The Fascinating Womanhood Podcast - The Feminine Revolution
The Fascinating Womanhood Podcast is your guide to timeless principles for creating a joyful, loving, and fulfilling marriage. Join us each week as we explore practical strategies, inspiring stories, and empowering insights to help women embrace their feminine strengths, nurture deeper connections with their husbands, and thrive in every area of life.
The Fascinating Womanhood Podcast - The Feminine Revolution
Running and Cleaning an Efficient Home: The Domestic Goddess Series | Episode 2
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What if keeping a clean home felt less like drudgery...and more like an enjoyable hobby?
In Episode 2 of our Domestic Goddess Series, we explore how our approach to cleaning can influence the light, warmth, and spirit we bring into our homes. We’ll talk about finding satisfaction in a job well done, creating routines that support rather than overwhelm us, and learning to work with our natural tendencies instead of constantly fighting them.
We’ll also introduce four common cleaning approaches: the Calendar Queen, the Daily Maintainer, the Power-Day Mindset, and the Cue-Driven Cleaner. You may recognize yourself immediately...or discover that you’re a combination of several! Understanding your style can reveal where you naturally thrive, where burnout tends to creep in, and how a little flexibility, planning, or delegation can make homemaking feel much more manageable.
Finally, we’re sharing practical ideas that work for every style, from music and podcasts to rewards, beautiful cleaning supplies, room-by-room cleaning cards,(ehh-hmm....FREE DOWNLOAD ANNOUNCEMENT AT THE END!) meal planning, and small home projects that make caring for your home feel creative again.
Because an efficiently run home doesn’t have to be a perfectly run home. The goal is to create rhythms that leave you with enough energy and joy to actually enjoy the people and the home you’re caring for.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the official Fascinating Womanhood Podcast, where we explore timeless principles for developing true femininity, inspiring authentic masculinity, and building strong, loving, and lasting relationships. I'm Cherry Lynn and I'm here with my mom, Dixie and Alyn Forsythe. Together we'll dive into the heart of what makes relationships thrive, offering practical wisdom and heartfelt conversations to help you live a more fulfilled and fascinating life.
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the Domestic Goddess series. Today we are doing episode two, which is creating a clean and efficient home. That's what a lot of us struggle with. So this one, this topic is a little bit more of the, I guess you could say, because I lost the last episode we did was more of the heart of the home, which has a lot of blacks, whites, and grays in it. I think this one can be a little bit more of the black and white. It's almost like you have your joy of homemaking, but you also have your business side, I guess you could say. Because after all, cleaning and running a home has a lot of similarities to a business. But we want to explain today how to manage and clean your home on a regular basis. We want to go through why it's important to have joy in cleaning, which I think probably makes some of you tilt your head a little bit and say, What? Joyful cleaning? Because a lot of us don't like cleaning. But we're going to discuss that. We're going to discuss um the satisfaction of a job well done. We're going to talk a little bit about why tending to your home is kind of like tending to a garden, which is mentioned in um, I think both Fascinating Womanhood. And then we're also going to talk about the four common cleaning personality types, which is kind of fun. And then at the end, we are going to reveal a little surprise for that is free for all of our listeners, a little cleaning, a cleaning surprise. Yeah. So let's let's start out with the joy in cleaning. What does this mean and where did it come from?
SPEAKER_03I think it came um for me, it came from my mother. That's where I was taught. And she was really good at and by the way, let's preface this by saying, we're not saying joy in sanitizing. The only way you can have any joy in cleaning is if you don't beat yourself up all the time. Because homes, especially where there's children in it, are never perfect. They just aren't. For me, the joy in cleaning bleeds right back into a job well done. Because when when I and I do I've done this many times, when I think, oh, I've got to do, I've got a vacuum, say a room, and I don't have time, and then I hurry, I don't do a very good job. It's it's a drudgery. Yeah. When you do a good job, you feel like standing back and looking at it and thinking, it feels so good to have this room clean. That's where you get the joy in it, is when you do it well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree. It's about your spirit as a homemaker and how you approach things. And obviously, some of us are a lot busier than others, like you mentioned, kids. Some of us have kids, some of us have small kids, some of us have babies, some of us, some of us don't have any kids, but we work, or maybe we work and we have kids. So that's gonna change dramatically. And I've been in all those seasons of life, and we've been in many seasons, and we all we understand that that it's tough, but the point here is a mindset shift and how you approach cleaning.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and my mother was so good at it. I wish everybody could have known her. She she did things like just thinking about it, like in her laundry room, she had these shelves and she put she put a very carefully printed or typed. She used like to type things because she didn't like her handwriting. These little stickers on the shelves just right there were where so-and-so's clothes. She'd fold them carefully and put a stack of them above there. Everybody had their name, and and there were their stack of clothes, and she had little notes in the kitchen where things go. She didn't tolerate too many things in one drawer. And so when you looked in any of her drawers, they were always tidy. I can't I can't boast about that because my drawers are not always tidy. Yeah, we're not all like that. No. No, I wish I was, because I like looking in a drawer that uh a couple days ago, partly because you know, I just disinspired me. I cleaned out a cupboard in the kitchen. Um, and now I like going in there and opening the door and looking at it. Exactly. Because because I took everything out, cleaned all the shelf. I didn't just rearrange it. I did it the right way. And so, and now I think, oh, I gotta do another cupboard. Exactly. Even if you're even if you're a neat freak like me, within a year your cupboards get untidy. Your refrigerator gets untidy.
SPEAKER_01So well, and I think a lot of us see that drudgery of approaching a task like the cupboard is a perfect example. Like, who wants to go through their cupboards? It's already shut, no one's really looking at it. That's like like it's like the bottom of the list. But to your point, when you get it done, that feeling that it gives you, that joy, like that's kind of it's it's teaching yourself to find joy because every time you open it, like you said, you feel that satisfaction, the job well done. And honestly, how long did it really take you?
SPEAKER_03Uh you know, I should have timed it. That would that would be a good idea. But I that cupboard in particular has been an eyesore for me for a long time. And I don't have to open it and think, I know there's cream of tartar in there somewhere. But I don't want it because I'm making something, I don't want to take the time to pull everything off a shelf.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think that what I'm hearing here is whatever, however long it took you, what a lot of us women are guilty of, myself, I'm very guilty of this, is we tend to look at a task and think of ours, think to ourselves, oh my gosh, that's overwhelming. Um, like the cupboard. Or like for me right now, my linen closet is a mess. Oh, so is mine. The kids get in there and they mess everything up and it's a mess. And I think to myself, I don't want to do that. It's gonna take forever. It's not something I enjoy doing. And it'll get messed up again. But the last time I fixed the linen closet, I was shocked that it was done in an hour. And I know an hour for a lot of us is precious. We may not have an hour to fix our linen closets, but that's really not that bad. It's the same thing with the dishes in the sink. If your dishes in the sink are piling up and you think to yourself, Oh, I'm so tired. I've had such a long day. But really, it takes you, I don't know, three minutes, five minutes, and you think to yourself, why did I get so upset with myself? Like, why did I why did I dread that so much and put it off when it was only three to five minutes? You see what I'm saying? You have to force yourself into this logic instead of feeling. I agree. Yeah. The last thing I wanted to mention in the joy and cleaning, and I love this, I think it's in both Fascinating Womanhood books, is remembering just just this is just a tiny trick. Remembering the joy you had as a child for all the women out there playing house.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And if you can remember any part of you that loved the the little play kitchen or the play vacuum, it's one of the most still to this day. I mean, it probably was when you were little and well beyond in history. It's some of the best-selling toys for toddlers, the little fake house stuff. Why is that? Why are little girls loving that?
SPEAKER_03I heard someone say, well, they have time to play. And I think, okay, okay, you gotta throw that in there. Yeah, but I think they like to, they're trying to be like their mother for one thing. And it feels good to take care of a home. It just really does. Now, sometimes our homes are big enough that it's not like a little girl and think, ah, there's so many, like you may have more than one bedroom to clean and and uh and maybe more than one bathroom. You have to not only clean this one bathroom and get it all tidy, but then there's another one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think little girls definitely like to uh nurture and they don't really realize it. And I think some boys do, but they don't do it the same way as the girls do. Girls find so much joy in it, and I I think if you can remember just a tiny piece of that, it might it might help you, it might not. But it's something that I try to think about when I'm cleaning because I do not enjoy cleaning at all, but I have tricked myself into it, and we're gonna get into some tips, everyday tips at the end of how you can kind of trick yourself into finding a little bit more joy. But let's shift into the garden comparison because I know this is also in both fascinating ways. What do we mean when we say that tending to your home is kind of like tending to a garden?
SPEAKER_03I'm not a good gardener, so I know a garden is where things grow and and flourish and become beautiful, and so taking care of it is very satisfying.
SPEAKER_01But doesn't she say something in her book about how if you have this kind of like mindset of drudgery, you kind of are pulling out weeds, something like that? Is that right?
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, pulling out weeds, but why are why are weeds a pain to pull out? Because nobody likes to weed either, do they?
SPEAKER_01Well, that's what I think that's what the community, or maybe that's what I took away from when I was like, oh yeah, you you when you look at like cleaning the toilet for example, that's a weed. It's almost like when you're gardening and you have to pull the weed out, and you don't want to do it, but you have to do it in order for your garden to flourish. And I think if you can think about it in that way, and because every job has drudgery.
SPEAKER_03If if I was gonna weed in a garden, I would to to be able to enjoy it at all, it would be good to have the right equipment. You know, those those those uh gadgets that kind of help to pull weeds, those claw things. See, I'm not real good at it, so and and cute gloves, and maybe something where you don't like a little short stool or something where you're not hurting your back doing it, then you might not mind it so much. So the same thing translates to say cleaning a toilet. If you have the right equipment, you have gloves, I would I would recommend gloves and a cleaning solution that you like the smell of so that you can make your task it you do it well because you have the right equipment, the right cleaning solution, and it'll help you do it faster.
SPEAKER_01Right. I I think for me the bigger picture in this is really important that if you are getting to those small weeds in your home, meaning the drudgery things, you can get to the flourishing things later. And you need to take a second, if you can, to look at the flowers, meaning those like you said with your cupboard, the job well done, the beautiful, I finished this and it looks great. And again, we'll get into some of the the kind of specific tips and how to make this a little bit more joyful. But I think what I really love about that garden comparison is that whole weeds versus flowers, and then when you stand back, and for anybody that whether you liked a garden or not, you can you can appreciate what a beautiful garden looks like. And so you've passed many houses and you say to yourself, wow, you know, the the amount of work that went into that garden, it's the same thing with the inside of your house. Oh, the amount of work that went into the organization, cleaning that goes on here, it's very loved, and you can feel that a home is loved. It doesn't mean that it has to be perfect and everything has to have labels, like you were talking about. I think those are the things that are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, she she liked that. I think she liked it, and it helped her feel um a little more control.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I but again, it's it's it's just like a garden. There's so many different types of gardens. There's really perfect ones that just take your breath away, and then there's some really organic ones that are so beautiful, and then there's small ones that are still really beautiful. And I think the same can go for your house. A lot of us we we have these expectations in our mind that our house needs to be a certain way, and then to get there is overwhelming. Oh, yeah, yeah. And if you can just think about well, what kind of what how can I make my house clean and efficient and feel loved, but I don't have to be that strict type A personality that does everything perfectly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you kind of defeat yourself when you have to do everything perfectly because yeah, the homemaking doesn't allow for that. It really doesn't. Even if you're the only one that lives there, the chances of your linen closet eventually getting kind of messed up. I don't know how it happens, but it just it maybe doesn't happen as bad or as quick, but it's probably gonna happen because of life.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so now we're gonna go into the four types of cleaning personalities. Now, this is something that I researched extensively, and kind of, I guess I in a sense we came up with this list based on what we know, what we researched out there. I went through tons of different cleaning websites, I went through different Marie Kondo kind of styles and different ways people approach things, and there's more than four, of course, but I think these are the four most common cleaning personalities and how you approach things. And I think what's important about going through these four is for you to understand what you're good at and what you maybe aren't quite as good at. I personally am a combination of two of these. I'm sure you probably are too. Yeah, I am. And a lot of you might find that you are a combo, but I think it's important to go through these quickly here today for everyone so that you can identify, like, hey, I actually am really good at that. Well, that's why I do that. It will help you to kind of just get to know yourself a little bit more, right? So the first one is we're calling the calendar queen. This is the the person who enjoys routine, but they also struggle when life happens.
SPEAKER_03Which it does.
SPEAKER_01I think it was your mom a little bit. Maybe, maybe not.
SPEAKER_03Well, my mother, it was so important to her. She was the quintessential calendar queen. She was. She had lists of what to she had a place in there for grocery lists, and she she lived the way she said. I mean, she she actually did.
SPEAKER_01I'm in awe of women like this. I am not like this. I have a little touch of it because I worked in businesses and I know that the reality is that you've got to have things on the calendar to be efficient, you've got to be list-oriented to have an efficient home and to remember everything. Some of us are good at remembering things. I'm pretty good at it, but I do think it's a real reality, like I said, that you have to have some sort of oh, I I I can't remember.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I have to write everything down.
SPEAKER_01But sometimes we don't have it written down in the same place, or we have it written down in multiple places. And some of see the calendar queen would never do that. She is a very organized person that is always just does not miss a beat. But at the same time, she becomes overwhelmed when things don't go as planned. And that's a that's a challenge for the women that you know, you have your everything's on the calendar, and then whoops, somebody wants to.
SPEAKER_03Well, see, that's why I personally I'm giving away some of my own personality. When I would plan meals in advance and had days for different things, I quit doing that because too many times life happened and and we weren't home in time for me to make the whatever it was, and so we had to do something else. And and so my my meals often got derailed because of life.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I think they the calendar queen is very good at moving tasks forward and trying to be flexible. But I think some of these ladies that I've personally known in my life, that still brings them anxiety, it's hard for them.
SPEAKER_03Uh, being a calendar queen is hard, but it it gives some women a feeling of organization that gives them a feeling of peace. And so I understand it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that the calendar queens do the best and they're the happiest when they write things down, they keep lists, and they delegate. I think calendar queens tend to be a lot better at delegating because everything's ready to go. And that's one thing I really admire about these women is they are really good at getting others to help them. Of course, not everyone. But these women tend to be good at that because everything is organized. Same thing with meals. The meals are planned, like you said, they shop for it ahead of time and they save time because they are so organized.
SPEAKER_03Well, and here's something for a calendar queen. I got a book years ago. It was a cookbook called Make a Mix Cookery. Maybe you remember it in my cupboard. And what it is, it's a book where you can make all these basic mixes, like there's a a roast beef mix that you can make, and then there's recipes in there for all the things you can make with that roast beef mix. And so you freeze it and you can say, I'm gonna make the chicken cachetori. And you've already got this mix that you thought. So for the calendar queen, that kind of a book is great because they can pull it out and makes making those meals quicker.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think if the calendar queen's got it on the on the calendar, it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_03Whether whether it's today or tomorrow, yeah, she'll get to it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but if something comes up, that's where it's hard. So just remembering for the calendar queen, like flexibility is your is on something you have to work on.
SPEAKER_03Like if you're planning a such and such for dinner, and then an aunt and uncle you rarely see say, Hey, we're coming into town, can we take you to dinner? You have to scrap that.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. Well, for me, I tr I used to be very calendar-oriented when I before I had kids, and I like similar to what I think you described, I realized the first few months of having a baby, I can't do this. I have to be more flexible. But now I've almost gone too far the other way, and I'm I need to get back into calendars because now my kids are a little older and I could be a little bit more calendar oriented, but things still happen. Sporting events pop up, and I can't I can't do that. So I try to be more calendar-oriented when it comes to things that I can control that don't really affect others, but it's still something I really want to work on. Okay, the second one is the daily maintainer. That's me. 100%. I kind of actually wrote this one out for us, just thinking about you.
SPEAKER_03Maybe a lot, maybe a lot of you out there are like that too. We we we it says she finds joy and control. Her home rarely becomes a disaster. I yeah, people come to our house and they always say how clean it is. It's actually very tidy. It isn't always real clean because the deep cleaning doesn't isn't a daily maintainer.
SPEAKER_01Well, the daily maintainer tends to struggle, not struggle, that sounds terrible. It sounds like you're like, oh no. But they tend to be a little bit less successful when it comes to cupboards and drawers because they are doing the outside things and they see it. It's all about visuals. The daily maintainer is all about finding that kind of like joy in cleaning a little bit all day, and just what you see is what gets cleaned up.
SPEAKER_03So if you pass a say a table and you see a big heavy thing of dust on it, you think I can't stand it, and you go get the dust rag and the cleaner and you clean it because you can see it.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's a short test, it's small, it's manageable, and you're cleaning a little bit throughout the day, so it never feels incredibly daunting. There's no really like deep, deep cleaning necessarily unless you have a combo and you've got that on the calendar, like the calendar clean.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like like yeah, and she uh also tends to do meals based on what she has in the cupboard. I have a I have a sister who's really good at that. She goes to the grocery store and she buys all these all these things that she knows she'll use, they're they're ingredients for some of the meals she likes. And she just gets them and I said, What are you making with this? I don't know, I'll figure it out later, but I know I'm gonna use salmon. So she she does that so that she has all these things in front of her and she knows what she can put together, and they're not always the same thing.
SPEAKER_01And you somewhat do that. You might go to the store and say, Hey, I want to make this tonight, which I think is also part of the daily maintainer. It's very kind of in the moment. This is an in the moment person, and it is successful in that your home is tidy, like you mentioned. Um and you basically never really have a dirty, a really dirty mountain that you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_03Daily maintainers don't keep dirty dishes around, they don't go to bed with a dish.
SPEAKER_01There's no mountain of laundry, there's no mountain of yeah, it's really like it's always kind of like we're ready to go. Now, some of the challenges that she might have is that she might, like we said, skip the deep cleaning or forget about it because you just don't really see you're just always in cleaning mode. Uh, you might burn out easily because you're always in cleaning mode. You might have a day where you're just thinking to yourself, I just want to rest today. Why do I feel so exhausted? Well, it's probably because you are always in cleaning mode.
SPEAKER_03Well, including in deep cleaning is deep organizing. Like get going through your closet and get rid of rid of things you never wear and then take it to the good will. I absolutely despise doing it I I do too. I make it partly because I have to fight with myself to give something to it because you think I might use it someday.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing this daily maintainer might struggle with a little bit is that she might forget to delegate because she's always in moving mode and other people may not see what she sees. And before you know it, your mess that you just made was cleaned up and you didn't clean it up for yourself because it was already cleaned up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, forgetting to delegate, it feels like too much work sometimes to delegate when you're this is hard, especially for the moms, because if you've got kids and you're not teaching them how to clean up after themselves because you're a daily maintainer and you just swoop in and grab their dishes, you're not teaching them that. And it's gonna get to a point where the burnout's gonna be there, the kids are not learning how to clean up after themselves. And you might find yourself, like I have at least, because I'm a little bit of a daily maintainer, just frustrated with your kids all of a sudden. Like, okay, there are messes everywhere. Why aren't you picking these up? Well, it's probably because they've learned that you just swoop around like a bird around the house.
SPEAKER_03Well, and also with children, it takes years for them for it for it to be a habit. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01You have to let go of that control, too. That's the hard part about the daily maintainer, is you have to let that mess sit there and you have to say, go clean it up. I'm not doing it. And that's hard for the daily maintainer. She wants it done now. She wants it.
SPEAKER_03Well, and and her kids might be in school or off somewhere, and she doesn't want to wait.
SPEAKER_01Right. So you have to be more mindful of delegating. I think that's the big the calendar queen, the flexibility piece is the hard piece. The daily maintainer, it's the delegating and the making lists because you don't want to miss those deep cleans. Like you said, the cupboard so good because you went through it. That's a great thing for a daily maintainer to challenge themselves to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the third one is the power day. The power day lady. She really loves to have this one or two days where you just bust out all the cleaning. I know my husband, his mother is like this, and he grew up that every Saturday morning it is cleaning day, and they clean the whole house, top to bottom, laundry, kitchen, like deep cleaning, light cleaning, tidying.
SPEAKER_03Or I mean it was a whole day that they would actually, actually, my mother did that too. She was a calendar queen and a power day. Yeah, because she the power day thing she'd get us to do. She'd say, Okay, it's time to on on uh Labor Day. I remember she said it's time to labor instead of a vacation. Oh dear. And so we I remember nobody does this now because we'd use different kinds of paint, but we we wash the walls. I don't know anyone who washes their walls.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I do uh from time. I mean it's very rare.
SPEAKER_03Spot cleaning. Spot cleaning about I'm talking about a big bucket of soapy water. Yeah, you do the whole wall, and and and so yeah, we did the laundry, the boys had to had to mow the lawn, and you know, all those things got done.
SPEAKER_01Um I think this this personality tends to kind of enjoy cleaning, and that's why it's a big power kind of push. You you get that momentum with this kind of style.
SPEAKER_03You can get to and you get to step back and see the whole house happened.
SPEAKER_01And that it's almost like they're singing, or they're like I know women like this. It's almost like they're singing and they see they it's almost like they seem to have this extra pep in their step. They're so happy that this whole house. My husband's a little bit like this.
SPEAKER_03Those those are the people, those are the people that Disney Snow White was patterned after with the while you work. Yes, yeah, and that the whole that whole scene was about cleaning the whole house.
SPEAKER_01Yes. That's and you know, this I have to say, I admire a part of this personality, is this person is really great at like rallying everyone to get in and jump in and help. And it's almost like your cleaning mindset is just it's it's contagious to other people in your household. Um, but some of the challenges like there are there's challenges with all of these. Obviously, that mountain of work that you're waiting until that day or two days of the week can become daunting to some personalities because what if you're what if you're tired that day? What if it's on the schedule for Saturday and you're tired, you didn't sleep, or you're sick, and then it can become a very daunting, huge task.
SPEAKER_03Well, like we said in the other ones, life happens. So when life happens and you depend on Saturdays when you can't always do Saturdays, there may be uh you may your kids may have an event on Saturdays and and and it disrupts it, and you can't do it that day.
SPEAKER_01Or this is the part for me that I don't like about this one because I've tried this. I don't like that two, three days leading up to cleaning day and how my house looks.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't either.
SPEAKER_01It feels so negative to me to be living in a house and you're like, well, I'm not gonna clean it yet because Saturday is my cleaning day. That's hard for me personally.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I have spots all over my kitchen floor that drive me nuts, but I'm waiting till Saturday.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think a more challenging, like a way to challenge this mindset just a tiny bit, because it's a really great approach, is to just maybe maybe putting time limits into your bursts of power mode. So instead of cleaning all day Saturday, do you maybe have three days where you clean for two hours or an hour and a half? And you still get that power mode in, but you you break it down so that your house doesn't have to be somewhat disastrous in the days leading up. Um, or you take a little note from that daily maintainer and you have a few things that you really approach. Um, and I think this one could really, in a way, be so great if if you combine the calendar one into it a little bit.
SPEAKER_03The power day mindset, I don't think necessarily includes leaving your dishes for one day a week.
SPEAKER_01Right. I think it's more of the deep cleaning slash vacuuming laundry. Like some people only do laundry one day a week, and I'm that's fine if you can make it work. I think the power day mindset, I've tried this in my life before I had kids, and it does work really well or did work really well for me. We would my husband and I would clean every Saturday morning, because I think I took that note from him because he did that, and I was just kind of going along with what he did. But we would do it together, and it was over because we had a tiny little house and it was quick. But if you have a family or maybe a really large house or both, this can become really challenging. It can turn into this mountain of work that is really tough for you. And I don't blame the women out there that trying to do it this way, and then that here comes Saturday, and they're just thinking, oh, you don't have a whole Saturday.
SPEAKER_03Well, if you're if you're a power day mindset, it would it's better if you don't it's dangerous because you could could get so you dread that one day. Yes, and you and the drudgery feels like everything is yeah, and you don't want to resent other people in the family because they have quote caused this to be messy.
SPEAKER_01Well, and go back to the gardening uh analogy. If if you did this with your garden, you might find that your some of your flowers do fine, but others, gosh, they might have needed you two or three days ago. Yeah, they it needed you to water it, and others are fine going without. And I think you have to kind of like look at each task or each area of your home as well, what needs me on a regular basis, and what can I come come back to just once a week? Yeah, yeah. Good analogy. Okay. The last personality is the Q-driven cleaner. This is a lady that's kind of like the daily maintainer, but she's a lot more flexible. She's a lot more, I want to say, like run-on sentence with her cleaning. She sees them as she cleans it, but then she's like, Oh, you know, this is over here. Oh, I'm doing laundry while I'm in the laundry room. I don't notice the laundry room floor is dirty. I'm gonna clean the laundry floor. Oh, now that I'm doing the floors, I should do the other floor. Oh, now that I'm in here, I should vacuum. Yeah. She kind of just does, there's no really there's joy, but there's really no routine.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that yeah. And and so some days she may not find it. But then let's say let's say uh somebody comes and is a guest and they're gonna spend the night. You have haven't, you know, you maybe have one day to prepare for it. She goes into full panic mode. She goes everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Which isn't a bad thing. It's just it depends on your personality. This person also loves making meals from recipe that she just so happens to see pop up maybe on her news feed, or maybe she sees a recipe on TV and she's like, Oh, uh roast chicken. I haven't made that in a long time. I'm making that tonight. Do you are you that way? Are you that way? Spontaneous. I am I am not a Q-driven cleaner. I need to have a little bit more of a routine, but I will do that with meals because I think meals, I get really bored with the same things over and over again. So I do love this cue-driven cleaner because she's spontaneous, and I love that.
SPEAKER_03The thing the thing about um meals that I just see pop up, I don't always have all the ingredients.
SPEAKER_01Well then she just goes to the store and she has yeah.
SPEAKER_03See, then that I think that's really disorganized.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, this person is less organized, and some people may see that as kind of a disaster, while as others may see it as kind of fun and adventurous. And if she's got time, why not? And now it's not very efficient, though. That's the thing, is that if you're constantly running to the store because you oh, I want to make this tonight, you might be doing that several times a week and you're losing time in your week. And you get one item at the store. Yeah, it's not efficient. Yeah, like like grandma would never have done that because she would have realized, oh, I just lost two hours out of my week where I couldn't be in this cupboard.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, she would she wouldn't have done that, she would have felt guilty at being not that organized. Of course, she never had the option of finding uh pop-up recipes. There was no internet. She had to women in those days had to have somebody that they knew, a friend or someone from church, say, uh, either they go to dinner at their house and they make something good. Can I have the recipe? Or they have to get a book.
SPEAKER_01Well, or your husband or your kids or whoever might say, Hey, let's make this tonight. I've been craving this. Have you ever had that happen? Yeah, and then I think I don't have all the ingredients. Oh no, I don't have yeah, like my uh son the other day said, you know what I've been craving is cinnamon rolls. Will you make cinnamon rolls? And I I just so happen to have everything and I made it. But if I hadn't, I don't to go to the store and go get all that would have been a lot for me.
SPEAKER_03Well, with cinnamon rolls too, you you you have to have the time to let the dough raise. I mean, it's it isn't just ingredients, it's also a time. I want cinnamon rolls, it's five o'clock at night. You think, well, yeah, I can't really do that. Or there's been a lot of times I've wanted to make a recipe and I look and I have missing one ingredient, like basil or something like that. And I think I don't want to go to the store with that one thing, and I don't want to make it without. So, you know, I'll do but what I'll do being the calendar person, I'll put it on my list. Exactly. To get that, yeah, because also gas prices are not cheap, and I don't like going to the store for one thing.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that's the kind of solution that we put for this one for what she needs to challenge in her life is making lists. Try to make a few lists and make daily non-negotiable cleaning instead of just being like, oh, I just clean whenever I see it and I just start cleaning when I feel like I need to start cleaning. You need to have a few non-negotiables just to make sure you don't get into that mess of oh no, I have messes everywhere, and suddenly I just like I neglected this whole room and I haven't looked in this room for two weeks or something. I don't know. Something that would allow you to just be a tiny bit more organized.
SPEAKER_03You'll feel you'll feel better about it. You'll feel better about yourself.
SPEAKER_01So those are the four. Which ones do you fall into? I'm sure as we were talking about it, you know which one you fall into. Maybe you fall into a little bit of each one, but finding out what your personality is will help you be understanding of yourself and what makes you tick, what makes you find joy, what you struggle with, and just try to be aware of that.
SPEAKER_03You know, one it's just one thing I noticed when we talked about uh cleaning uh linen closet. I think a lot of women struggle with this. A fitted sheet is a pain to fold well.
SPEAKER_01I should do a tutorial. I'm really good at this because I worked in a store where we had to do this all the time. Because it uh there's a trick to it. That would be great if you let us know if you want us to do a video about that. I'll do like a quick reel or something on it.
SPEAKER_03Because your linen closet is never gonna look good if the fitted sheet is watered up and put in there. It's just it's just not. I kind of do it, but I don't have a great the ones I've seen online, you have a great big flat surface you can lay it on and not everybody doesn't have a big flat surface they can lay on.
SPEAKER_01Well, if you have a sheet you have that fits a bed, you have your bed as your flat surface. And that's what I do. I lay the sheet flat on my bed to hold it. Okay, well I'd love to. Well, this is the thing is like the little tips with homemaking, I think, are really the key. If you have, and we can start getting into that. The tips that we have, and you can share yours. I just wrote down the ones that I use, and I think it's the ones I know you use, but that that's a good way to segue into tips is if you don't know how to accomplish something efficiently, you're gonna get frustrated and you're just gonna like you said, I'm just gonna roll it up and throw it in there.
SPEAKER_03Just want it in there and and fold the top sheet real nice and put that on top and hope nobody notices.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I don't like not knowing how to get stains out of things. It may cause you to not want to clean it because you're just thinking, that's drudgery. I don't want to do it because I don't really know how to do it efficiently. And I think how to repair, how to do it. Yeah, you challenge yourself to kind of okay, so tips for everyone, no matter what your personality. And I think this is something you and I both do, which is give yourself a reward after you've done something difficult or grueling. Yeah. What do you do as a reward?
SPEAKER_03My well, my favorite thing to do is to look back at it and feel great. I did it, you know, and self-talk, yeah. Yeah, it just feels really good. And sometimes if I get done in time, I'll reward myself. I get to watch some podcast or show or something like that. Yeah, or like read a book, I've heard you say. Read a book or something like that.
SPEAKER_01I'll I'll it depends on the it depends on the task. If I get something really difficult done, I might, if I can, I might get myself like a new dish towel for the season. Or I might go to the store and get like yeah, yesterday I went, I actually redid my kitchen. I should show you pictures. I redid my kitchen because I I kind of hate my kitchen. You what did you redo? I I basically took everything off. And you know, I have a c I have a box-shaped kitchen. It's like literally a box, a square, and it's smaller, so it's kind of difficult because you're kind of like it feels like a merry-go-round. You know, it's like everything uh on the countertops is very visible because it's a box. And so I just took everything off. I deep cleaned all the counters and I just started over. And I knew I was gonna do that, so I rewarded myself, I guess, ahead of time with new items for my kitchen. I changed all the colors, I got a new, I went to TJ Maxx and I went in the clearance area and I found all of these items that match my new color story that I was doing in my kitchen. But to me, that was fun because I was I rewarded myself in advance. But if if it's just an everyday thing, like you're cleaning a bathroom, like for me, when it's done, I'll do like what you did. I'll say, Oh, I'm gonna put on my favorite show, or I might do my nails, or I might just give yourself something at the end and promise it to yourself.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's and it is a reward, it's not like it's nothing. I also love putting, I know everyone pretty much has written into us giving us this tip, all of our Facebook ladies, putting on music or a podcast while you clean or cook is so wonderful. It's really truly how I find joy in cleaning and cooking because I don't particularly enjoy a lot of cooking. I like to bake, but when I put something on and I can listen to it, it may I just kind of forget that I'm even cleaning.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You kind of slow down and kind of enjoy it instead of trying to hurry and get through it.
SPEAKER_01And if you can't put music on or anything kind of like loud because you've maybe got kids and you don't really want them to hear it, or you need to be able to hear them, if you can just put in an earbud on one side, it I'm telling you, like for me anyway, it's really helped me to feel like I can zone into that task and help you just kind of forget about the drudgery that you're in.
SPEAKER_03It it really does. You almost don't want the job to be over as quick because you're not done with the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. That that was what was going on with me the other day. I was doing my kitchen and I had I actually had like a crime show on that I was listening to because I like to listen to crime, I don't know why, documentaries. But it wasn't it was over and I was in the middle, I wasn't done. So I was like, I need to find another one. So I found another one, but then that one went on really long and then I was done. So I was thinking to myself, oh, I think I'll just do some laundry now because I kind of became a cue-driven nerd. Yeah, that's how I suddenly because I was I was having so much fun listening to it, and I just kept going. Um, another one that I know you have taught me is to always find a home project that you can work on little by little to help you stay motivated. And this is a really good tip for the ladies that don't like to clean or maybe feel less motivated to get out of bed and clean. I've heard this from so many women. Maybe they have health problems, maybe they're going through a tough time in their life, and they just aren't, they just don't find any joy in it at all.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, um one of one of my daughters, um, you know which one, she I'm not in her kitchen, she got a, I know it seems kind of like it's not very good, but she got a paint by number kit that was really good. Some of them are really good now, and she painted for her kitchen this beautiful cake that looks so delicious, and she's got this painting on the wall, and so working on that, knowing that was going to go in her kitchen when she was done, was really fun for her.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love that. That's such a good example.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and she does uh you've seen some of the paint by numbers, they're really good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they are.
SPEAKER_03And what you do is you send in a photograph of whatever it is you want to paint, and they turn it into one.
SPEAKER_01Well, and what's interesting about that, she works too.
SPEAKER_03She works, she works for it.
SPEAKER_01She's not someone that's just sitting around like because I can I can just imagine some ladies listening to this and being like, Well, I don't have time. Well, this person works a pretty grueling schedule, I have to say.
SPEAKER_03And she has two autistic kids.
SPEAKER_01She has kids, and she's if she can find time to do that, that that's pretty amazing.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Just find some I love that idea because it's like, okay, this is something I love to do. It's painting. It doesn't really have anything to do with cleaning, but it's almost a reward at the same time as finding a fun project that you can do in your house that makes you remember it's that gardening thing. This makes me want to tend to my house and love my house.
SPEAKER_03If I was doing a painting for my kitchen, which I don't think I have room for a painting in like I have lost, I have too many cupboards, but um I would want to clean the whole kitchen to be ready for the painting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I don't mean do dishes, I always do those, but I mean cleaning out covers. I'd want to do the whole thing just sort of to prepare for that painting. That's that's how I am.
SPEAKER_01Well, and if you're not into art, it can be something else. You can be working on a like this is something I've been wanting to do for years is go through all of the photos that I have that are printed. I don't have a ton, but I have enough to where they're in a box. I would love to go through those and put them in pre-photo albums and you know, or like scrapbook stuff that our momentums, like I have concert tickets in envelopes in my closet. I'm thinking, oh, wouldn't it be nice to put that with a photo? Like some people aren't into that, and but I could see that being a fun project that you're working on a little bit over time, and it's helping you to stay motivated to keep your house organized and clean.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_01Another tip we have is to be creative with how you approach cleaning, and that's kind of what we were just talking about. But for those of us that don't love the calendar portion, but we know we need to work on it, are you doing something creative with the calendar? Are you printing out something that's cute? Or are you buying a tool that makes cleaning more fun? Uh, are you buying maybe rubber gloves that? They're pretty. Are you there's some really cute ones. You know what I mean? Or do you have an I have an apron that I put on when I clean? And it's kind of like my reminder of like, okay, I'm in cleaning mode. And it's cute and it's pink. That's one of my things that I do. Or do you have a cleaning bucket of all of your cleaning stuff? And it's it's a it's a fun little bucket that has all the tools that you need, and you just put that together and it motivates you to Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I found a pink bucket, which is strange, but it does motivate me. I need it's hard to find a pink bucket, but I found one.
SPEAKER_01I I got my mother-in-law for Mother's Day a couple years ago because she loves to garden. I got her a whole gardening kit with an apron and a little uh those little things that you have to sit on, like that you have to kneel on, those little things. I know I don't know what they're calling. Got her a cute little kit. And like for and then when I got it for her, I was like, oh, I should get one of those. Like, why don't I just have a bunch of random ugly tools that I use when I'm out there in the garden. I should get something like that. Like things like that that make you excited, maybe even a cleaning product that you just love the smell of. Yeah. That smell makes you feel so happy when you're using it.
SPEAKER_03I know that sounds silly, but no, wait, well, I know exactly what you mean. I I I choose cleaning products that I think when I say I'm gonna do my kitchen floor, that I I can picture how good the room will be when I walk into it after it's clean because I can smell it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I I recently bought and I know you know this because I bought you some of these. I recently bought some wool uh scents from Bath and Body Works. You can see it. Oh, that you plug in, yes. Yeah, you plug them into your outlet and they're not very expensive, and you can buy all these different scents. And I recently bought another one. I have some in my kids' rooms, but I bought one for my kitchen because I thought I wanna, you know, I just redid my kitchen and I want to put this in here so that every time I walk in the kitchen, it smells like fresh oranges. I love that smell.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that sounds really nice.
SPEAKER_01So it's just little things like this that you just get creative to make trick yourself into finding those little bits of joy. And I think the last tip we have, and this is what brings us to our kind of final little little free surprise, I guess you can call it, is we when you were growing up, your mom introduced cleaning cards. And I know you've talked about this in other podcasts that we've done. You've talked about this on your YouTube live sessions that you do. Do you want to talk a little bit about what those cleaning cards are and why those were important to you?
SPEAKER_03Well, my mother got three by five those little uh cards in a card stock, and she she typed up how to clean, like say, the bathroom. And she'd have one, two, three, all the steps, because she'd say to me, for example, it's your turn to go clean the bathroom. Well, how does your child know what the steps are in cleaning it? And so I would do maybe the obvious things like clean out the tub or the sink, but I would totally forget to put clean towels in or to or to clean the floor. So she made a list of everything that needed to be done in the bathroom, and she gave it to us. And so we used that card, and and we could, in our mind, we didn't actually write on it, we could check off in our mind when we did each thing. So then when she would come, she always inspected. We she didn't always say, Oh, you forgot to do this, you forgot to do that. Everything was on the list, and we used them for years. So here's her card. So she didn't have to, we didn't say, Well, how come she didn't say how come we didn't dust the living room? Oh, I forgot.
SPEAKER_01Right, it's on there, you got to check it out. And we recommend laminating these, and we this is what we're offering to all of our listeners is to if you go to our website where this podcast is going to be posted, you're going to see free PDFs. I think there's 10 cards total uh that you can print, and we recommend you laminate them, and they're great, they're actually great for your husband, too.
SPEAKER_03I would I know they're probably good for kids, but I didn't do cleaning the garage, I probably should have.
SPEAKER_01Well, we could have more later. These are just 10 kind of basic ones, but I think what's great about the all of the personalities for cleaning is that you can all utilize this as a tool, whether you want to or not, and it'll just be there if you want it or not, but it'll get you more into the mindset and those helping you of not only having things written down, but delegating. And if you can give these cards to people that are helping you clean, hopefully your kids, um, I guess your husband would use them.
SPEAKER_03Well, children, children, you're teaching them how to clean. So these cards are really good. Uh, I know, I know it it helped me learn to do wash the dishes the way, the proper way that the way my mom was trying to teach me to do. And I had the card, and I and I'd forget to sweep the floor, it wouldn't even be up.
SPEAKER_01You can tuck these cards into uh places that would make sense for each one. So, like for the dishes or for the kitchen, you can tuck it somewhere in your kitchen so that it's always easy to find. And this is something that I did when I managed a retail store. We had to, again, going back to the business part of this, we had to tidy up the store every night. And we had I had cleaning cards on every surface. So we had tiers of merchandise and we had long tables of merchandise, and underneath the table, I would put a cleaning card under there for my staff. And sometimes I even had a picture, like a Polaroid, of what it looked like when it was perfectly folded and perfectly tidy, and they could pull the picture up and just copy that picture for those who are a little bit visual. Yeah, yeah. So if you are a visual learner, you can utilize these cleaning cards with a picture if it applies. So I think a bathroom would be a really good example. You could say, hey, like this is how it should look when it's all tidy, and then go down the list if you need that list to kind of cross everything off.
SPEAKER_03I know my mother used to like with for the toilet, for example, we would put the cleaning stuff in the toilet, toilet bowl, but we didn't think to wipe down around the bottom and the top.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and some of us get distracted and we forget. It may not even be kids, it may just be us, and we just I forgot to to refresh this, or I forgot to wash the the mat on the floor in the bathroom. Yeah, that's something that you just kind of like just kind of out of your mind. You're not thinking of it. Right. So those cards, if you're listening to this, are available on our website. So go check those out if that's something that would be interesting to you or helpful. And I think that's all we have. If there's anything that we left out of the cleaning and the managing of the home, please let us know. We can do a follow-up episode because I know this is a big topic.
SPEAKER_03It is, yeah.
SPEAKER_01There is one more episode of this series, which will be about more of the beauty and the decor part of your home. That's a fun one. It is fun. And if you have any requests or questions for that episode, please let us know. Message us, and we will record that one next week. Thank you, mom, so much for sharing all of your great tips and all of your advice.
SPEAKER_03Thank you for yours.
SPEAKER_01And for those of you that don't know about Fascinating Womanhood, you can find everything on our website, which is fascinatingwomanhood.com, and that's where you'll find this episode in the cleaning cards that you can download. And everything that you would want to know about us in our book collection, our social media connections, our coaching. You can sign up for Dixie's YouTube membership. That's a great one that you can that you can learn more about fascinating womanhood from. We hope to hear from you soon. All right. Stay feminine. See you next time. Bye. Bye.