"It's about time you made us chore charts, Mom!"

Yup, JuneBug actually said that when I showed her my new, nice, neat chore charts.  Tasha's response was "oooohhhhh, pretty!" And O-man wanted to know where his was too!  This obviously made me happy (big grin).

We've been slammed by several more inches of snow and during my insomnia last night, I looked for ideas on how I wanted to do these chore charts we've been talking about for a while.  Pre O-man, we had a simple chart on the fridge listing things that needed to be done by day.  This actually worked really well for us, but we thought we had it memorized and stopped printing it out (I would write the meals on it each week) and soon, not only was it forgotten about, so were the chores.

My girls are pretty helpful, but they don't like to be nagged (yeah, like anyone actually likes to be nagged by their mother...).   JuneBug does very well with a schedule and a timer is something that is quite helpful for keeping Tasha on track.  Now they each have their own timer (re:flylady on the awesome use of timers) and what they are supposed to do each day is written and is color coded for morning, after school and before bed.

I know the picture is hard to see, but weekdays are on the left, weekends on the right.  The red box is reminders (like taking meds, if necessary) and the green is a little reminder of how we've agreed their allowance will be divided up (savings, spending and donations).

O-man's is a little more simplified for a not quite 3-year old.  I was quite pleased that he was able to tell me what each picture represented without me telling him first.

The girls have picking up toys on their list, but the fact is, most of the toys are strewn about by O-man, and we have been working with him to be even a little part of that clean-up time.

One site I used for my inspiration was Organizing Made Fun, Becky has a great series on how to fake a clean house.  Ironically, her section on cleaning 15 minutes a day, is basically how we had our old chart.  While I'm still trying to do the whole flylady thing, I feel like I get a room in shape and the rest of the house falls apart.  I have my very own chore chart just like the girls' now too with the goal of ultimately getting everything cleaned once a week and doing flylady's daily missions so I don't have to do major cleaning ever again.

Yes, I probably spent way, way, way toooooooo long making these chore charts up for each of us.  My goal now is to motivate myself to get off the couch and work on my 52-weeks of organizing list, so I'm going to show off the few places in my house that I've gotten really organized and have stayed that way.  Don't worry, it's a pretty short list:

Probably my prettiest organized spot with everything labeled and almost all the spice containers have matching red lids

Inside one of the cabinets in my craft area.  Yes, we had to eat a lot of Chinese take-out to get enough containers!  The other ones are pencil boxes I picked up at Staples for 50cents, but obviously not enough.

My linen closet.  I think it looks great and very neat and orderly, but when I take a picture, it doesn't come across as nice, but trust me, it looks great!

Here is a close up of the linen closet.  I love my label maker, can you tell?

Yep, that's it.  Now you know why I have the 52-week list, only 3 spots in my house are truly functionally organized.  Guess I should make the most of being snowed in...

Peace be with you,