Thanksgiving ~ Getting Organized

Getting organized to cook a large meal is essential. Getting yourself and your kitchen ready to cook that big meal is time saving and stress reducing.. Getting your house clean to the point that it satisfies you and gives you room to cook and show hospitality is also important.

Its time to get that Thanksgiving menu planned and all your recipes organized. Even if you will not be hosting Thanksgiving in your home, you can start thinking about what you might want to prepare to take to the meal in another home. These first couple of weeks of November are a great time to do lots of thinking, planning and organizing.

Now that you have that done, you can look in your pantry and cabinets to see if you have what you need to prepare and serve those delicious recipes. Check through all your cooking pans and pots and make sure you have everything you need. Do you need to purchase something? Borrow something? It’s not a good thing to need a spring form pan at the last minute.

Look through your serving dishes too. Do you have everything needed to serve your meal? Do you have all the utensils and glassware you need? Serving spoons? Plates? Dessert plates?

Now is also the time to start cleaning your house, deep clean the bathrooms and kitchen especially. Its the week to get your guest room ready and do all the heavy cleaning that you want to have done by TG. For help in keeping yourself on track this week with your cleaning, check out the Fast And Furious Fall Cleaning Series. Its not just for Fall, you can use it all year long!

For more help, check out the Thanksgiving Planner.  It is filled with detailed help on planning, cleaning, cooking and has all new recipes and devotionals for you.

Fast And Furious Fall Cleaning ~ Day 2

Its time to get started in the kitchen! Again, its probably best if you print out these instructions and then come back and share your accomplishments later.

If you are following along, feel free to leave a photo of your accomplishments in the Linky.

The kitchen is usually the hardest room to Fall or Spring Clean in because we use it so much and its hard to have it out of commission for a day in some families. So I suggest that you utilize your crock pot or other means of having supper tonight so that you can concentrate on cleaning instead of breaking to cook.


Take a good look at your kitchen….. does it need:
…to be majorly decluttered?
…to be degreased?
…to have structural work done?
…to be emptied out and started over? Just kidding, kind of.

You must choose what you need to do in your kitchen today. Do you have time to devote to this project? maybe you should not get in to a really deep, deep cleaning of the kitchen today. Perhaps you should do a medium clean. That’s what I am going to do. You just find your happy place and get in the groove, OK?

First Things First:
Take out trash.
Pick up counter-tops
Take everything out of the kitchen that doesn’t go in the kitchen… use your 4 bags/boxes/baskets!
Take down curtains – wash
Take up rugs – wash

The kitchen can become a catch-all if you’re not careful. If your family has a habit of depositing things in the kitchen, and you’re OK with that, try to have a receptacle for all their stuff. Baskets are great for keys, change, pocket contents.

Mail really clutters up kitchen counter tops! Try using a box or basket to hold mail, both outgoing and incoming.

Move out furniture and take everything off your counter-tops that you possibly can. I will use my living room to store these things while I am cleaning because I have just cleaned my dining room and I don’t want to mess it up!
I will use laundry baskets to hold everything.

Clean the frig and the oven today if your kitchen just doesn’t need all that much concentrated cleaning elsewhere.

Next
Sweep down cobwebs
Make a sink of hot soapy water or use your chemical cleaner. Get out your rags and start washing down
the ceiling if needed, door frames, window frames, baseboards and walls. Wash windows.

Take up your rugs and put them in to wash. Take down curtains and wash.

Put a load of dishes in to wash while you work, or go ahead and wash all the dishes by hand.

Clean the top of the refrigerator, the stove exhaust hood, all large appliances. Go ahead and spray cleaner in the oven if you’re adventurous. Take out the drip pans and put them in a pan of hot soapy water to soak.

Fast And Furious Fall Cleaning Event Starts Today!

The Fast And Furious Fall Cleaning Event begins today in the Dining Room or Eating Area.

If you’re like me, you have been anticipating this event because there are things that just really need to be done in the house and you need some motivation. I hope I can provide that!

You might have better success today if you print this out and take it with you. Then, just come back during the day when you are taking a break to read and see what everyone else is doing. If you are participating in the Fast and Furious Event, try to stay away from the computer today unless you are breaking or of course unless you are done!

I have an area at the bottom of this post where you can come back and show a picture of what you have been working on! I will try to have one each day for each room… so share!

You might also want to print out the natural cleaner formulas if you will be using them. To make your own Natural Cleaners check HERE. Also HERE.

Remember, this kind of cleaning isn’t for everyone. Its for those who are physically able to move about and work fast and furiously. If you can’t keep up, please don’t feel badly. Just do what you can and feel good about it! Root for the rest of the ladies, and clean as you are able! We will cheer you on, too!

If you need help with knowing how to clean when you suffer form a chronic illness or disability, take a look at my Homekeeping Lists for the Chronically Ill and Disabled.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t know what is in your home, don’t know what your furniture, rugs, curtains, floors are made of….. so you will have to take responsibility for making decisions about what methods to use to clean some of these things. If I say wash your curtains and your fall apart… you probably should have read the label!

Today we will be working on the eating area or dining room. This is a difficult thing to dictate what to clean because some have dining rooms and some don’t. Some use the dining room regularly and some don’t . So we are going to have differing levels of need for our eating areas today.

I have a dining room that we use every single day. Its the first room that anyone coming into the house sees, so I try to make sure it is always presentable and neat. Since we eat in it most every day, I also have to be sure to get it clean every day.

Here are some general cleaning recommendations for most any room, with a few suggestions thrown in here and there for the eating area. If you have suggestions of your own, feel free to post them!

First Things first: De-clutter. Get everything out of the eating area that doesn’t belong there on a daily basis.

If you have a real clutter problem, get out your 4 boxes, baskets or bags and label them like we did for the master bedroom. You will throw away some things, store some, put away some or give away some.

Clean out hutches, cabinets, clean off shelves, tables and chairs.

Get everything out of this room but the furniture.

Move things off walls and off of all surfaces.

Clean anything that can be wet. Go ahead and make a sink of hot soapy water and immerse items that you can clean in water. Anything else, just sit it on the kitchen counter for now.

Now Start Moving Things Out Of Your Way

Take down curtains, toss in the wash if you can or air them outside.

Take up rugs, wash or air.

Take up chair pads, wash or air.

Get the chairs out of this area for now.

Get rid of cobwebs; use a towel on the end of a broom or other tool. Don’t use polish or cleaner for this you can streak your ceilings and walls!

The Nitty Gritty Cleaning Part

Make up a pan of hot soapy water or use whatever chemical you like. Wash ceiling and walls if needed taking care with the kind of wall coverings or paint you have.

Wash down the door frames and window frames.

Wash doors and baseboards. Dry if needed.

Wash windows.

If you can touch up paint in this room today, now is the time to do it.

Clean the furniture, wash and/or polish.

Clean and polish chairs.

Spend time cleaning and polishing the table.

Replace anything that truly goes in the storage areas of this room such as the hutch, cabinets, shelves, etc.

Sweep,vacuum and/or mop.

Polish wood floors.

Bring chairs back into the room.

Spread out your tablecloth, if you are using one.

Place a nice little arrangement on the table or a candle.

Replace curtains and rugs.

Want to share a picture of your clean and organized Dining Room or Eating Area? Leave a link to your blog and pictures below. It will show a thumbnail picture of your room and will be encouraging and motivating to the rest of us!

Here’s A Little Tip ……

In about one week, October 3rd, we will start our Fast and Furious Fall Cleaning Event here at CHK.   Its an annual event where I give you ideas, instructions about getting your home ready for cooler weather and the holidays that are coming up. You get to post your progress and even share pictures!

This week however I really want to encourage you to get ready for the cleaning event by developing a new habit.  OK, it might not be new for all of you, but for some of you it definitely will. 

I challenge you to get up at an early hour, get showered and dressed and put your apron on and get ready for the day by praying, reading your Bible and having your breakfast or coffee before anyone else gets up.

Why an apron?  Well, I wear one every day, it keeps my clothes clean and it helps me cultivate that mindset of service. An apron is a symbol of service.

Why the shower? Well, because it wakes you up and gets you ready for the day!

Why the Bible?  Oh you know that! Because starting the day with your heavenly Father is the way to get your day going right, get your mind pointed in the right direction and offer worship to the Lord.

Now I do realize that some of you have wonky schedules and have husbands with wonkier schedules, so just adapt as you can.

If you will get in the habit this week of getting up and getting ready for your day, next week will be a piece of cake!

Are you up for the challenge?  Are you with me?