the stove-hood filters

Living AreaEvery Day:

Pick up crumbs & dust bunnies
Fluff cushions & fold the throws after use
Wipe table tops & spot clean cabinets
Straighten coffee table books & magazines
Throw out newspapers, put away CDs & videos

Every Week:Dust all surfaces - electronics, books, blinds, picture frames, window sills & ledges, & tops of door frames; remove all cobwebs.
Dust, mop/vacuum floors
Vacuum upholstery (I honestly don't know what this means)
Throw out old magazine
Wipe switchplates, doorknobs, door jambs,
Shake out/vacuum doormat
Vacuum heating and AC vents

Every Season:
Wash insides of windows
Lift big furniture and vacuum underneath

BathroomEvery Day:

Wipe out sink
Wipe the toilet seat and rim
Swoosh toilet bowl with brush
Wipe mirror & faucet
Spray the entire shower and curtain with shower mist after every use (prevents soap scum build up and a mildewy smell if your shower curtain starts to smell mildewy....ours did and it drove me nuts. I would wash the curtain like every week or every other week...the shower mist cleaner stuff really helped! and the off brand (called Daily Shower Cleaner) is only like $2.50)

Every Week: Scrub the tub
Scrub the tiles
Mop the floor
Wipe the switch plates, door knob and door jambs
Empty and wipe out the waste basket

Every Season: Take down the shower curtain and launder according to care instructions
Empty, weed and clean out the medicine cabinet

BedroomEveryday:

Make the bed
Straighten up nightstands
Put away laundry
Put away jewelry
Every Week:Strip bed and wash sheets, pillow cases, etc.  (I usually do this every other week - we don't have a back up set of sheets yet so I feel like this is a bit ambitious to do EVERY week...I hope that's not gross)
Sweep, mop, vacuum the floor
dust all surfaces
throw out old magazines
wipe the switchplates, door knobs, and door jambs
empty the waste basket
vacuum the heating and ac vents and inside of the closet

Every SeasonFlip the mattress
wash insides of the windows
launder matress pad and dust ruffle

I know this doesn't tackle things like: the patio, dining room, office area - but it's a great start! Once I've started the daily list, it's easy to see what needs to be taken care of in the dining room (like clearing off the table, vacuuming up crumbs), the office area (I mainly just 'straighten up' and throw away old ads, eventually it will get a "deep clean" and I will declutter), and patio (spray it down with a hose). 

A big plus to this list: once you get used to it, you can clean the apt in 20-30 mins which leaves lots of time to have fun doing other things and it's a great routine to get into! I'm convinced that since I'm so used to this now, that when we have a house I won't get completely overwhelmed when I clean the house. :)

But the biggest plus of it all: The hubster appreciates it a lot and it's makes my heart very joyful and happy knowing this!

Happy Cleaning!

Proverbs 31:10 and an Exceeding Amount of Grace!

"An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels."

-Proverbs 31:10

     This verse is amazing in my life, and not amazing in the sense that is used today to describe something cool, but amazing in the sense that it is startlingly impressive- Amazing in the strongest form there is. An excellent wife is a challenge, an exceedingly difficult woman to find. In one verions I have, the word rare  is used instead of precious. She is more rare than jewels - and please keep in mind the time of which this was written. They couldn't go to the store and find a diamond ring or a ruby necklace - the people of that time had to search hard and work hard to find them. They were not easily accessible, they were not easy to find. It was a challenge. On top of that, jewels were not things that were just tossed around willy-nilly. They were kept well; cherished; they were precious and treated as such. An excellent wife is rare & precious. She was rare in Old Testament times, how much more rare is she today?

    I have to admit, when Tony tells me that I'm an excellent wife I feel like he's being cheated in some way. The definition of excellent  is: possessing outstanding quality or superior merit; remarkably good; extremely good; extraordinary; superior. These are things I often do not believe of myself. Extremely good?  Psalms 14:3 & 53:3 say "...there is none who does good, not even one". In Mark 10 verse 18 Jesus makes the same claim, though stated differently as a response to a man seeking eternal life, "And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." I often times feel far from the Proverbs 31 woman, let alone an "excellent wife. I don't alawys have the best attitude, my mind gets distracted with plans of the future - our plans of 'grandeur', I don't keep the house sparkly clean, I forget to plan/make dinner, I can be high maintenance and difficult, I'm not always motivated to serve my husband how I am called to by God. I have this idea of what an "excellent wife" should be, partly guided from Proverbs 31, partly guided by my ideas of perfectionism. I am no where near what an "excellent wife" should be. But, what a beautiful act of grace to my life! Despite all my imperfections and the fact that I fall short of my version of the excellent wife, my wonderful, amazing, loving Hubster stills sees me that way. He looks at me and sees past my faults, sees through my insecurities and sees a Proverbs 31 woman. In that, I have hope that I can be the woman God has created me to be, I can be the wife He has created to me, and (Lord willing), I'll be able to be the mommy He created me to be.  And even more, in that one act of grace from my Hubster, I know God better - God sees past my imperfections, my short comings, my struggles, my sinfulness - He looks at me and sees Christ's righteousness as my own. He sees me the way He created me to be and the way I cannot fully be until the day Christ returns and I am with my Father in Heaven. Oh precious is this grace!