GingerBabyMama: Simple Living Lesson #10

Hey all! Thanks for coming by to take a read through my attempt at living life a little more simply. To take a look at the lessons I have worked through previously check out lessons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. This week’s lesson is focussing on routine, which makes me really happy!

Although I’ll be the first one to pass up on an afternoon of housework to have tea with the neighbours, I do try to keep a pretty tight ship at our house and routine totally plays into the plan. I work out every day during the week, and since I don’t get home from the gym until the kids are supposed to be ready for school, part of our morning routine is to be prepared for the day.

I try to lay out the kids’ school clothes the night before. The girls like to lay them out so they look like a kid in an outfit, socks, undies and hoodies all splayed out on the floor. Whatever works, as long as they are getting ready!!

When I get home from the gym, I make the lunches while the hubs is busy wrangling the girls into the outfits they splayed out onto their floors the night before.

While I put together the lunches, my rock star teammate gets breakfast, toothbrushes, vitamins and backpacks sorted. Our morning routine, though chaotic works for us and usually gets everyone to school and work on time.

Housework is becoming more of a routine for us too. We used to have a cleaning service come in every two weeks to do the nitty-gritty cleaning (bathrooms, vacuuming, all the hard-core housework) but now it’s all on the hubs and I to get it done. Since I only work part time, I do the majority of the cleaning on my day off and the hubs in charge of the two things I hate the most: vacuuming and all of the laundry.

I find that I feel happiest in my home when the kitchen is clean. Clean counters, an empty sink and the smell of cookies baking gives me a euphoric feeling! I always try to spend 15 minutes once the kids go to bed walking from room to room, straightening pillows and towels and picking up the little bits and pieces of toys that the kids don’t see when they put their toys away.

My evening routine of quick pick up and running the dishwasher makes our morning routines run just that much more smoothly. I guess I can say that this week’s simple living lesson is to streamline your life to make things easier. It certainly helps that we don’t have as many pieces of clothing or furniture or toys (though we still have a TON of toys) as we did before we began to purge, and purge and purge again!

Do you have any routines that help you keep the ship afloat in your house?