My Dirty Secret

Are you ready for this?

It's a doozy...

I have a.....

DIRTY HOUSE

*gasp*

Sure, I triple record every appointment by writing it on our kitchen calendar, adding it to my email calendar, and storing it on my phone. Within 30 minutes of waking up, I'm dressed for the day in my jeans or slacks and a shirt. I have a business plan and I actually update it every once in a while. But my house is a disaster!

I like to believe that I'm not the only WAHM that walks through paths of toys and clothes most days. I just haven't figured out how to keep a clean house and run a successful business. Actually, you can gauge my success by how clean my house is. If it's completely trashed, business is pretty darn good. If my house is spotless, business is not so good. I'm proud to say my house hasn't been completely spotless since I became a self employed mom.

I've tried the FlyLady and any other queen organizing/home cleaning guru and it just doesn't work for me. What works for me is a super cleaning spree on Saturday and Sunday. Here's a view into my cleaning life:

Monday - House looks great! No dishes in the sink, floors vacuumed or swept and mopped, toys are all picked up (maybe even organized!), clothes are clean and put away, beds are made. If you're lucky, the office papers may even be filed away. This is because I spent most of my weekend cleaning.

Tuesday - House still looks pretty good. There may be a few dishes in the sink and a couple toys left out. The laundry basket has some clothes in it and Monday's mail is still sitting on the desk.

Wednesday - Didn't make the bed this morning and there are some clothes laying next to the laundry basket and I stepped on a damn hot wheels car this morning. Monday's and Tuesday's mail has been opened and is laying in a neat pile with the open envelopes sitting next to it. I think there might be a couple Cheerios on the living room floor.

Thursday - Where did all of the clean forks go? Eh, I'll wash a couple so we can eat breakfast. Thank goodness for paper plates! I did get a load of laundry in last night, but it's still sitting in the washer. While looking for some other papers, we moved Monday's and Tuesday's mail to the kitchen table where it ended up in a pile with Wednesday's unopened mail. Yep, those are definitely Cheerios on the floor.

Friday - Bed's still not made. Wednesday night's laundry did finally make it to the dryer and it's now sitting in the laundry basket on the couch. The mail was moved from the kitchen table so we could eat and is now back on the desk. Our living room is covered with toys and the only carpet that can be seen is the path we made to walk through. Hmm...I wonder where those Cheerios went?

Saturday - C woke up early and scattered the clean clothes from the laundry basket all over the house. He even grabbed some out of the dirty clothes hamper. So now I either have to do the sniff test or wash all the clothing again. Somehow, all of the bedding on his bed also came off and is piled on the floor. Since the toys have already conquered the living room, they have expanded their territory into the kitchen and bathroom. The Cheerios miraculously appeared in the recliner. Start cleaning in the afternoon after work. I begin in the bathroom and start some laundry - which has now grown to anywhere from 5-10 loads!

Sunday - Church and then clean, clean, clean. I literally spend all day washing, scrubbing, dusting, vacuuming, and mopping. Once I'm done the house is sparkly clean again.

To set the record straight, I never let things get icky dirty - like moldy food, but there is definitely a lot of clutter by the time Saturday morning rolls around. Also, my work area is always clean. I cannot work in a dirty space. Plus, my customers don't actually come to my home anymore, when they did the parts of the house that they saw were always clean. I think I only had to shout, "Don't open that closet" once or twice.

Preparing for a Disaster

Many of us already have an emergency disaster plan in place for our families, but is your business prepared for an emergency? According to the Ad Council, while small businesses represent more than 99% of all employers, they are also the most vulnerable following a disaster.

Whether you work from or away from home, do you know what to do if your building is unusable?

What if you have customer orders that you can't complete because your supplies have been destroyed?

Do you have a list of all your inventory and equipment? What about other critical paperwork? Do you have copies of those stored at a secure, off-site location?

If you have employees, are they all familiar with your emergency plan?


Thankfully, www.ready.gov/business is full of resources to help you create an emergency plan. As I was reading through all of the information on the website, I realized that I am not nearly as prepared as I should be.

If we've learned anything from previous disasters and emergencies, it's that we can never be too prepared.