Small Things - April 1st and 4th

Even though I was on a blogging hiatus, I did still read blogs while I was gone - well, a few of them anyhow. And Home Sanctuary is one of the ones that I continued to follow. I just wasn't sure when I was going to get back to posting about my participation in her Small Things. But today seems like as good a day as any!

On Friday, which also happened to be April 1st, we were supposed to do something silly. Only one thing. Well, I'm going to count my day at work as being silly because I was a) sleep-deprived and b) hyped up on caffeine and no-calorie sweetener. I don't know what could make me more silly than that to be honest. I had my trainer, myself and trainee cracking up. It was crazy silly fun.

We were to receive 40 points for doing something silly and then an additional 10 points for sharing about it, so 50 points for Friday.

Then today, we were to take a damp cloth and wipe whatever you can with it until you run out of moisture. When you run out of moisture you are done! I did this in the kitchen. I got our counters wiped down, the stove top, the fridge front, the sink and the front of the dishwasher. I even got the small appliances and the primary knickknacks wiped off as well, such as our One Touch canister set (like this one here) and some of the other things we have set out full time on our counters.

So, there was an additional (and EASY!) 40 points! So, now I am up to 90 points for the month!

Showers and baths and cleaning, oh my!

Today's Small Thing was something that I had planned on doing anyhow. As you all know, we have had the sickies around here and when that happens, I like to go around and disinfect as much as I possibly can, as soon as I can possibly do it.

I had planned on doing today's Small Thing before kids' bath time, but tonight was so unorganized and poor JoNo and Boo were just having a rough night in general with not feeling well and I guess I should mention Hubby still isn't feeling the greatest either. All that to say, I didn't get to today's thing until after bedtime.

But I did it. I cleared the bathtub of the toys and all the bottles of shampoo and conditioner and soap and bubble bath and loofahs and then gave the tub a good scrub down. We still have some paint drips on the tile surrounding our tub from when Hubby painted last year and when I am in there taking a bath, I pick at them. I didn't feel like trying to work on those tonight, so I skipped the paint removal part of my bathtub scrub routine.

Then I went downstairs and gave our shower a good scrub down too. I don't know if it is hard water or soap build up or what, but our shower never looks clean. EVER. I cannot wait to get the Shaklee so that I can finally have a shower and shower door that look like I clean it every once in awhile. So frustrating! Agh!

I did end up needing to add some supplies to the upstairs bathroom, and thankfully, I had enough on hand to do so without cutting me short in the kitchen. Yay for that! Boo for it being harsh chemical cleaners, but one thing at a time, right? Right.

Okay, point totals. Today's first bathtub or shower scrubbed down was worth 40 points, then the second one was worth an additional 20 points and assessing the cleaning supplies was worth another 20 points for a grand total of 80 points! Which I would just like to point out that I earned all of. That brings my monthly total up to...400 points!

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!

Company Girl Coffee 3.11

Well, I guess I will get a post in today, contrary to what I said yesterday. I am still feeling pretty rough and I wasn't able to sleep last night due to one child or another being awake and not feeling well. But at the moment, the only thing plaguing most of the children is a cough. There were no incidents of bodily fluids being expelled in an undesirable manner, no fevers, just the cough. Well, I have a fever, but I think all four kids will be able to attend school today.

I have been attempting to lose weight recently. I started in earnst on February 7th of this year and so far, I have lost 18.5 pounds! That is incredible and I am so encouraged by that! I still have a long ways to go yet, but I feel like I have gotten off to a great start already. I am really pleased. My largest weight drop actually happened just this past week and a half when I lost 5.5 pounds. It was a lot at once and it wasn't necessarily intentional either. I think it was just that I have had a lot of anxiety lately and plus, I was starting to come down with something, so I'm sure that factored in as well.

My house is a disaster area today and I will probably only be doing a minimal amount around the house today, unless I start to feel much better very soon. I found a number of different recipes last night for making homemade furniture polish. I decided to try one out last night that called for 2 tsp. olive oil (or canola oil or whatever oil you use to cook with), 2 tsp. of vinegar mixed with 32 oz. of water. I have a bottle of extra virgin olive oil in my cupboard that I don't use because I don't like the flavor, so I used some of that along with some apple cider vinegar that was under my kitchen sink. The bottle of vinegar is a 32 oz. one and it had very little left in it, so I emptied the vinegar into another smaller container and then mixed up the polish in the vinegar bottle.

My kitchen has a LOT of wood in it. Well, truly, my whole house has a LOT of food in it. Our house was built in 1964 and I'm sure the wood accents and such are original to the home. Anyhow, I took this mixture and poured some onto a rag and tried it out. I think it did an okay job on the areas where I tested it. The one thing about the mix is that just before applying it, you have to shake the bottle to mix the ingredients together well enough to use.

I also decided to look up some information about freezing different items. We have a lot of eggs and potatoes to use up one way or another and I discovered a few different things. The first one being that egg noodles are incredibly easy to make and at very little cost. Two, potatoes can be cut up into french fries or wedges and then seasoned and baked, allow to cool and the freeze in a freezer bag or other storage container. (I would use a freezer mate container from Tupperware myself.) The third item I discovered last night is that you can freeze eggs. All you have to do is take the eggs, crack them into a bowl and whisk them (much like you would if you were going to make scrambled eggs) add a little bit of salt and then place into a container to freeze. Who knew?! Oh, well, I suppose somebody did before they posted it on the internet. I would also recommend that if you are going to do that, you write on the container or on your label or tape how many eggs you used for the mixture. And the last item is that you can freeze milk. You just open it up, pour out a glass or so and then put the lid back on and place in freezer. When you thaw it out, just place it in your fridge and allow to thaw. You may want to give it a good shake when it is thawed though, as milk will sometimes separate in the freeze/thaw cycle.

A whole load of easy tips and tricks that will save money and time and is just good information to know. I even discovered a recipe for crackers, in the event that I would need to make some today for upset tummies. I love the research power of the internet!

Today I plan to rest as much as possible and see if I can get at least a little bit of work done around the house. If I don't get around to housework until Monday, I will be just fine with that too. The most important thing to me at this point is to take care of my family and to get better myself too.

Happy Friday to all of you and hope you are all well or at least on the mend. Here's to hoping my house(hold) will be on the mend soon as well!

ALSO - please consider making a donation and sponsoring my boys by clicking on the links under my banner above. They would really appreciate it!

Insomnia

Man oh man, this insomnia thing is just kicking my butt. I haven't been able to sleep very well for the last few weeks and so I end up spending my nights either puttering around on the computer, working on projects around the house or laying there in bed, waiting for sleep to happen.

Last night (Monday night) I even took some Melatonin to try and help me fall asleep. Well, technically I guess I should say to help me fall back to sleep. I was really tired on Monday night and conked out around 8:00 when the kids did. I was awake again around 9:30. It was so disappointing. Then I couldn't fall back asleep, so I took some Melatonin around midnight or so. I finally fell back to sleep around 8:00, but woke up around every 30 minutes until 1:30 when I finally just got up for the day.

My schedule is so wonky and it is driving me crazy. I can't stand this! I hate sleeping during the day time when I don't have to work nights (which I'm not right now!) but I can't sleep at night and I sleep fitfully during the day. This is just not working for me! Gah!

Okay, so moving on...when I work on projects at night I have to make sure that they are relatively quiet projects. I'm not the only one in my household who sleeps like crap. We have kids who get up in the middle of the night and change sleeping locations. Tonight alone, Natty came downstairs to the living room while I was taking a break from the project that I was working on and asked if he could sleep on the couch in our den because he had a nightmare. I'm sure he would have just taken the couch in the living room but that's where Hubby and Boo put each other to sleep tonight. (awww, so cute!) So anyhow, Natty went down to the den to sleep. Before that, I had been working on my project and came up to the living room to take a break and found JoNo in my chair. I promptly sent him back up to his own bed. And before you think that I showed favoritism to Natty, let me assure you that had Natty been in MY chair, he would have been promptly sent up to bed as well. No one gets Mama's chair. Just the way it is.

So, as I was mentioning, my project. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the closet before I got started on it because I wasn't really sure how much time I was going to spend on it or if I would even get it done. But surprise surprise! I made a HUGE mess in my room when I emptied that closet out! I took EVERYTHING out of the closet. And when I say everything, I mean E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. The closet is roughly 4'x5'. To the right side of the closet, there are shelves and cubbies that take up about 2' of the 5', which leaves an open floor area of 3'x4'. Let me just start out by saying that the shelves and cubbies were PACKED full of miscellaneous stuff. Okay, really, who am I kidding? The closet was packed full of miscellaneous stuff. I had no clue what was in there. The only thing I did know was that the pile of "stuff" in there was taller than me. I'm 5'4". Yeah. Stuff and stuff and more stuff.

So, I started with the spot right in front of the door and worked my way down to the floor. By this time, I had acquired a sizeable trash pile, three totes that held items that belonged in different areas (kitchen, living room and kids toys), and a clear floor area in the closet. Oh - and I had "lost" my queen size bed, most of my bedroom floor and a card table under the mountain of stuff that had come out of this closet.

Since the main area of the closet was clear, I grabbed a chair and stood on it to get totes and boxes and more down from the upper shelf (the one that is like six and a half feet off the ground! Then I started in on the shelves and cubbies. What a workout!

First of all, I want to tell you some interesting (or perplexing) things that I found. First, I found six rolls of Christmas wrapping paper left over from the after-Christmas clearance sales from 2008, so I took those and stuck them into my Christmas tote that was in my room anyhow waiting to have a home cleared out for it in our basement. Only one thing at a time, please!

Let's see...what else did I find? Oh - I found two air mattresses. One twin, one queen. I know one of them doesn't hold air, but I can't remember which. They are both laying on the floor next to my bed at the moment because I am trying to decide whether I want to test them both out and purge the one that doesn't hold air, or if I want to just go ahead and get rid of both of them since we never use them anyhow.

Hmmm...I found lots and lots of clothes that I am going to have to wash because I have no idea how long they have been in there and it was dusty and yucky in there from being neglected and having more and more crap thrown in on top. At the bottom of the pile I found my mother-in-law's old vacuum cleaner that she had given to us when ours stopped working about two years ago. She had just gotten a new one and figured she could part with this one. It doesn't do the greatest job but it is still a decent vacuum. I plan to put it out in the garage to use on our vehicles once I get the garage cleared out. For right now, it's tucked back into the back cubby area, where it fits wonderfully. I might even just keep it there and vacuum the cars out in our lower driveway, which isn't far from our bedroom and has an outdoor outlet right there anyways.

But the real kicker, the one that really took the cake for the finds...a used pregnancy test. The cap had been put back on, by the way. But the thing of it is, this test was most likely taken in, oh, February of 2007. That is the most recent it could have been taken. Let me also point out the fact that we moved into this house in December 2008. So not only is this test 4 years old, but it flippin' moved with us! I just don't know. I mean, I remember keeping it for a short while in our master bathroom, but really? I thought I had thrown it away. It just boggles my mind. And just for the record, the test has been thrown away.

Speaking of throwing things away, this is what the closet yielded:

• 3 kitchen size Glad Force Flex trash bags full of trash
• 3 hot wheels race car tracks with missing pieces
• 1 or 2 air mattresses that may or may not hold air
• 1 folding chair that has a severely torn seat
• 2 full boxes of papers and cardboard (really it's for the recycling, but I didn't want to make a whole separate category for recycling for that one little bit)

 Then things that got moved to another area:

• books to my bookshelf in the living room
• books to the kids' bookshelf in the living room
• medicines (still within expiration date) to the cabinet in the kitchen
• vhs tapes and dvds to the entertainment center in the living room
• kids' toys and stuffed animals to their floor of the house
• a set of 2 stacking shelves which I repurposed - you will see this soon in another post

Things that got put back into the closet:

• questionable laundry bagged up and ready to be taken downstairs as I work on laundry today
• 3 table legs that go to a kiddie table that belongs to the little ones. I think the 4th leg is in the basement and I know the tabletop is down there for sure.
• sports cards (in binders and sleeves or in cases)
• a few board games
• 2 small totes of keepsake items and pictures
• a small tote of bags (backpack, messenger style bag and rolling duffel bag)
• a small tote of cords that I am going to have Hubby go through. He knows what we need to keep and what we can toss out. I'd just toss them all and end up having to buy a replacement one. I don't want to have to do that. I already had to buy a VGA cable (I think that is what it is called) to hook up our new monitor to our new computer tower earlier this year. Guess what I found in that tote? A VGA cable. Darn it! That was a waste of $15 right there. Wonder how much money I have truly wasted in this one closet alone. Eh, scratch that. I probably don't want to know.
• and 2 empty laundry baskets and 2 empty totes

So, the closet probably wouldn't look incredible to some people, but if you had any idea just how much crap was crammed in there, you'd understand. Seriously. I know it still needs work, but it is soooooo much better than it was before! I am really pleased with the amount of work I got done in there tonight. And maybe, just maybe within the next few weeks, we will be able to start using the closet in a more appropriate manner. Just sayin'. It's a goal.

And for the record, I'm still not tired. Grrr. Hopefully that means that I will be able to get a lot accomplished today! It's worth trying anyhow! Or at the very least, get our bedroom back to normal before Hubby goes in there to get ready for the day (kinda seriously doubt that will happen though!)

Oh - and how perfect is this?! Rachel Anne's Small Thing for today was to just start something. Don't get caught up in the details, don't over-analyze, don't wait for the perfect time or the perfect opportunity or the perfect plan. Even if it isn't the right time, the right plan, the right whatever...Just get to it! And, as you have read above, that's exactly what I had done this morning. Woo! Love it!

Oh - and that gave me a quick and easy 40 points for doing what I had already done today! Yay! My monthly total is now 320 points! I still need to bake something from scratch to earn points either today or tomorrow. That particular "assignment was from last Thursday and she gave us a full week to get it done, and I'm quickly coming up on the end of that time frame. I may be back later today with another Small Things post. We'll see!

Tables, tables everywhere...

Today Rachel Anne was talking about the tables and furniture pieces in our homes that do such a great job for us. We need to give them a little bit of attention too, you know! So she offered up a full 15 points per furniture piece that got some attention today. Limit of 10 pieces. Still, that is a possible 150 points for ONE day! Wowza!

So, I dove right in. First I had to clear off the end tables in our living room so that I could give them a good dusting off and a quick shine up. The shine doesn't really last on these pieces because they are hand me downs that were rough when we got them. I still got them to look as nice as I could though. That part netted me 20 points.

Then I moved on to the cedar chest that has functioned as nearly everything in this house. It has been a TV stand, an end table, a night stand, a coffee table, a chest, a piece at the foot of our bed, everything. Right now, it is currently being employed as a coffee table / wool yarn storage space. The cedar keeps moths and such from making homes in the wool. Did you know that? So I gave that piece of furniture a quick dusting and a shine too. Now I'm up to 30 points.

Then it was on to my bookcase. It's low and sits next to my chair in the living room. It holds mostly my books and reference books for the kids that they have to have permission before using. I gave the top and the two shelves there the same treatment. The kids' bookcase got the same treatment as well - the top and all four shelves. At this point, I was up to 50 points. Only ten more pieces to do to get the full amount! Woot!

I moved onto the entertainment center and gave that some attention as well. While I was there, I also straightened up the shelves and wiped off the television screen and dusted the TV too, for no extra charge! Funny how doing one little thing can so easily lead in to another! So that left me at 60 points.

Hubby's desk was next in line (because it was the next piece of furniture on that wall) and I did the desk and desk chair both. The chair really needs to be cleaned but I will have to do that the next time I pull out the carpet cleaner so I can use the upholstery attachment on that - well, really, all the furniture could probably use it but Hubby's desk chair and my recliner show it the most because they are both light in color. Okay - slight tangent there, let's see where were we? Oh yes, I was up to 70 points.

Two side tables in the den were calling my name, after they saw what I had done to their friends in the living room, so I went down and settled them down too, giving them a nice rub down and thanking them for their services here. Two more pieces equals 20 more points! New total: 90 points.

The television stand in the den was looking pretty rough. I had just brought it in from being stored in the garage (because I wanted to move the cedar chest up to the living room to use as a coffee table and get it out from under the t.v. in the den) and it was dusty! Blech! Poor thing! It's black and it looked nearly white with dust. So then, the t.v. stand got a good polishing up too. Once again while I was at it, I dusted off the t.v. and wiped down the monitor. 100 points!

Moving on to our bedroom, I did a quick dusting off of our dresser, chest of drawers, both of our night stands and our bed frame. That was five more pieces for an additional 50 points, which maxed me out at the 150 point limit. But I didn't stop there. I was on a roll!

I went upstairs to the kids' bedroom level and also knocked out five bed frames, one night stand and two dressers. I came back down to the den, realized I had forgotten the armoire, so I took care of that as well. Then went down to the basement and knocked out two more dressers! That left me with a total of 11 extra pieces that I dusted and made to look nice. It was just so easy to keep going once I got started. Maybe that's the key to the "small things". It's a gateway to bigger and more involved things around the house. But yay! The wood furniture is dusted, so this weekend's Mega cleaning (formerly known as perfect clean) will be just a touch easier to do!

Total for today was the whole whopping 150 points!
Total for March is now 280 points. Wow.

Ketchup Caught!

Oh man, I cannot even begin to tell you all how happy I was to see today's small thing from Rachel Anne! Apparently I am not the only one who slipped this weekend. I mean, I did do stuff this weekend, but I've been dragging and just haven't been up to doing as much as I have been lately and so while the minimum maintenance things are getting done and I'm still doing okay with my "just good enough", I haven't been going much further than that.

Today's small thing was to just catch up on something. So, I decided to get caught up on the groceries getting put away. It was something that I hadn't done yet because I needed to rotate some food around (first in, first out, you know!) and so I just hadn't gotten around to it. Now it is done!

Today's small thing was worth 40 points, which brings my monthly total for March up to 130 points!
 

Just Throw It Out!!

Today's assignment was to grab a bag and get rid of things. Just go through an area that we choose, grab anything that we don't like, isn't needed, is broken or we are just ready to get rid of.

I did this in my kitchen on one counter that gets piled up quickly and easily. Flylady would call it a hot spot, I call it a pain in my tush. I hate that counter. It is so set apart from the actual food prep area that it just isn't serviceable for the making of food. Wish I could rearrange my kitchen, but that is not an option, so instead, I will just clear off the counter that gets junked over. Oh - and for the record, it took a grocery bag and a half to clear off the counter, and that doesn't count the recycling that I moved to the actual recycling bin.

Okay, time for points. Yay! :) Today's task was worth 40 points!
 That brings the monthly total up to 90 points!
 

Seeing It In Lights...

Today's small thing involves replacing light bulbs, so I went around the house replacing them. There was a lamp in our spare bedroom that had needed the bulb replaced for about a month or so that I just haven't gotten around to, our hall bathroom had four lights out in it. We have a row of seven lights across the top of our mirror and when they had burned out, I had replaced only three of them, spaced out to every other bulb. There were two bulbs needing replaced out of the nine in our kitchen and one of the two in our lower level bathroom.

I try to keep light bulbs on hand although I don't like changing the bulbs. I don't know why I dislike doing it. It's a quick fix and makes everything look so much better, but even still, I just don't like to do it. So, that job is checked off. I think I might need to plan to do this once a month, maybe when I check the battery in my smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, just to make sure that it gets done.

And after replacing those bulbs, I need to replace two full packages of light bulbs. I put it on my list, so the next time I go to the store, I can pick those up so that I can have them on hand.

Today's task of replacing the bulbs was worth 30 points and adding light bulbs to my list was worth an additional 20 points.

March total: 50 points

Relax and enjoy the skin you're in

It has been stressful for me the last month or so. You can certainly tell that by Wednesday's post which makes today's post seem all the more important to me. You see, I"m a day late for Thursday but wanted to do it anyhow, which means it's my day to do something for myself, encouraged by Katie. In addition to that, Rachel Anne's points for today are also for doing something for myself so that makes it doubly easy to get something in for today.

I have had a lot going on today so my plan for today is to steal away some "me" time by locking myself in the bathroom, filling the tub up with nice hot water, throwing in some bath fizzies and just relaxing. Oh my gosh, does that ever sound wonderful?! Plus, with my ankle, I'm supposed to stay off of it as much as possible and showering pretty much guarantees standing on my foot.

Plus, do y'all have any idea how long it's been since I've been able to just kick back and enjoy a nice long soak? Bliss, I tell ya. Pure and utter bliss. And there's a lock on the door. So that means kidlets and Hubby will just have to fend for themselves the whole time.

I'm linking this up to Katie's "Time For Me Thursday" post and Rachel Anne's "Home Sanctuary" post for today.

Points for today:50 points!
Points for February: 430 points!

Valentine's Day

Today's small thing was to let someone know that you were thinking of them today. I did this before I even read Rachel Anne's assignment for today. This morning, when I got onto Facebook, I dropped by the walls of a number of friends and wished them a Happy Valentine's Day, sent them my love and let them know that I was thinking of them.

The one friend who stands out most right now in my mind and my heart is my friend, Erin. Her hubby recently deployed and she's home with their three kiddos, adapting to yet another period of time with him gone for the military. She is one of the most incredible women that I know and she knows that I think that too. I wish I was there today to bring her flowers and chocolate and coffee and to give her a chance to relax and rejuvenate, but we live many many miles apart and it's just not possible. But she was the first one on my mind when I got onto Facebook this morning. I visited her page, another friend's page (who doesn't like Valentine's Day - and then to boot - her grandpa died today too), and many more.

This afternoon, Hubby and I sat down and talked with the kids about some changes that we have decided to make around the house involving screen time and chores. We have decided to limit the kids' screen time to one hour per day. I am so tired of screen time being such a huge focus and the kids not knowing what to do with themselves without a screen in front of them to entertain them. We also decided that allowance will be freely given, chores will be done before screen time is allowed and it will be done with a cheerful attitude or screen time will not be allowed at all.

Natty complained and whined and cried about the changes, while JoNo buckled down and got right to work. JoNo went so far above and beyond that there will be little for the kids to do tomorrow. Well, there will still be plenty to do, but in comparison to what there was to do today, there will be very little.

Natty was incredibly upset and at one point, we sent him up to his room, where he laid on his bed, whining and complaining about the changes. I laid down on JoNo's bed across the room from Natty and we talked. He poured out the troubles that were in his heart and I just listened. Sometimes that is the hardest thing to do. I want to jump in, give him advice, tell him how to fix it, analyze it, whatever... But all he needs is someone to listen. Which, thankfully today, I did. And it seemed to do wonders for him as well. As I was leaving his room, I told him that he was welcome to come back down whenever he felt ready to.

Then, Natty and I made supper together tonight. We did a breakfast for supper, which is a family favorite. I let him do all the measuring and mixing for homemade pancakes. I didn't even supervise directly. I just told him what he needed and let him measure and pour, stir and mix and all of that. It also gave him a chance to show off some of his math skills, since we were doubling the recipe. Amounts like 2 1/2 cups of flour, he was quick to know was 5 cups with our modified recipe. And 3 teaspoons, he immediately knew was actually 1 1/2 from the original recipe. We changed it up and some of the time I would tell him the amount from the original recipe and some of the time I would give him the amount from the modified recipe. I figured a bit of a confidence boost would be good for his spirits and it was. He is very proficient in his math skills and I knew that having the opportunity to show those skills off and to cook at the same time would be a major mood lifter for him.

He also wanted to make a special pancake for Boo - so Boo got a Mickey Mouse pancake. Then he wanted to make a special one for Punky - so we made her a flower - complete with petals and a stem. I made a car-shaped pancake for JoNo, which he loved. It looked like a VW Bug. It was cute.

And to show my Hubby my love today, when I was helping the kids get their Valentines cards finished up before school, I also stashed away a bunch of mini bars of Hershey's milk chocolate. We had gotten a mixed bag of mini bars - Hershey's milk chocolate, Hershey's special dark chocolate, Mr Goodbar and Krackle. Hubby prefers milk chocolate to any other chocolate and I wanted him to know that I was thinking of him too, so I grabbed a bunch of the regular milk chocolate bars and "hid" them in a decorative cup next to the container where I put all of the leftover Valentine's candy. I let Hubby know about his "secret stash" of milk chocolate and he seemed quite pleased that I had thought of him in this way today.

But it is late now and I am tired, so I am going to end this now and tally up my point totals.

Points for today: 50 points!
Points for February:  380 points!

'Round the table they go!

We have four children. Four messy eating children. We have six chairs at our table, one for each of us. I try to get the chairs wiped off at least once a week. My grandmother did it every single time she did dishes (which was directly following each meal and then once before bed - four times a day in all!), but well, I'm not that accomplished. Although, I suppose if I did, it'd be less of a job for both the chairs and the dishes to get done. Hmm...something to think about.

Today's task is to clean off the chairs around the table. I did it the best that I could. At some point, Boo has gotten pink paint on a couple of the chairs and I have not been able to get it off. Although, let me tell you! I have most definitely tried to do so! I wiped down the chairs, getting the magic marker off of one, crusty milk off of another, and then just giving them all a good overall cleaning. Which is great because Hubby wants to have guests over tomorrow for dinner, so provided that the chairs stay clean, they will look as great as they can for our guests.

Nice timing on this one, Rachel Anne! :)

Points for today: 40 points!
Points for February: 330 points!

(There were extra points available for today - an extra 30! But I didn't wipe down an extra set of chairs. I got distracted by some other jobs that I wanted to get done and well, yeah, it just didn't happen!)

Quiet Corner

 

Hmmm, my own corner...well, that used to be in our bedroom. We have an old brown recliner in our room that came from Hubby's paternal grandparents (I feel the need to distinguish this because there is a pink recliner in our living room that came from Hubby's  maternal grandparents) where I often would spend time on my laptop or reading or just relaxing.

I have not been able to do this much recently because our room has been undergoing some major changes (new drapes, planning on a new bedroom furniture set sometime soon, hopefully) and well, my corner is currently buried under boxes that need to be gone through and sorted and well, honestly, I don't have time for that at this point. Also, I need to do a number of other tasks before I can deal with that one.

So, I decided to do my second corner, which includes the pink chair in the living room. It is my second choice for reading, writing, relaxing and reclining. I tidied this area up, vacuumed, cleared off the table, brought up a small pillow I like to tuck in behind my lower back and even sprayed the chair with some fabric refresher just because I like the scent. So nice and comfy and pretty looking (and smelling!) now.

There was also a secondary assignment to enjoy the space for 10 minutes, which I definitely did. I sat down and relaxed and read blogs and typed up this post and did some hunting online for exercise bikes. I'm sure I spent way more than 10 minutes on this assignment. But um, I just wanted to make sure that I had a chance to enjoy the corner before the kids got to it again! LOL!

Points for today: 40 points!

Bonus points for today: 20 points!

Points for February: 290 points!

Back Door

 

Yesterday I posted about our launch and landing pads and today's assignment from Rachel Anne is to clean up the area near our back door. Well, this is really easy. We actually have two back doors. One we refer to as the back door, which is directly opposite the front door and goes out to the yard behind our house. The other back door opens to one side of our house and we refer to that one as the side door. But that door often gets mistaken as our front door because we live on a corner lot and our address is on that street, while our front door is actually facing the other street. It confuses delivery people to no end!

So, for this task, I actually did the area near our side door. The reason that I said that this was really easy is because during the winter, we keep this door closed and locked and don't use it at all if possible. The main reason is because it's a sliding door that opens directly onto carpet and I don't want the salt and mud and wet coming in onto the carpet.

However, there was some tidying up to do down there. And I also needed to get things ready for later this month when we will be changing out the window coverings. We live in a rental and it has vertical blinds covering this door. We want to put up some energy conserving drapes. They have a thermal back and they also block out light. I don't know if I want to get rid of the blinds completely, but I do want the drapes up over them at the very least.

So I prepared the area for that and overall did a quick tidy of the area. It looks so  much better now! And I didn't even think it looked bad to start!

Points for today: 40 points!

Points for February: 230 points!

Menu Plan...

 

 Well, this is something that I do when I link up every Monday to Menu Plan Monday with Org Junkie, but I really like the concept of this menu plan idea. And it will be easier for me to do because it will change up the menu more frequently, which I am sure that my family will definitely appreciate!

It also goes along with the home management binder project that I have been working on recently as well. I haven't had much chance to post about everything that I have been working on. And trust me, there is a LOT going on right now. Hopefully, I will be able to come back and get some of the stuff posted about. But anyhow, moving on...

I did it and I was able to come up with over 3 months' worth of menu ideas! That was incredible! I have the ideas listed and I can pick and plug them in based on what's on sale, what's in our pantry or freezer and what we have going on each week! Woo Hoo! Love it! Menu plan made easy! It was a lot of work first, but it was most definitely worth a lot of hard work now for an easier time later on!

Points for today: 100 points!

Points for February: 190 points!

There's a much smaller singles scene around here!

Well, if yesterday's task was number two on my most dreaded household task list, today's task would go along with my number one most dreaded task, which in general is laundry. But today's task was to mate socks. It is a huge job around here and there have been times that I have had the thought to just go out and start over with socks. Get rid of all of our current socks and just start fresh. Brand new socks for everyone. All socks for one person being exactly the same, like all ankle socks for the older boys. They wear different sizes and I love the socks that have a different color stripe or lettering for each size. And actually, we do have a few of these as well. But I'd really love to just buy the kids (and well, Hubby and myself as well) all of one sock style so that anyone in the family could easily mate socks. All you'd have to do is match the colored stripe or lettering and you'd know it would be an exact match. Ah, the stuff my dreams are made of! LOL!

But until then. match I must. And match I did. And now I think I know why I dislike this task so much. JoNo alone had a whopping 54 pairs of socks that I matched up today. His was the most, but if that just gives any idea to how many socks our family owns...yeah, I'm embarrassed to even admit that we have that many. I think that it might be time to declutter some of our socks too. Gah!

Okay, point total time! Cuz I more than earned my points today!

Points for today: 40 points!
Points for February: 90 points!

Item #2 on my most dreaded household task list

Dishes, that is. I hate to do dishes. I hate having them sit dirty on my counter even more but still, I do not like to do the dishes at all. But thanks to today's task, I gladly did them. Anything for points, right? :) So, yes, for a few fleeting hours, all of the dishes were washed, dried and even put away. Woo!

Points for today: 50 points!
Points for February: 50 points!

Where the Time Is Spent...

Today's Small Thing was a HUGE project for me. We were to sit down and fill in a horizontal schedule with how we use our time each week, to be able to see where we have blocks of time that we can use. My weekly schedule is such a huge issue for me because of my sleep schedule. I am never quite sure how to arrange my time, especially since I work part of every single day (either the morning of that day - or the night of that day) with the exception of two days each month.

But I did it. I have my schedule in an Excel document. It isn't pretty and I realized that although I start work five nights a week, I actually work six mornings one week and four mornings the next week. I'm not sure that is actually something that I am all that thankful for figuring out. Oh well.

It's done and I think that I need to really evaluate my schedule with my Hubby's assistance as well to really figure out how to best accommodate my need for sleep with our family's need for me to be awake. Most of my fun activities like watching DVR'ed shows and such, is done in the middle of the night on one of my nights off or on an evening that I don't work after the kids go to bed. It's really hit and miss with my fun activities. The kids aren't really involved in any weekly activities apart from Wednesday night church group and Hubby takes them to that and drops them off.

After much tweaking to the schedule, I think I have it all figured out now. Phew!  And it only took me half an hour to figure out the whole sleep portion of my schedule. At least it's figured out though!

This is what it looks like:

If you want to, you can click on each "picture" to enlarge it, but only if you REALLY REALLY want to, it isn't all that entertaining but it's there. And it was worth quite a few points as well.

Total for today: 70 points
Total for January: 480 points

Household Organization System

I have tried a number of different systems to get the house neat and organized and they all work for a while, then they stop working because our life changes and our system needs to change with our life as well. Today, Rachel Anne is talking about household organization systems and I'm game. It's time we came up with a new system to follow around here, because the last one just isn't cutting it at the moment. And since Hubby is now the one home full-time with the kids, this system seems like one that will work for him as well, which also works for me.

We are supposed to write down the basic household tasks that are important to the health and well-being of our family. So here goes:

• Grocery shopping - 2
• Kitchen floor: sweep - 1
• Kitchen floor: mop - 1
• Dishes - 1
• Counters - 1
• Oven - 4
• Fridge -3
• Pantry - 4
• Trash - 1
• Living room general clean - 1
• Den general clean - 1
• Vacuum living room - 2
• Vacuum den - 2
• Vacuum bedrooms - 3
• Cleaning bedrooms - 2
• Dusting - 4
• Entry way - 2
• Laundry: sheets and towels - 2
• Laundry: family clothes - 1
• Personal time - 2
• Bathrooms - 2
• Paper work (filing, bills, etc.) - 4
• Yard work - 4 (for now, with the exception of shoveling which is just as needed based on snowfall)
• Errands - 2
• Feeding pets - 1
• Cleaning up after pets - 1
• Volunteering - 3

(I borrowed her list and added, omitted or changed a few items.) As you can see, there are numbers next to each item. That is how I rated them, using the following rating system. I took a long, hard look at each item and rated it based on how often it REALLY needs to be done. The rating system is as follows:

1 - This should be done every day
2 - This could be done once a week
3 - This could be done once, every other week
4 - This could be done once a month
5 - This ain't gonna happen

Making up this list today was worth 50 points! And I didn't even have to do any actual work! However, there was a bonus of 30 points for doing minimum maintenance, which I did do. So yay!

Total for today: 80 points
Total for January: 410 points!.

Pens Pens Everywhere

Today's assignment has to do with pens. In many households, there are an abundance of pens that are dried up, don't work or just are not accessible in the place where they are most frequently used. So today, we are supposed to go through and get rid of the dud pens and keep out the stud ones. Slight paraphrase of the assignment, but you all understand exactly what I'm saying anyhow.

Now, a little confession, or actually, maybe a few of them. First off, I am a CNA and as such, I have pens galore. I also have a Tupperware business, as well as a knitting business. Plus, I have an addiction affection for great writing tools AND great writing surfaces. My issue is not so much that I can't find a pen when I need one or that I have old ones that don't work. It's more of the issue that I have pens for different purposes. I prefer a medium gel roller ball pen for writing resident's names on their supplies at work, but a sharpie would work just as well and I have recently taken to carrying one with me at work, following the example of another aide. For documenting, I prefer a fine tip ball point pen (in black ink so that it's legal). For my Tupperware business, I prefer to hand out cheap ball point pens that I get 20 to a package at the dollar store. Hubby prefers a hearty (and by hearty, I mean pricey) gel roller pen.

Then there are the pencils. I prefer mechanical pencils most of the time, although I must confess that sometimes there is just something about the feel and smell of a regular graphite pencil that I find gratifying and inspiring. Hubby prefers the new Sharpie liquid pencils. Once again, a "hearty" product. On the other hand, I have to admit - they are nice and I do keep one on hand to use myself. Natty prefers mechanical pencils over graphite ones and thankfully at this point, he hasn't developed more specific preferences yet. JoNo prefers the graphite pencils and Miss Punky Pie and Boo are willing to use whatever they can get their hands on. Now, if only we could get Boo to realize that toys and walls are NOT the best medium to use for his, ahem, artwork, we'd be set.

Wow. That was a major tangent. All of that to say that what I needed to do was round up our writing utensils and sort them out based on who uses them, where they are used and which item is the preferred instrument. So now that I have done that, I shouldn't have any reason to not have the right instrument at the right time to write with. Okay, the last part of that sentence was totally cheesy, but meh, it's my blog and I'll be cheesy if I wanna. :)

Today's assignment for throwing out old pens, pencils, crayons, etc. was worth 40 points with bonus points for adding the purchase of new ones to the shopping list adding on the potential of an additional 10 points.

Total for today: 50 points
Total for January: 260 points!

Cookbook Straightening

Today's assignment is to simply straighten up the cookbooks and make them look neat and orderly. This is easy enough to do. It took me all of maybe a minute (TOPS!) to do it. Yay for easy points! :) The second part was to talk like Julia Child while doing so. My husband looked at me strangely, as I do an absolutely horrid job of an English accent, but I did that part too.

Straightening the cookbooks is worth 40 points. Talking like Julia Child is worth a bonus 20 points.

Total for today: 60 points
Total for January: 210 points!