Multi-tasking

I used to pride myself on my multi-tasking skills. I now consider them my biggest enemy. Oddly I just mentioned to hubby last week that I think our house falls apart quickly when I multi-task because I never completely finish what I originally started.

As a result, it seems that dirty clothes find their way into every single room of our house, stained clothes don't get treated until I finally decide to wash that particular color, toys and books are scattered everywhere, the dishes never seem to be completely put away, and the list goes on and on.

Then I was reading up on flylady.net this evening and realized that I just may be onto something. This is what she had to say in her Holiday Control Journal:

"The secret to helping this work for you is to quit trying to multi-task. We pride ourselves on being able to do two things at once, but the truth of the matter is that something always gets left undone. So you have all of these unfinished projects all around your home piling guilt on your head."

It always seems that Sophia manages to have an explosive poopy diaper just as we are about to walk out the door or just as I have sat down to read to the girls or play a board game with Annabelle. As a result, the outfit gets tossed aside in hopes of being treated later. But then it is often too late as set stains are harder to remove.

That is just one example of not completing a task because I'm trying to do too many things at once. If I would just complete the task that took priority initially, my life could eventually start running a little smoother.

Tonight I'm praying that God will give me the wisdom to better prioritize and complete tasks immediately to restore a little peace in this place we call home.

Magazines

Okay folks, I need some tips! I have a whole pile of magazines collecting dust that need to remove themselves from my house. But, the anal retentive, "someone could get some use out of these" won't lift them from their spot which is adding clutter to my already tight and cluttered house.

I used to love magazines. Now I completely despise them. I cringe when I get a new one in the mail because I don't know what to do with them. Perhaps the garbage can would be an excellent place to store them? I actually stopped reading them months ago because I realized that my time is better spent reading a good book if I have the time to read. And, a good book generally does not take up space in my house because I check them out from the library whenever I feel the need to read.

So, how do you dispose of your magazines? Do you donate them? If so, any recommendations?

Clean Sweep

Hubby and I will be married 9 years in July! Holy cow! It is so hard to believe that 9 years has already come and gone.

Well, over 9 years of marriage, a couple can accumulate quite a bit of junk. Add a 2 year old to that equation, and you get twice as much junk! What happened to the days of simplicity? I honestly wish material things were not such a big deal any more. Isn't less, more? I sure do think so, and I've come to realize that Annabelle doesn't even play with three quarters of the toys she owns. Instead, she'd rather be right there next to Mommy cooking and cleaning dishes (i.e.: splashing water out of Mommy's sink onto her favorite prized kitchen cabinets).

And, we don't have the space to store all of our junk (since we live in an 1,100 square foot home), so this week I finally got in the mood to rid ourselves of some of this junk. Here is a picture of everything we donated to Goodwill today.

Of course, this picture does not really do our work justice, but it amounted to two full Ford Ranger truck loads hauled to Goodwill. We pulled many boxes down from the attic last night that we literally have not opened since May 2005. We trashed probably 3 container boxes (the size of the white box displayed in the photo) full of papers including college classroom notes and continuing professional education notes from many, many years ago.

For the 3-4 hours we spent last night sorting through these boxes, we consolidated our junk down from 12 boxes to only 3 boxes! And, hubby trashed and donated even more today after he sorted through all of his tools and handyman supplies.

Our attic is on its way to being more orderly. And, now, I can store some of Annabelle's toys in clear storage boxes upstairs in the attic so I can rotate her toys every 1-3 weeks. I have plans to take pictures of each toy and put them in a little photo album for her to pick her new toy for the week (or 2-3 weeks). Of course, we'll see how well that plan rolls out! I don't think she's going to get the option to pick the toy to go back up into the attic yet, but we will see.

www.flylady.net

Has anyone else checked out www.flylady.net? She has some great ideas on her website for keeping a clean and clutter free home. I am planning to get started with her first plan of action, Shine Your Kitchen Sink, next week. Yes, I am procrastinating. But, I am good at it!

I probably should start this week as we just cleaned our house this past Saturday so that we could actually have friends over for dinner on Saturday. I literally spent the entire day cleaning, but that is probably because I got it in my head that I must first wash all of Annabelle's dirty clothes. Why? I don't know, but now she has clean clothes, and I am trying to continue to do a load a day from here on out. What am I going to do when a second child pops out? And I still want three or more kids? Am I crazy?

Homemaking 101 Spring Semester: F

I should receive an "F" in Homemaking 101 for Spring Semester (if there ever was such a course). I have failed miserably during this past week (being 7 days). Oddly enough, I just mentioned to my mom over the phone last week (probably Monday or Tuesday) that I was so proud of myself for actually keeping the house straight on a daily basis. Now, keep in mind, I did not say "clean." I said, "straight." And, yes, I am proud when I can keep a "straight" house.

We live "in town" as some people like to call it, and as a result, we pay (and I don't mean pay as in with hard earned cash) dearly when it comes to space for our living quarters. If you leave one magazine on a table or in a chair or a pair of shoes by the front door, the house looks cluttered and disorderly. So, naturally, you have to understand that my house probably always looks cluttered since there are almost always toys lying around everywhere in every single room of the house. I love our house though, and I am very thankful that I don't have more house to clean or more house to pay higher utility bills on or more rooms for the toys to scatter. And believe me, I still think the toys would scatter into every room in the house no matter how big the house or how many rooms in the house. Fortunately, with a smaller house, I have less rooms to "clean."

So, every night, probably since the beginning of the New Year and frankly, probably right after Christmas as well, I have tried to do a very good job of picking up after myself and my daughter every evening after she's down for the night. I've made a point to put all of the toys and books away AND make sure the kitchen is clean and the dishes are put away BEFORE going to bed. It is amazing how much better I feel when I wake up to a clean kitchen and orderly house.

Well, last week was a very bad week for Miss Annabelle, and, as a result, it was a horrible week for Homemaking 101! On Wednesday of last week, Annabelle woke up with a cold. I heard her coughing that morning before she actually woke up, so I was certain that we had been blessed with her second ever cold or illness (for that matter)! Fortunately, she didn't run a fever with this cold though.

So, on Thursday, she had her 15 month wellness checkup. The pediatrician said that she was fine to go ahead and get her shots though (3 shots) since she had not been running a fever. So, she got her vaccinations, and we headed home around 10:30 a.m. By 11:00 a.m., she was not happy, and she was very needy for me. She would not stop crying (even when I held her), and she kept touching her little leg as if it were hurting. By 11:06 a.m., I gave her a dose of Tylenol. It seemed to take forever for it to kick in though. By 3:00 p.m. (after her nap), she was ready for another dose, and according to the instructions from the doctor, you should wait 4-6 hours between doses of the Tylenol. I gave her the last dose of Tylenol at bedtime around 8:00 p.m.

Please note that my poor child has to be really uncomfortable for me to give her any medicine at all. I am not real big into dosing out the medicine for any small ache or pain, so I'll only administer the medicine when I find it absolutely necessary. I am preparing her for natural childbirth! I really cannot understand these mothers that say, "just give them some Benadryl if they cannot sleep through the night." If you are one of those mothers, please don't be insulted, but right now, it just isn't for me! I don't think medicine solves every problem. Unfortunately, I think medicine is a temporary fix and can often cause more problems down the road.

But, I will say that I did not say "I'll never give her Benadryl to get her to sleep through the night." Motherhood has taught me the most important lesson of all: Never say never!!!

I spent almost the entire day on Thursday holding and rocking my baby. I even had to hold her and rock her during her nap time because whenever I tried to lay her down, she would cry and stand back up in her crib. I was not about to even think about letting her cry it out today. Not that I ever do! Well, maybe I've thought about it, but I'm such a sucker, and I cannot stand to listen to her cry. So, every day at nap time and at bedtime, I rock her to sleep. It works for us. Of course, I don't know what I am going to do when a second child comes along. If I spend this much time rocking the second child to sleep, Annabelle will never get any attention or one on one time.

And, on top of Annabelle being very needy during the day (because of her shots), she also has been keeping me up at night, during the past week, waking at different intervals such as 1:00 a.m., 3:30 a.m. and then again at 5:30 a.m. The odd thing is that some nights she doesn't wake at all. What am I doing right on those nights and wrong on the others?

So, all of that being said, I am way behind on all of my housekeeping because I've been busy comforting a toddler, and frankly, too tired during the day to do much more than hold and play with Annabelle. And, you know what, it really doesn't matter. It does drive me crazy sometimes to live in such a disorderly home, but no one is going to die because I don't have all of the dishes washed or the clothes washed or the rugs vacuumed.

I will say, though, catch up is "h e double hockey sticks"! I spent pretty much all day today washing clothes (and they were mostly all Annabelle's clothes). It was about time since the poor child has been sleeping in clothes that completely do not match because all of her pajamas have been dirty. For example, last night she slept in a red Christmas shirt and blue pants with flowers on it with pink socks to match. Lovely! And, I've been digging through the hamper trying to find the "cleanest" socks the past few mornings because all of her socks are dirty. How terrible is that? I shouldn't mention that I probably haven't washed clothes for Annabelle since we left for Vogel State Park back on December 27th. But, this little 15 month old girl has more clothes for one season than I do for all four seasons!

So, I am going to bed now with a fairly "straight" house and clean clothes! I only have one more load left to wash for Annabelle tomorrow (the whites, and there are not many whites to wash). And, then, she should be good (with clean clothes) for another 3 weeks.

Here is to me keeping a "straight" house for another 3-4 weeks! Wish me luck!

Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping is an inevitable evil. However, I really try to make it a positive experience for both my daughter and myself. I just recently read on one of the blogs that I try to read daily, http://lalakme.blogspot.com/, that this mom is trying to simplify her life as her New Year's Resolution (instead of listing 8 or 10 New Year's Resolutions). This is such a great concept (to use one word instead)! This is the entry from her blog, and I really like the idea as New Year's Resolutions often times end up in failure because people stray from the resolutions for a day or two or week and then decide that they have failed and result to their old bad habits (until the next January 1st). We should all constantly strive to better ourselves, whether it is January 1st or July 1st.

Excerpt from http://lalakme.blogspot.com/ (Lara, I hope you don't mind me posting this here).

Last year, I decided that I wasn't going to make a ton of specific resolutions at the New Year. Mainly because I always feel that I can only ever really focus on just one of the eight or ten goals I was in the habit of making, and that didn't help me feel very successful. So, last year, I decided to focus on one word, and let that govern the way I lived.

The word I chose for 2007 was care.

The word that Lara chose for 2008 is simplify. After reading her blogs (since she chose this word) about how she is trying to simplify her life, I found that she also struggles with the grocery shopping on a weekly basis. Of course, she has three kids, and I only have one, but I've still found that the weekly grocery shopping trip is just a nuisance! Fortunately, I have found some ways to improve myself. However, suggestions are always welcome! As Lara mentions, I also hit 4 stores on a weekly basis for my grocery shopping including Wal-Mart (for the staples), Kroger (for the produce), Publix (for the meat) and Sam's (for everything that is cheaper in bulk such as diapers, diaper wipes, toilet paper, etc. And, I always buy my milk (not Annabelle's milk) and cottage cheese from Sam's as it is cheaper at Sam's). I buy Annabelle the Horizon Farms Organic milk from Wal-Mart for $3 for a half gallon because the nurses in NICU pretty much scared me enough to think that the cow's milk is causing these young girls to go into puberty early. But, keep in mind that I'm still nursing, and Annabelle isn't really drinking much "cow's milk" right now. I am just trying to get her used to the idea and taste every once in awhile.

This past August, we took a beach trip with the in-laws (my mother-in-law, brother-in-law (my husband's brother), sister-in-law, niece and nephew and grandmother-in-law) to the beach (Blue Mountain Beach, FL near Destin, FL). While we were there, I saw a nifty spreadsheet that I assume my sister-in-law had prepared to aid with her own grocery shopping. She had her recipe for the week written on the back of it (we all cooked a meal one night), and I noticed it as I was looking at the recipe. So, I created my own spreadsheet (very similar to hers). Thanks to my sister-in-law for sharing her spreadsheet (even though she didn't know she shared it). :)

So, this spreadsheet breaks down almost everything we buy into categories based on where they are located in the grocery store as well as provides room to the right to jot down your weekly menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since then though, I have purchased a handy journal from the Dollar Tree to use as my "household journal" where I write down my weekly menu and goals for the next day such as "Mail Rebate" or "Bath Time for Bonzo." Bonzo is another nickname for Annabelle! Poor child! My husband blessed her with that nickname as well.

So, I hope that you'll find this spreadsheet helpful to you as well. I included almost everything we buy on at least a monthly (or even quarterly) basis, and this way, I can just scan the list before I hit the local Wal-Mart, and it helps to ensure that I don't forget something such as the shampoo (etc.) my husband would always say he needed (the day after I had already done my grocery shopping for the week). Does anyone else have that problem? It helps to save time on making another trip out for that shampoo that is suddenly completely empty. Of course, unfortunately, something ALWAYS seems to slip through the cracks, but it doesn't happen as often as it used to.

And, if you're frugal like me, and you love coupons, check out the following website: http://thecouponmom.com/. This website has been featured on Good Morning America, and it is great because it helps you use your coupons wisely every week along with the current sales ads to get the best bang for your buck, AND you can print out a nifty grocery shopping list from the website after clicking which coupons you plan to use.

So good luck, and good shopping! And, always remember that everything is a learning experience for your children! This is how I stay positive on grocery shopping day because this gives Annabelle another opportunity to learn!

Tips for Keeping a Clean House

1. Start the dishwasher in the evening right before bed, AND empty the dishwasher first thing in the morning before you do anything else to prevent dishes from piling up in the sink while you wait to "find the time" later in the day to unload the dishwasher.
2. Run a sink full of warm, soapy water before breakfast, lunch and dinner so that the dishes and high chair tray that cannot go into the dishwasher are ready to wash right after mealtimes.