Oct. 12, 2006 - We are in the ZONE

The Cleaning Zone that is...

My husband works in a manufacturing plant in Pella. (Guess which one).  He is in the maintenance department.

They have a 5S program for keeping their shop clean.  My dh would like to be able to come home from work and have the house clean.  I think that would be nice too.

I am the mom.

I am the teacher.

I am the house keeper.

I am the cook.

I am the driver.

I am the diaper changer.

I am the trainer.

I am... in over my head.  Ü  Yeah -- I'd like to be laughing... I'm not.  I can not do all of those things -- and meet his standards.

So I started praying.  God -- in some way -- show me what I need to do in order to meet his standards.  We've got to have a peaceful home.  That is a must. 

This week dh sat down with a pen and a notebook and drew a map. Well -- he drew a floor plan of our house and broke it up into zones.  Our house has 7 zones.  

Let's see...

Zone 1 - kitchen

Zone 2 - classroom and entry way

Zone 3 - dining room/bathroom/den

Zone 4 - living room

 and then we head upstairs

Zone 5 - boys room/bath/hallway

Zone 6 - girls room/laundry/stairway

Zone 7 - baby room/master bed

Then he started listing all the duties for each zone.  I had a very detailed list of things that we do every Thursday.  But he wants some things done DAILY.  OK -- Then he wanted it typed up - set up into a check list.  I went ahead and added our regular Thursday items to the checklist.  So the duties go down the side... the days go across.  You check the duty on the day you did it.  If it's a Thursday item -- then there will be one check.  If its a daily item (like pick up clothes off of the floor) then it will ge 7 checks.  A thursday item would be something like dusting.  Each zone gets 1 page of duties.  He is going to make copies of each zone - 52 each and we'll start a new check list each week.

We will be rotating zones.  There will be 3 of us to rotate through the kitchen -- oh let me stop here.  My dh put himself in the rotation.  I laughed out loud when I saw his name on zone 7.  He has to put the shoes away and make the bed.  Why did that look funny?  I don't know... I don't really expect him to do that... but he mentinoed that he'd rotate in -- so I put him in there.  But I really am needing help -- I can't do everything all by myself.

I am organized... I know what needs to be done... it's getting kids to help -- or realize that something needs to be done today and not tomorrow.  I've trained my kids how to do things.  They know their chores... but so many times the outside is way more alluring than dishes, or bathroom chores, or picking up school books or, or, or...

So -- all this to say.  Whew... it all looks so easy.  I've done quite a bit of typeing.  He'll do a lot of copying -- I hope it works!  It works where he works... why shouldn't it here? 

We aren't making the littles do the kitchen zone.  DH, me and Tori (11yo) will each rotate through zone 1.  Every 3rd week we'll be on kitchen clean up duty. 

If we stick to this -- I'll be doing a lot less.  I can't believe it. DH will be doing a lot more.  LOL.  The kids will be about the same -- but they will be able to rotate through the jobs and not be doing the same things week after week, after week... so maybe it will be a little less tedious.  Since it's Dad's idea -- I'm hoping they will think it is a grand idea.

The kids will rotate on zone 5 and 6.  They will stay with their bedroom each week -- but alternate with the upstairs bathroom/hallway and laundry room/stairway.  Dan and I will alternate with our bedroom -- we didn't have the kids clean our zone.  But I just want to giggle at "lay out church clothes" on Saturday.  I wonder what I'll be wearing every other week. This ought to be interesting.  LOL!! 

He mentioned that at work there are more men than zones -- so sometimes you get a week or two off from the cleaning.  That doesn't happen here.  Sometimes we have to do 3 zones.  But then there are other weeks... I'm not sure how this happened but Nov 26... I'm not doing any zones.  Can that be?  Same for December 24.  How nice.  I surely did NOT do that on purpose.  But maybe God was looking out for me. Apparently we do have some off weeks.  How nice.  Hmmm... those are the only 2 weeks that that happened... and it didn't happen to anyone else.  Should we call it a miracle?  Ha ha haaa...  Shhh... don't tell.

OK -- I'll keep you posted on how this works.  Maybe he should write a book. The Maxwells seem to have made a big splash with MOTH.  Ü  Dan could write IN THE ZONE or something...  There probably is a copywrite on that zone thing with the 5S program at work.  Someone already wrote the book -- Oh well.