The rule of 15s

I am slowly starting to live by what I call "The rule of 15s." I first got the idea from my oldest sister, Thawivann, when she came to help when Lucy was born. Spending nearly a week in my house she found all different ways to organize my house, and brainstormed suggestions to help me maintain order with two little girls. She organized my utensil drawers into categories and then placed them in their own containers. They are still in the same containers with the labels she created. =) So anyway, the rule of 15s. The name is something I made up, but it was inspired by her. She suggested that each day or evening I spend x amount of time picking up toys, x amount cleaning up clutter, and so on. Each alloted time period was no longer than 10 minutes. Her thinking behind this is that the house would be able to maintain some order, and at least at the start of the day we would have a fresh start.

It took a while for us to implement this idea. In the fall when I was watching Stella I tended to do this tidying up at the beginning of the day. Let me tell you, as someone who has occassional bouts of depression, beginning the day having to clean from the day before does very little to keep depression at-bay. By early winter I decided to do the cleaning at night. It is very easy for me to get out of hand, once I actually decide to start cleaning. Taylor is always willing to help, but he needs some focus. So I decided to set a timer, we started out at 12 minutes. We would clean for 12 minutes. When the timer went off we could do whatever we wanted. Having a timer really helps get your butt in gear. Taylor and I are both easily distracted, perhaps him more than me, but having a time limit, and a short one at that, made it easier to stay focused, because we knew we didn't have the stay the course that long.

I tell you, it makes a world of difference to come down the stairs in the morning to a de-cluttered living area. Now I'm sure if anyone else were to come over in the morning they may not appreciate the "cleanliness or declutter." But for us, it's clean and liveable. So, the rule of 15's: spending time in 15 minute increments cleaning. Until recently I really just applied this "rule" to nighttime. But now I am going to try to apply it a second time during the day. I recently found a blog in which a mom said you could keep a house clean by spending only 15-20 minutes a day. I'm all about clean, but in a way that requires very little of my time. So you know I was all about reading what she had to say. Essentially you pick a part of your house or a particular chore and spend 15 minutes on it. Everyday is something different. Basically this is how I have applied "the rule of 15s" to the rest of my day: day 1) upstairs bathroom, 15 minutes. day 2) downstairs bathroom, 15 minutes day 3) tidy TV room Day 4) tidy Evie and our bedroom Day 5) vacuum upstairs Day 6) tidy Lulu's room Day 7) mop downstairs. Every day only spending 15, 20 minutes tops. This is something I can do. Eventually I may add dusting. I did not include sweeping downstairs, I tend to do this anyway at least 2 times a day.

So "the rule of 15s" applies not just to cleaning but also to working out. Let's be realistic, I won't make it to the gym very often. But I can spend 15 minutes (not much, I know) doing some kind of working out. I recently downloaded apps on our kindle for free leg, arm, cardio, and abs work outs. The workouts can be as short as 5 minutes and it's a video, so I am doing it with someone else. I can do 5 minute increments. It ain't much, I'll be the first to admit that, but I gotta start somewhere.

In order to help me maintain "the rule of 15s" I created a dry-erase goals and menu board in my kitchen. I plan out each week what my cleaning 15s will be each day, other goals that I have for the day, and I plan to also map out what I will eat (from morning til night, including snacks). For someone who is trying to either lose or maintain their weight I have found that one of the biggest road blocks is not knowing what to eat. Planning it out prevents over eating, eating the wrong thing, or at times not eating enough. I also think that by planning the week's meals out I can better manage our monthly budget for groceries.

Life is good, God is great.

I sat down yesterday and did our budget. Didn't look pretty. This time last year I would have likely had several break downs, had an internal fight with myself about going back to work full-time, and suggested to my husband to sell one of our two vehicles. But this time my reaction was different. Am I comfortable with how things look, not really. Did I let out a nervous laugh, yep. This time my reaction was: how can I make things stretch. So I took inventory of my food, actually took written inventory. We have our typical proteins: beef, chicken, hambone (from Evi'e 1st birthday) and fish. In fact we have quite a bit, thanks to my brother-in-law's near obsession with fishing! with my inventory in hand I started googling recipes, it didn't make the cut if it would require me to go shopping. Our next three meals look pretty good: broiled tuna steak with Chinese 5 spice marinade, ham and potato soup, and tilapia & scallop with garlic cream sauce. YUM!!!! Easy recipes and good food aside, I feel that not working fulltime is what God wants for me right now. So during this time we are trusting that things will be taken care of. We have to rest in that.

In other news, I did a major clean and organization today. What turned into sorting socks resulted in cleaning out a closet, a bedroom, and our upstairs living room. At one point Taylor said to me, "That closet looks great because everything that was in it is now all over the bedroom floor!" So am I really cleaning and organizing if I'm merely moving the chaos into another room? It does give me the feeling of accomplishment, so long as I don't go into the room that the stuff has just been dumped into! But really, I did manage to clean up all the messes (or nearly all) I made today. I went basically non-stop from about 11pm til 4! Whether or not Taylor helped me wasn't really an issue, I just wanted him near by. But he did offer, so periodically I gave him tasks. And of course at times Evelyn and Lucy completely emptied out drawers and shelves, only adding to the chaos. But that's ok.


Before Evie takes her nap and goes to sleep for the night we always try to read books, sometimes she chooses. This afternoon she selectd Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs. This book has always been so special to me, while I did not have an up or downstairs nana, I did have a next door Grammy. I didn't think much of it when she put it in my hands and plopped down in my lap, it had been many years since I had read the book all the way through so I wasn't sure what to expect. Half way through the book the boy's great-grandmother, nana upstairs, passed away. Immediately I began to cry. Evie, tenderly looked at me as I tearfully finished the book.

Life is good. God is great.