Lessons learned from showing my house

It has temporarily thawed and we have been able to play outside some. A simple act that is taken for granted.

I know. I've been missing. I promise I am not dead, but most of you know that. Most of my time that is available for blogging is spent over at What's for Dinner? so Hazelwood House gets forgotten, but I have made a new resolution that I will visit Hazelwood House at least bi-monthly. Hopefully more. With my resolution will come briefer posts, but you may be happy about that.

Miles' new thing is to "help" me after he gets up from his afternoon nap. Sometimes he cooks, and sometimes he washes dishes. I use those terms very lightly but we are still working toward our goal of raising self-sufficient men.

Right now the hot topic is a new house which means we had to sell the old one which brings us to our topic of the day:

Lessons learned from showing my house

1. The FlyLady isn't crazy. So many lessons that she tries to create as habits are essential to being prepared to show your home. (If you aren't familiar with her techniques, give her a look. You will think she is crazy but until you need her advice, you won't see the truth in her methods.)

2. Get dressed. I have a tendency to hang around in my sleep-clothes (you can't really call them pjs) a good chunk of the day. This is not conducive to grabbing the children and leaving the house quickly. You never know what the day will hold so be ready for it.

3. Keep the house in a condition where it can be picked up in 15 minutes. With two small children this is quite a challenge but I will say I have gotten used to picking up as I go. Just keeping things in the room they belong is a huge step and makes straightening in a hurry much easier. This is nice for so many reasons. I can always have house guests and not have to apologize for the socks, coats and shoes strewn down the hall. When I have a moment or two, I can use them for myself - to read, or nap, or sip a cup of coffee. It is really a breath of fresh air.

Our neighbors renovated their landscaping. The boys loved simply watching what they were doing out the window - and all the big trucks helped keep their attention as well.

4. Clean as you go. I am a notorious procrastinator but you can't clean two bathrooms, vacuum, mop the kitchen and dust in 30 minutes. Once the house was clean (which took a few dedicated days) I did my best to keep it that way. If I noticed the mirror getting splotchy, I cleaned it right then. If the floor was gross after cooking dinner, I did some maintenance sweeping/vacuuming/mopping. It was much easier that way.

5. This one should probably be closer to the top but declutter, declutter, declutter. No one wants to see all your junk as they are considering your home, so we hid and put away a lot of stuff. But I can honestly say, other than the family pictures, I don't miss most of it. That probably means I don't need it anyway. My head seems clearer and I get more done with a decluttered home.

Prince charming at Allison's 4th birthday doing what he is gaining professional status on - EATING. It has been non-stop eating for about a month now. I know he is growing, and that is good but I would like a break from preparing snacks.

Those are but a few nuggets of truth that I have gathered. I will say I am happy that the pressure of keeping a pristine home is lifted (since we have an offer and are not showing it anymore) but I am keeping to these principles and creating some new habits. They are just a little bit of extra work for some really freeing results.