Blessings at Felicity Farm: ~Kitchen Day~

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

~Kitchen Day~

Hello! This is the second post in my routine series this week. I hope you enjoy!

Tuesday is Kitchen Day. This is hands down my busiest day. With the kitchen, each week I have chores I do every Kitchen Day. Then I have a 6 week rotation of "week specific" chores that I do. For example, this week on Kitchen Day is week #6. The chore for this week is to wipe down outsides of cabinets.Which, I am actually in the process of changing this task, because it seems to be too big of a chore to do in one day, with everything else going on. Each week one of the chores is to reorganize/straighten one cabinet or drawer. So I'm thinking I'll try wiping down that one cabinet I straighten, doing a different one each week and see how that goes.

Here is the weekly chore list, the chores I do every Kitchen Day:

Bake bread
Refill dry mixes*
Bake any muffins, cookies, etc. for the week
Any cooking ahead that can be done
Dust/cobwebs
Scrub the floor
Clean out fridge
Organize one cabinet/drawer
Straighten pantry
Kitchen chore of the week

And this is the week specific chore list:

Week 1: Clean tops and outsides of fridge and freezer

Week 2: Wash group 1 windows

Week 3: Wash group 2 windows

Week 4: Clean oven

Week 5: Dust, wipe down ceiling fans

Week 6: Clean outsides/ tops of cabinets

With this set up, the kitchen doesn't become disgusting. For most of us, this is probably the most frequented/ used room in the house. In our kitchen, we don't have a hood over our stove, so grease tends to collect on nearby surfaces. Yuck. Ordering the work this way for me, is a lot easier than just saying "I'll wash windows when I get time later" or "I'll save the fans for 'Spring cleaning'". Because if I don't purposefully set a time to do it, it just won't happen, no matter how good my intentions are. This method has been working great so far in this season of my life.

The typical Kitchen Day:

Darlin' leaves for work. I start the bread so that it will rise. Then I do any straightening, dishes, things like that before I start on the rest of the baking. This part doesn't take long if I've cleaned the kitchen after supper, and did a ''walk through'' before bed. Waking up to a dirty kitchen is one of the things I hate the most. It just makes me feel so "blah". It makes it harder to make Darlin's breakfast and pack his lunch for work, I hate fighting through piles of dishes just to get a cup of coffee, it sets my whole day back because I have to clean up and wash dishes before I make breakfast for the boys, which eats into my alone time before they get up, which tends to make me grumpy... You know? It just isn't worth the aggravation. Lots of times I find myself pushing through to get it cleaned up the night before, and I detest it at the time, thinking "why don't I just go to bed, I'll get it in the morning?" But you know, every time I have stuck it out, stayed up 'till 10 or so if need be, I feel AWESOME in the morning. I am glad I did it. And yet, I still have times when I say ''forget it" and go to bed, every time regretting it in the morning. Makes no sense, but that's the truth.

Anyway, after starting the bread and straightening the kitchen, I usually start the chore of the week.Then I get the boys for breakfast, after which I start the week's baking. If we happen to have any browning bananas, I make banana muffins. While the goodies are baking, I clean out the fridge, wipe the shelves and put the contents back. I periodically punch down the bread as it continues to rise throughout the day.

The rest of the cleaning and the pantry I squeeze in around daily life with two little ones. When the boys take naps/quiet time in the afternoon I then do the floor. It usually takes most, if not all of nap time, because we have a long kitchen. I sweep the floor, vacuum corners and such then scrub it. I fill a bucket with hot soapy water mixed with a little bleach (our kitchen floor is white) take a rag and start scrubbing. I have found no mop cleans the floor as well as good ol' hand scrubbing it. Occasionally I will use my Shark steam mop, but normally I hand scrub it. Especially if it is really bad. I use prefold diapers to dry the floor as I scrub. This keeps it from looking streaky, and prevents tracking if the dog or I walk on it before it dries.

~The first part of this post was typed Tuesday morning, the following was typed Wednesday~

This week's Kitchen Day was rather interesting. I was making granola yesterday, and while working on this post-I burnt it, ha,ha! Wow. I seriously need to get a timer for my kitchen! (and not blogging while cooking would help, lol) I mixed up three batches of doughnut dough to make for the guys Darlin' works with, which is not typical and took some extra time. For the first time in a long time, I didn't get my floor mopped! But couldn't have been for a better reason- I left to go to my Grandmother's for her birthday. I love her so much, she is one of my most favorite people in the world!
Jackson never did take a nap, and hollered "GET OUT!" from his bedroom. Liam was colicky most of the day, poor guy, and just wanted to be held.
But then when I got home, there were a few dishes I hadn't finished before heading out, AND I LEFT THEM IN THE SINK!! Oh yes. So here I am, blogging, drinking coffee, (that I had to shove stuff around to get to) and I didn't fold and put away my one measly load of laundry yesterday. So now today, I have today's work, 100+ doughnuts to fry, 2 loads of laundry to do, floor to scrub (this is the type of situation that I will use my Shark mop for, even if it just gets one layer of grim off, next Kitchen Day is a fresh start) and then the usual countless other things that are a part of life. That being said, I'd better get busy! And I hope to blog about what a typical Wednesday looks like. I guarantee you, this will not be a ''typical'' Wednesday. I think the ''snowball effect'' is now in motion! I hope you all have a great day, enjoy the sunshine, take time to admire the sparkling snow, bird friends, and fresh air! God Bless!