The last 2 weeks of blur!

Well friends, the last 2 weeks have been rough in so many ways.  As a mom that wants to succeed at the task, I had to take inventory or my strengths and weaknesses and had to come to reality about my personal limits.  Like I said, it has been rough, a few personal meltdowns and finally coming to grips with the decisions we made.

I can imagine the “dun, dun, dun” loud eerie music playing.

Okay, no one died! But, my husband has been working some crazy hours with his second job. I feel so blessed that he is willing to work so hard.  These crazy hours are about15-17 hours each day on the weekend and 2-3 nights during the week, him working until 9 pm.  I had no idea how fragile our home is without him.  Let’s just say in no way, can this momma go it alone.  We were getting the kids fed, educated, and dressed, but this momma wasn’t getting to be the momma I want to be.

Now this side job will last like this for about 2 months.  I know we could put our school aside for that time and just focus on being mom, but then there is always another side job that will put the same schedule on him.  On top of this, I have a little test I have to study for that is a major deal. (This goes back to that professional degree I have.) 

So momma is off having day in and out with all 4, with pure exhaustion making me just want to cry when the voices are echoing off the walls to sound like I have an entire herd of hyenas in here.  So I was getting snappy with my precious babies and losing all joy in every moment and realized something needed to change.

I heard a while back on a podcast, that it is the attributes of the stay at home mom that will change the world.  It lingered in my mind as I was facing the stresses in my life at the moment.  What echoed is that it was not the homeschool mom that is changing the world, it is the stay at home mom.  SO it shook me that it is more important for me to be mom, than it is for me to school teacher.  I never thought that I would have to choose between the 2, but this is where my world is fragile without my husband being readily available in my day.

So I made the decision painfully and heartbreakingly.  And once I mourned at the loss this year of being able to school my own children, I put my big girl panties on and got to the business of enrolling my kids.  I made the decision Tuesday, enrolled them on Wednesday, and they started on Thursday!

Here they are on their first day.  Now #1 started kindergarten. #2 is going to VPK.  #3 just wants to go to school, so she totes a backpack with her all day long.  Every time we stop somewhere, she ask if this is her school.  I am using this opportunity to tell her she needs to go pee pee in a potty, so she can go to school one day.

Now we are on day 3 of them going to school and wow!  I feel like I am coming back to my old self again.  So I am embracing the change. I am also changing things with the baby! 

She has been evicted from my bed. She is thrashing around through the night and I am not getting any sleep.  I am almost dried up and have lost all desire to nurse.  SO now I am trying to get her on a schedule to take her bottle and sleep through the night.  I had to get on the phone today and find a crib that would fit in our bedroom, because she has outgrown the bassinet.  Thankfully a friend came through with the coolest port-a-crib.

It is low to the grown, so it is not overwhelming in a small room.  Against better judgement, I will show you what my room looks like.  We do not have anything fancy, it is just the nuts and bolts of real life.

 

And I didn’t clean up from my sewing project.  I even sew in my little bedroom.  Here is my $20 Janome machine I picked up at Goodwill.

I dream of grander things, but today is not the day for them and that is that.  I will make due with what I have got, because I know one day I WILL have them the way I want, so I will practice patience.  None the less, I get a lot of sewing done at this spot.

So all this craziness and meltdowns is the reason I have been lacking any real thought to my postings and why I was late on my give-away.

I do want to share my excitement for the plans to my new family order.  I am giving myself this week to catch back up on my house.  But hopefully next week, we will start back up on the unit study side of the MFW kindergarten program.  I want to continue to show them God in everything around us and the one week unit studies are perfect for that.  The nice part is, the unit studies have so many activities, I doubt they will feel like “work”.

I am also excited to have more time to devote to making my home more stream lined.  Yeah!  I hope that by the end of the school year, I will be more at a maintenance level than a purge and organize level. SO I plan to keep FLYING with the flylady!

I better post my next giveaway, toodles!

~trish

Anniversary gift

This beautiful dishcloth was crocheted by my mother in law.  I love it.  It is hard to express all the things it makes me feel and think, especially since it is such a least thought about item in our homes.  I want to say for such a simple item and tool that we use, it feels lavish and warm and comforting, like the days I would hold my great grandmother’s warm soft wrinkly hands. [That would be a whole other topic about being a child and craving those soft dish worn hands to touch my childish face.  And how I am in shock that so many women are more concerned with the youthful appearance of their hands than the tenderness and wisdom that their hands can bring to comfort a child. another day].

A beautiful dishcloth can go unnoticed among a sink and counter full of dishes. Even worst, a beautiful dishcloth can be kept up for safe keeping away from the stale food that sits on those plates from the previous nights dinner.  A beautiful set of dishcloths that were made with tenderness and love can be hidden away and forgotten about by a clutter hound. A beautiful dishcloth like this can shine like a ruby at the top of a crown when it is left on a cleaned counter, next to a polished sink.

You see, I love yarned dishcloths, but I found them greatly impractical because I never wanted them to be dirty after all that time was spent on making them.  Well, I have finished about 3 weeks of Fly Lady training.  I am far from mastering a routine and a beautiful kept house!  But I have the most beautiful sink and never knew it.  My sink is a double white cast iron sink that was filled with stains from onion peels and such.  Well, working slowly to create a routine, I have managed to keep a base point of my kitchen sink cleaned and pretty much the surrounding counter top.  Well, my mother in law blessed me with this beautiful dishcloth and for once, I was excited to have it at my sink like a badge of honor.

Then the dishcloth started to linger in my heart.  Have you ever read The five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman?  Well this book was given to me a couple months after our honey moon ended.  As a side note, two head strong personalities can quite literally end the honeymoon period of their marriage on the way home from the honeymoon AND we did.

So back to the 5 love languages.  My husband’s love language is acts of service, mine quality time.  Well, in the beginning of our courtship or something like that. In retrospect I would like to think of it as courtship, in reality it was not.  Alright, I was a little too well know for my huge DISLIKE of dishes.  When I lived alone in college, I would let them pile for days and then scornfully do them, when the last dish was gone.  I just know grasped the concept that I do not have to have the dishwasher bulging and it has a button that allows it to run more than once a day, hmm!  So one day I come home and I get a strange feeling something was wrong/different.  Not a comforting notion when you live alone.  SO I look around and realize after walking from room to room, there WAS something missing, MY DISHES!  They were gone and the sink was clean?!

Wow!  It was like the tooth fairy had shown up with the money truck.  My darling husband had stopped by to find that I was not home and decided to let himself in (I believe at this time we were not dating but just friends and he was there to gain access to my fridge.)  Well with the lack of anything to do, he did my dishes.  Wow! Should have know then that he was the one I was going to marry, NO MORE DISHES!  Well, I married him anyways and during the first few year he did the dishes often. 

{{5 Love languages comes in here}} Well during a typical heated argument for my need for love, still didn’t get the whole love thing, I was a new Christian and well, new to marriage. 

I demanded that I wanted time with him because that is what people who were in love do. 

Well, he argued that he did love me, because look he did the dishes. ((enter weird scooby doo sound)). 

My ignorant response was, why do I care about that, I can hire someone for that, but I can not hire someone to LOVE ME!

Yes folks, I was that naive.  So we read the book, the light bulb turns on and my mouth makes the sound “OOooooooooo.  Wow?  Really???”  Who would have thought that one?

So this next month will be my 8th  wedding anniversary to my wonderful strong headed husband. In the last 8 years, I have learned a lot about him, but mostly me.  In fact, there are days that I realize he could have chained into an entirely different person and it really does not matter.  Now I choose to love him.  And honestly, since I am being too honest, I sometime love him, while I am on the phone telling him about why I find it ridiculous that I have to love him in “that way” (insert whatever task I am doing at the moment)  and can’t he just put his socks in the basket, instead of me stumbling onto his secret stash of dirty socks.

In the past 3 weeks as I am taking the beginning steps to become a better person, no not really, just a better help mate to my husband, a better mother, and the tick-tock of our home’s rhythm, I am embracing my role at the sink.  I know I am working on a deep change that is unlacing every bit of my internal fiber, to be woven new by only God’s hands and I am letting him.  I will be an orderly person, I will keep my home kept, and I will not live among clutter.  The eternal chant that reminds me of God’s truth, is that He is not a God of chaos. (I am an engineer, so please realize that even spell check does not work for me, when I use caios, I really mean chaos, I spell it like it sounds not by the American language change of rules policy)

oh, back to my thought, so I am using flylady to become a person of order and it is going to take everything I got to surrender to God’s will for this to happen.  But that little dishcloth and the comfort of my great grandmother’s hands reminds me that I have an ultimate love given to me and I can simply keep my home kept, to give that love to others.  To celebrate this and surround myself with this knowledge of surrender to love my husband as he needs to be loved, I plan to have about 8-10 dishcloths made by my anniversary so I have one daily (with a few backups) to keep me in constant acknowledgement.

So I made my first 2 here

 

And I am working on my next one here:

 

Then just last night I was reminded by God’s Power and how he gives to us through the love of other people that He surrounds us with.  Because last night, I was given these 2 dishcloths out of the blue.  WOW!  I was so excited!  She had no idea how such a simple and often overlooked tool in the kitchen that she took the time and love to make, could mean so much to me.

What I love about them the most is that each one is different.  Some are crocheted and some are knitted.  They have different stitches and different yarn.  They are different sizes.  Together, they remind me that each season of marriage is different and will feel and look different from the others.  Enjoy the beauty of the good seasons and the survival of the hard seasons and no matter what, this too shall pass, like it or not.  And most of all, I CHOOSE to love, I do not feel love.  Love is not a feeling or emotion, it is a job.  Which means, I will not ever worry about falling out of it, I either choose to love or I don’t.  Now falling in and out of lust, is a given.  I just hope the Good Lord doesn’t mess with that until we can both no longer………

 

Well, good night you all! :)

~trish

A new routine for my kitchen.

   So I have been using FlyLAdy to build a new routine to clean with. Who am I kidding.  I hate to clean, I am building my first routine of keeping house.  I hate to keep house.  I work so hard and it feels like I am running in circles and getting nothing accomplished.  Well, I decided to try FlyLady. Well, my kitchen is very quickly coming together pretty and clean. 

Just to recap, I did clean my sink on the first day, but this was my counters.  And there was nothing special about that day, this was my counters everyday.

 

I promise that I did not move things around the room to make it look good.  Here is another day and the entire kitchen.

suddenly, my kitchen is feeling spacious.  I take up the whole counter when I make dinner now, because I have the entire counter to use.  I am not getting stressed when the kids bring their bowls to the sink, because there is space to put them.  So what if food gets on the counter, I am going to clean it off no matter what. 

What I am liking about FLY LADY:

First, it is not “go clean your house and then keep it up”.  Her way is start a routine a little at a time and before you know it, your house will be sparkling.  My attitude has always been to exhaust myself and scream as I would try and deep clean a cluttered house, then be exhausted and never keep it up or get back to it.

Second, you start with manageable accomplishments and somehow I always do a little more.

Third, I have been working hard but the good kind of hard.  I put in 100% and got 100% accomplished. Usually, I feel like I put 100% towards my goals and got 10% accomplished because I was moving with no direction and just mostly chasing my tail everyday around this house.

And forth, I like the smell of bleach and never knew it. I can’t believe how good my reflection looks in my sink. I didn’t know a toilet could be pretty. I love the look of shock when my husband comes home.

~trish

Do I need to organize or unclutter?

After my last posting, a friend came over and helped me with 4 rooms to declutter. WOW! I am not sure if I need to organize or declutter to organize. So at the end of 2 hours, I had the entry way filled with stuff to go. Another 2 hours later and the house seemed as if it had a new life. This is when the realization kicked in that, it is not organizing I need, I need to get rid of STUFF!

How in the world do I have so much stuff? So in the past 2 weeks, we did make some more progress, but now I am down and out with a sinus infection AGAIN! But I did get an entire room emptied and put carpet in! So now the house it turned upside down.

I am realizing, instead of being worked up about organizing it all, I need to get a handle on what it is I need to keep in my house and what should go. AND MOST OF ALL GET IT THERE. I have a bad habit of throwing it to the side to get rid and never getting it out of the house. So my solute to organizing. I do want to show a few pics.

This my bathroom, uncluttered and organized to its first degree. The counters were cluttered. Background information, I am not a pink and white kinda gal, my house is mostly original to the previous owner who lived here since 1954. It will stay that way, room by room until I can make it otherwise. So I am working with what I got.

Yes, I do use the vanity as my changing table. I am sad and disappointed to say that I only discovered this marvelous use for it about 10 months ago. Until then I was doing the changing in the bedrooms and piling diapers up there, yuk!

So Here are my drawers, except my cocked eyed make up one. I used the top one for the my husband and I stuff only! I did use 2 shoe boxes and another container on hand to prevent it from looking like an out of control junk drawer.

Then I think another brillant idea came to me!

Put the diaper stuff in a drawer! Tadaa! The blue lid is actually my home made baby wipes container. I have the diapers to the side, I did put #4's diapers in as a place holder. (well left over from another kid, it was just to get me a bit excited to lug through the next 4 months). I have a divider in for the butt balm and such, in the back is my measuring cup and baby oil to make the wipes. Now I know you are seeing the duct tape, well we were having issues with a midnight streaker in the diaper department. We reduced the laundry amount by covering the tabs with duct tape. Otherwise, she would pull it off to hear the velcro noise.

Last drawer, is the hair stuff basket! ahhh! I

needed this for months. Every time it was time to do hair, it was a mad search for brushes and ties, now it is all together with the detangler and gel. I will side note, I am thankful I can put the detangler and hair gel here, in previous years, #2 would have coated his body in the hair gel. The remaining basket is the what nots.

To end the love of toothpaste eating by my youngest and to keep control of tooth brush clutter, I picked up these little holders from the Dollar General for $1 each. They are working very nicely.

So until next time, I am off with my garbage bag to get rid of, the organizing my be put on hold until a clean sweep is preformed. My rational is: clean sweep to easter, spring clean to July, and then organize to October, and finish the year by vasting in my glory with a beautiful holiday house.

Organizing Day 2 - Still laundry?

Really? Is it the fact that it is 5 of us? Or I am the only one in this effort, but yes, I am still sorting laundry! Yes, I think having 31 days in for organizing is a realistic goal to reach by the end of March.

I did have a new years revolation! The house is crazy because I can not stay home. I am running a kid to pre-school to turn around in 3 hours to pick her up, while toting 2 tots and exhaustedly prego. So in that 3 hour time, I might try and get groceries or really, I have no idea what happpens in those three hours, but in the end I am exhusted. Get home, lunch, man I got to take a rest, start dinner, where did my day go! No wonder the house is a constant wreck.

So my best effort is to minimize, so that the wrecking crew has less to wreck and the clean up crew (i.e., me) has less to fix. Sounds like a plan. Alright my official list of Organizing Day 2 is:

1. Sort the remaining laundry, me and my husband's clothes.

2. Put the rest of it away.

3. Drop off donations.

What is a hopeful gesture of getting things done! I also would love to get

4. Thin our collection of books and donate those also.

Might happen the day of organizing.

Good luck to the rest of you. I hope to start creating soon enough, once things are cleaned out!

Organizing Day 1.5 - LAUNDRY!

Ahh, I hate laundry. Alright, I am not done yet! I ended my crusade at 12:30 am after that wonderful Sugar bowl game! I had one load in the washer and 1 still to start. And it still left at that. I made not attempt at it today. And it will be okay!

Now I did accomplish! TWO!!!!! Yard bags full of clothes to be gone from my house forever. Kids drawers organized and clothes put away. All things sorted. I have mine and my hubbies to take care of. I hope tomorrow will be DAY 2.

My hopes of Day 2 will be:
1. Convert/Organize a small closet in the kids room into a diaper space and a spot for the linens. A full explanation of why it has no clothes in it, will follow later.

2. Have all laundry put in its designated place.

3. Have give away bags out of my house.

I have to keep in stride not to overwhelm myself with the task at hand and to keep my task accomplishable in the time limit I set, THAT DAY!

31 days of organizing!

I am taking Molly's challenge at Econobusters! I am going to get things straight with 31 days worth of work. Alright, I do not have any plans of doing it 31 days straight! I got thing to do! You can check her out at: http://www.econobusters.com/

Day 1

I am sorting clothes! Ahh, this is my most hated task for so many reasons. Even having clothing of every size for my ever shrinking and growing body, I only make up a tenth of the clothes in the house. Now having 3 kids and another on the way, there is so much I hold on. BUT the culprit is my husband! He has not changed a size since middle school and he still has those clothes. He blows my mind! He refuses to get rid of anything.

I have the weekend with out him and 2 of the kids. I hope to have clothes sorted, and donated. I want the toys contained and sifted through. But it is only ever growing me at 5 months prego and can hardly breathe when I bend down with the tornado 2 year old. Wish me the best!

I did get 2 containers from Ikea yesterday! Since speaking with you last, I got a new corner kitchen bench table that has opened my kitchen and given me room to breath again. I have storage compartments in the seats, so I wanted to take advantage of them. I decide not to put any dishes and towels there, since a drink spilling would flow down to it, so I thought some of the toys would do good.

Here are my 3 compartment containers for 3.99 from ikea. I have playdough and benderoos in them. I will eventually make homemade playdough, but the container will hold the tools.

I like that it fits in the chair. This now gives it a home and hopefully stops it from ending up all over the house. One can only hope.

I do want to say, I am so sorry for being so distant. I had the misery of a tooth ache for 2 months that has just now ended. I am much better, but between being prego and 3 kids, holy-days, and life I just did not have a chance to check in with you. I have a lot of goals this year. I hope to have a few resolutions on paper to carry with me through the rest of my life. I have worked on a few things and have found a few new passions for my what spare time.

I have falling in love with refashioning. I will send some links soon. I have converted a husband shirt into a maternity. I am debating on taking a pledge to stop buying new and learning to wear refashioned clothing from the thrift our my closet. I wonder if I took the time to make an item, just as I really want it and made it fit just right, will it stop me from overwhelming me with things I do not wear. And will it keep everyone else's clothes to a minimum.

On to other news, we found out we are having our 3rd girl! What a house full! I hope by the fall to have a master bedroom, that is my luxurious name for a 3rd bedroom. Grins! I will report back with my success and failure today and let you know of tomorrow's goal.