Step right up and take a spin

Way back when Chris and I got married, we decided that as long as we were both working full time jobs, that we would share in the housework duties.

Back then, we were living in a condo slightly larger than a shoebox.  Cleaning that place was a 1 hour endeavor and deep cleaning was a 2 hour endeavor- tops. 

I can honestly say we are not the best at keeping our place "deep clean" although it is almost always tidy.  This is mainly because Chris follows me around the house picking up shoes, clothes, blankets, empty glasses etc that I have discarded as I moved from room to room.  Seriously, this happens.  I just leave my crap wherever I want to.  This drives Chris bonkers. (Sorry honey)

Anyway, we are both good at tidying up, straightening the couch pillows and even throwing our dishes in the dishwasher.  What we are not so good at, is keeping up with cleaning on a regular basis.

Now that we have nearly quadrupled our square feet, we are sorely lacking in the cleaning department.

I love that we have 2 bathrooms, but I hate that we have 2 toilets to clean.  Everything in this place is doubled or tripled and I find it overwhelming.  So most of the time I end up sitting on the couch making a list of all the chores I need to do while catching up on the Real Housewives- and we all know how that ends.... me, still on the couch hours later, too tired to start cleaning.

If I'm not curled up on the couch, I make a conscious effort to multi-task.  While cooking dinner I will also sweep the floor or wipe down the appliances.  Chris is also pretty good at keeping up with the vacuuming (mostly because our beloved white rug in the living room sheds like a balding golden retriever).  But somehow it's still not enough.

As we were going to bed the other night- this is where all serious discussions take place like when we are going to finally take the wood in the backyard to the dump, and who was the last to clean the toilet- we decided that we need a better solution to our haphazard cleaning schedule (we have no schedule at the moment).

Chris threw out the idea of a chore chart.  Or maybe he said a chore list, and I heard chart.  They are the same thing- basically.

I was thrilled (about a chart). 

Reason 1.  Because he wants to be proactive about cleaning- score!
Reason 2.  Because I get to be crafty and MAKE my own chore chart.

I googled all over the internet looking for a wonderful chore chart that some smart and trendy blogger had already created.  I wound up with crap.  Serious crap. 
 

If you want to kill the environment with Styrofoam, go here.

 

If you want your chore wheel to look craptastic, go here.

So, since the easy way had failed me, I had to do it the good old fashioned hard way.  Make it myself.

Luckily for me, I am quite handy with Microsoft Publisher.  If you are a whiz kid at the computer or if you use fancy programs like In Design and Photoshop, you should stop reading here.  You will only be offended by my non-skills that use Publisher- a program not intended to design anything.  But trust you me.  It works.

So basically I wanted a top layer that had a see-through hole for both Chris and I, then I wanted a middle layer that had the chores on them, and then for fun I wanted a back layer (because I wanted it to be pretty).

So I drew 3 circles all different sizes.  Then I went to work on the front layer.

Front: I wanted a fun colorful design to match our green and blue kitchen rug.  I decided to create my own design with a series of different colored/shaped lines.  Then I added 2 holes for the see-through areas (windows) and a cute area for our names (in case Chris got confused if this chart was actually for him).  I didn't label the widows since I figured we would turn the wheel and then I would let Chris pick from the 2 which chore he wanted to do.  (I do most of the cleaning right now so I don't care what chore I do as long it's not all of them)


Front of wheel

Then I started working on the back since it was the easiest thing to do.  

Back: I just copied and pasted the design from the front and turned it grey scale.  Then (since I'm a genius), I decided that I would turn the design on it's side so that it would be the opposite from the front. What I forgot was that since it's a circle, I didn't need to turn it.... they would all turn and so they will match and not match all the time.  Genius I tell you.



Back

Then I had to do the "hard part," the actual chore wheel.

Middle:  I only call this the hard part because it had a lot more moving parts than the back (which had none).  I had to match up the words with the "windows" on the front panel and then align them inside their pie pieces. 

Then I had to come up with the chores. This part was harder then I imagined.  I was trying to come up with easy enough tasks that we would actually complete them but I also wanted to cover all our bases so were weren't leave a huge part of the house not clean.

Once I was all done designing and tweaking, I printed and cut them out.

I mounted all layers on card stock.  As I was mounting the middle layer, I realized that I didn't have a "spinner" on it.  So I cut out a little tab of my card stock and created one.



Card stock makes everything better



Spinner

Then I decided that I needed a little divider between each layer, to help the spinning, so I created a double layer of card stock to stick in between the layers.

Then I lined up all the layers and used a thumb tack to punch a hole through the middle of the layers.  I didn't have any brads, and I was too cheap/impatient to buy some, so I used a little creativity.  I found a white paperclip and decided to make it my spinning mechanism.

Paper clips rule.

 Then, since I was already been cheap and impatient, I couldn't be bothered with buying a legit magnet to hang it on my fridge with, so I found an old promotional magnet from the MS walk (hence why it looks like a foot) and I glued it onto the back of my wheel.

Free and easy, just how I like it.

 I popped the chart on our fridge and waited for Chris to notice it.



He didn't.

I pointed it out to him this morning and he laughed and asked me if I really made a chore chart.

Of course my answer was "Duh, yes.  You said you wanted one."

He said he didn't recall asking for a chore chart......

Yeah whatever. Chart... List.  TomAto...TomAHto.  

He did like the spinning and the see-through windows, although every time he spun it, he landed on chores he didn't like.  Then he accused me of doing "all bad ones."

Yeah whatever.

Hopefully this gets us in the cleaning mood. Spin to win!