We're All Going to Die!

Since I have had a little more time at home during the day lately, I have had a chance to scroll through the channel guide to see some of what daytime television has to offer. Mainly what I have learned is that the are at least 12 different things that are probably in my house or part of my lifestyle that are killing me. I have never taken the time to watch Dr. Oz or The Doctors, because the plot summaries alone are depressing. The last promo I saw for Dr. Oz said that everyone in his audience had cancer and everyone watching would have it too (or something to that effect). I took that to mean that watching his show gives you cancer, so I didn't watch. Truthfully I didn't watch because, for reasons I can not explain, he gives me the creeps, but I digress. My point is that there is a lot of health talk going on out there and I wonder if it is making us more health conscious or creating a society of hypochondriacs.
Just this week I have been having an very annoying twitch in the muscle below my eye. It is from eye strain and stress. I probably need to go back to using eye drops. Just for fun I looked it up online and found out that I may have tourettes, epilepsy, or fibromyalgia. It reminded me of that scene in Kindergarten Cop when he says he has a headache and the little kids says, "Maybe its a tumor". Did this kid grow up and start WebMD? It is sadly another illustration of how the internet should be making us all better informed and educated, but instead it is turning us all into crazy people. If you are having a health problem, go to your doctor and not the internet. They can actually treat you. If you have questions, ask them. It is one of the things you pay them for.
Okay, rant over.

And the Winner is...

We have a new trumpet player in the family! Believe it or not Rocky did not try to influence her in this direction. I talked her into trying a sax just to get a feel for a reed instrument and she really didn't like it even though she did really well right from the start. I think the band director was leaning towards french horn for her, but was perfectly fine with her selection of trumpet. The only thing we tweaked a bit was to go with a cornet instead of a full sized trumpet. Rocky and the director both felt that it would fit Nix better at this stage and would be easier to learn in the beginning. Although I do suspect that Rocky's want of a cornet for himself had a little to do with it. It does make it easier that we have a built in private tutor, extra horns, and all the extras just laying around the house. I guess as of today I am a band mom. Wow!

Hey! Wait a Minute

I'm not much of a true conspiracy theorist. Oh sure, I like to come up with outlandish reasons why some things happen now and then, but it is really just to exercise my creative juices. It's not like I sit around debating who shot JFK or if Elvis is dead (totally not by the way;). Today I heard more than one person mention that to spite filling out a census form and mailing it in on time they received a visit from a census taker. My mind digressed from there to wondering if it is a crime to mess with a census worker, then to how many different letters they sent me, to the Post Office, and then on the price of stamps (not my most random train, but still a fun ride). I realized that ever since the big announcement that the USPO was totally broke, I have received three times as many letters from the government as usual, if not more. Take for example my tax return. I got one letter saying I had filed, one saying I was due a refund, one saying they were going to send me a check because they decided not to automatic deposit it, the actual check, and then finally a letter telling me they had mailed the check. I think they spent more in postage than my refund was actually for. This Spring I got a letter saying the census was coming, the form, and 2 letters telling me I already had it and reminding me to send it in. What is bugging me here is that if they can manage to get me a letter saying something is coming then why can't they have also just sent the actual item?
I can think of no area in life where this is normal behavior, nor can I remember it happening before. My only conclusion is that the government is spending a googol worth of money (that is 10 to the 100th power, and JD's new favorite number) to keep the post office running and to create pointless jobs for people with no skills. This also means that my tax refund could have been a lot bigger if it weren't for all of this wasted time, paper, and postage. Wouldn't be a better use of our time to try and figure out why the post office isn't making money even though the price of stamps keeps going up?
I would also like to suggest that if they had put an optional essay question on the census form asking people how they felt about the way the federal government was spending their hard earned money, then they wouldn't have had nearly the problems getting people to mail them back . I might just have to add that to my form on my own next decade.

Long Time No See

I feel like it has been forever since I have sat down to write anything. I can not believe I have abandoned my blog for so long. I guess the lack of dramatic before and afters and my laptop taking a dirt nap stifled my creative juices. I am in the middle of redoing Nix's room and have been in the middle of it for about a month. We got everything out and rearranged, but trying to get everything back in has been a lot like repacking a suitcase after a weeks vacation at the beach. You know it all went in there before, but there is no way to get it all back in. Add to that the age factor. I once heard a person say that a one's attention span is the same in minutes as they are years old. This explains why I can not get Nix to work on her room for more than 11 minutes and also maybe why my father has been able to take up wood carving.
On the topic of cleaning, we are still doing pretty good. It isn't the spotless glory it first was, but it is still a lot better than before. As an added bonus I have learned that I can get it from not bad to spotless in a lot less time. After I had been sick and the house had been allowed to slide for a good week, I timed my clean up. It only took 9 minutes to do the den and that includes vacuuming! In one hour I can have the house completely guest ready. That fact alone makes all of this work worth it.

JD's Room

After what seems like a very long break, I finally have a new room to show you. JD's room is done. It was interesting. He is a fairly neat kid so there wasn't a lot of mess, but there was a lot of outgrown toys, books, and clothes. Let me start with a shot I took of all the books leaving the room, and his book case now.

Then the closet. My mom was a huge help with this one. I took out clothes while she folded them and put them in a box. Once upon a time I had a pipe dream of the kids taking their dirty clothes to the laundry room every night. I gave that up. And now that I have removed the clubhouse the children had been setting up in there, he has plenty of room.

Here is the big before and after.

Several of his pieces of furniture are anchored to the walk. A product of his climbing days. Because of this I couldn't really rearrange the room. JD agreed to remove a lot of toys because he doesn't really play in his room, and that seems to have opened up the space.

I have one more picture to share. To help freshen up the puppy collection (all stuffed, I promise), I put them in a space bag and sucked all the air out of them. At first JD was worried, but once he saw them all smushed and vacuumed he started laughing and wanted me to do it again. They do smell a lot fresher. I just had to take a picture of them.

Motivation

I am trying to get motivated to clean a room upstairs, but it is just not happening. I think one of the reasons is that the children's rooms are up there and I'm not real excited about the potential for protests when I start pitching stuff. The other room I have to do is our everything room. It is an office/music/craft/storage/sewing room that sometimes doubles as a extra guestroom when we get the air mattress out. It is also the smallest bedroom in the house so you can imagine the cramped mess that awaits me. Maybe I'll start on JD's room. He actually keeps his room neat most of the time. Except for the rare occasion when he, as he puts it, swings around doing his monkey business.

In the mean time, for those family members who have not joined the Facebook cult, here is a picture of Rocky's very first (and hopefully last) wreck.

Today I am thankful that he is not hurt and for the flexibility of Georgia pine trees when they are still small. We are still waiting on the official damage report.

Easy Peezy

For my first room upstairs I picked something really easy, the guest room. Right now Rocky has it transformed into the sick cave because he has had a nasty cold. Normally it would look much better than the before shot seen here.

(note: the red and gold faux finish and fancy window valance came with the house)

There isn't a lot to this room. There is the bed, a couple of side tables, a rather ugly blue folding table, and an equally ugly but very comfortable blue chair in the corner that is unseen in this picture. Not a lot of thought went into this room when we moved in and not a lot has changed over the years. I got to thinking that the only way to really feel like this room had been redone was to move everything around.

Tada!

The whole room is now reversed. I am loving the way it looks, but I guess I need to have some house guests to know if it is really working the way I want it to. See the pretty covered table? That is the ugly blue table covered with a quilt that was placed backside up. I added a couple of framed pictures to it to make it look like a real piece of furniture. I'd like to get another small lamp to match the one I already have to go on the other table. In the meantime I used 3 pretty candle holders I had laying around. Ideally, I would have also get a new comfy chair with a floor lamp for reading next to it, a new comforter set, and a small decorative trash can. Dave Ramsey says I can only have the trash can and not so much decorative as cheap.

After a Compromise

The coat closet is finally done. It is one of the smaller spaces I have done, but I needed the most help with it. I decided that the coat closet was indeed for coats, but that if an item could be stored against the wall and not block the path from the door to the coats then it could stay. To help me determine what this applied to I rolled out my rarely used yoga mat. If it didn't touch the mat, it could stay. I have a small storage box where instruction manuals can live, one folding table and it's chairs and two t.v. trays. On one side I installed a 6 peg coat rack (Lowes $10- thank you Ginny!). It holds hats, scarves, and an old shoe bag that no holds gloves and winter hats. It is similar to an idea I found in the book as well as the blog of the author ( From Messed to Blessed). I just did it with what I already had around the house.

I need to follow up on a couple of undone tasks and then the inside of my downstairs will be finished. I have to clean the inside of my microwave, shred one more stack of papers, and empty my tiny box before I can call it really done. I also decided that hanging the coats on the chairs was working but also the only thing that still looked a little messy. Thanks to my friend Michelle I found a really pretty hanging coat rack at Hobby Lobby on sale for $7. It is going to be hung next to the door to the garage.
I really can not believe it has been a full month since my first project. I've had house guests, a party, sick kids, and a sick husband, and the crazy thing is the house is still clean! I could go make pictures of every area right now and aside from the slightly scary looking unshaven man laying on the couch and the unmade bed, it is perfect.

Valentine's Day

I am taking a brief moment away from cleaning to explain why I am not a fan of Valentine's Day. Did you know that not only is Valentine the patron saint of love, but also of the plague? I'm not making this up. I googled it.
Not one time in my entire school age years did I ever have a boyfriend on Valentine's Day. When you add in all the people getting countless deliveries to school (a practice I am firmly against) with general teenage angst you get a special kind of depression that tends to color one's outlook. My senior year in high school was especially bad because we had a really bad ice storm and my family ended up having to take in a relative that was a chain smoking, foul, and generally nasty person. No one in the house even realized it was the 14th until a couple of days later when we got to go back to work and school and the relative had left.
I can not go into too much detail about some of the worst ones I have had because they fall under my 10 year rule. I refuse to hold on to any anger, bad feelings, or resentment past 10 years. I try not to at all, but 10 years was sort of my "it is silly to still carry this around" point.
The highlights from those years would be Rocky standing me up for the better part of our first Valentine's (completely unintentional), the year he forgot and dug a deeper hole trying to make it better, and the picnic year- freezing cold, chased by geese, and getting lost to name a few of the things that went wrong. It hasn't all been on him though. I've had some serious stomach troubles go on that killed the day. JD had strep for a month and the doctor kept trying to tell me it was a stomach bug. After throwing up his lunch yet again they finally called to tell me the long culture came back positive and called in a prescription that he turned out to be allergic to. That was the second worst one because my kid was so sick. The all time worst for us was the year I was pregnant with JD and had been put on bed rest because of food poisoning. I was hurting, afraid that my baby was going to be born too early, my mother was there helping out but my father couldn't come so they were apart. We really spread the misery around that year.
Last year we went to help Rocky's parents move. To be totally clear, I did not mind that even a little. I was happy we could help them. Goodness knows they have helped us enough over the years. The only mistake we made was in trying to go out to eat that night any way. Rocky's mom set us up with dinner reservations and they watched the kids for us, which was really thoughtful. Sadly, after a long day of moving we were both so exhausted that I could not even guess at what we ate that night or if it was good. We couldn't even keep a conversation going, and if you know Rocky and me then you know that talking is never a problem for us.
This year we are skipping it. We'll get the kids a little something and maybe a card, but that is it. No presents, no flowers, and most of all no plans. Our anniversary is only a month away. I'd much rather spend the time and money on a day with real meaning and happy memories.
On a side note, I am also displeased with how having reservations that night just means you have reserved the right to wait on a table and how flowers that usually cost $15 suddenly cost $150. Getting flowers is my favorite thing, but paying Valentine prices for them sucks all the joy out of it. How are these things romantic?

Just Before

Today I am home from work with two slightly sick kids. They both have colds. They are both almost well, but not well enough to go to school. I thought this would make for the perfect day to finish my last area that I planned on cleaning before moving this job upstairs, and that is the coat closet. However, before I have even started I am at a loss for what to do. Although it is a coat closet it is located under my stairs and is fairly deep. The rack for hanging coats is at the back leaving all this floor space to store things, but if you do store things there you can not get to where your coats are and as such, they never get put away. I know that this is going to either be a coat closet or a storage closet, but it can no longer be both. My question is, which one should it be? Either way I am faced with finding new and creative places to put whatever is left out.


Take a look at the before


It actually hasn't been that long since this closet was cleaned out. In fact, I think my mother cleared it out last year while she was here helping me as I recovered from surgery. I know the kids have coats in there they have outgrown and there is really no telling what is in that box back there. I'm going to start by taking literally everything out of the closet. Maybe then I will have a clearer picture of what can go back in.
I'm open to ideas and suggestions here. Should a coat closet be just for coats, or do we need to start keeping them in our own closets and let the vacuum and folding tables live in here? Maybe there is a happy middle I have not yet considered. What do you think?

The Desk

The last area that I really wanted to finish before the weekend was the desk in my kitchen. It would complete all of the visible areas in the downstairs. This desk is the catch all spot to end all catch alls. Not only does the top get cluttered, but it also has 6 full drawers that quickly became junk drawers. No one needs 6 junk drawers! You can never find anything. This area usually gets cleaned about twice a year and involves me shoving everything on the desk top into a box to sort later, which of course never happens. The cabinets above the desk usually hold seasonal dishes and my medicine chest type things. I made the bold decision to repurpose this whole area. The medicine could stay, but the rest of the desk area will now be for school and homework supplies only. I managed to find space for everything that needed a new home and the whole job was rather painless.

For this one I had the forethought to leave the doors open.

Before

After

Now each of us has a file folder for mail and papers (super cheap from Ikea). The shredder sits under the desk so I can shred junk mail as it comes in instead of letting it pile up, and for the first time since we have lived here, I can fit a real chair at the desk and expect it to stay long term. This is a great homework spot because I can keep an eye on the worker, but they can not see the t.v.

I tossed a good amount of expired drugs and even a bottle of baby vitamins - my youngest is 5 now. I like to buy over the counter stuff generic which can make it hard to tell what it what. I took out a sharpie and wrote the brand names on there as well as expiration dates. The mystery is now gone.

This one comes with an extra picture because opposite the desk is our "new" coming and going area. The china cabinet use to be here. Now I have two chairs that we hang coats on, a basket for gloves and hats, reusable shopping bags, and a table for purses and bibles. We also made room for shoes, school bags, and anything I need to remember to take with me in the mornings. It makes getting out of the house a lot faster and certainly looks better than having everything piled in the floor.

Island of Despair

Having an island in a kitchen seems like such a wonderful idea. My kitchen is laid out perfectly for it's island. It manages to increase the work and cabinet space without being in the way. Sadly, that is where the good points end. Our island is a constant landing place for anything and everything. Check out the before picture.

Most of the stuff on there isn't even kitchen related. There are so many things to pick on here that it is hard to know where to start. I have 2 rolls of paper towels out but neither of them are on the paper towel holder. There is part of a loaf of bread that should have been thrown out last week, but wasn't because somehow the new loaf got placed on top of it. I think my favorite is the shampoo bottle mixed in among the dirty glasses. This is one that truly makes me hang my head in shame.

Well, not any more!

The real work in this room actually went on behind the closed doors. I wish I had shots with the cabinet doors open. I took the time to really think through the work I do in my kitchen and laid it out accordingly. I also scaled down on things. I have a whole big box full of extras and stuff I don't use. I've put it in the garage for a few months to make sure I really don't need 3 cheese grater (still don't know how or why I had 3), 12 dish towels, or any of the mystery lids.

My table cloth experiment in the dining room has paid off big time so I decided to try it on the bar as well. I used a table runner that I had found on clearance at Walmart, got another one of those gold chargers I had hanging around and that is now the place we keep fresh fruit like apples and bananas. It looks pretty, reminds people not to put stuff there, is easy to remove if I need the work space, and as an added bonus, we are eating more fresh fruit.

It has been a few days and it still looks great. People have even started putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher so as to not mess it up. Having family over this weekend is going to be the real test. If it is still even remotely clean on Monday I will be thrilled and amazed.

JD's Good Job

I sent JD upstairs this morning to pick up all of his dirty clothes. When he came down he said he had a surprise for me and that I needed to bring my camera. With a 5 year old you really never know what the word "surprise" means. This time it was a good surprise. He had picked up all his clothes and made his bed all by himself without being told. Since I have been making pictures for the rooms I clean he thought I needed to make a picture of his bed. Then he sweetly suggested that I could post it on my blog so everyone could see his good job. I quite agree. So, here is JD and his awesomely made up bed.

Kitchen Closet

Instead of just storing food and a few small appliances, my pantry had become more like a closet for junk that was vaguely kitchen related. I clean out my pantry on a fairly regular basis, but all it takes is one trip to the store for it to fall back into chaos. This time I got out my label maker and made tags for each shelf. I have a space labeled for breakfast foods, beverages (tea bags, lemonade mix, etc.), snacks, crackers, cooking supplies, mixes, and canned goods. On the top shelf that I have to strain to reach I put small appliances and extra paper towels. The floor has a couple of heavy things like the crock pot and the fire extinguisher.

Here is before:

One big problem I found in there was that of empty boxes. There was no way for me to know that we were out of "x" because the box was still in there. So I took out everything that was individually wrapped and placed them in a ice cube bucket (the kind that comes with your frig for no good reason). For the snack section I used a plastic box from Dollar Tree that is about the size of a shoe box. Now I know when things are empty and boxes are not taking up so much space.

And now for the after:

The last thing I did in there was to mop the floor. I didn't want to haul out a whole mop bucket and mop for this tiny area so I snagged one of the kid's sand pales and did it by had with a sponge and some Murphy's Oil. I even got up a paint spot that came with the house. One cleaning tip that came in handy tonight was that a pencil eraser will get up scuff marks with very little effort. Just remember to do it before you mop or it will leave kind of a dull spot. It is a little sad that the cleanest spot on my whole kitchen floor is in the pantry, but hopefully that will be fixed tomorrow.

The Closet

I vacuumed the floor of my closet today! I didn't stop there. I got the cob webs out of the corners and even did the baseboards. Do closets usually have baseboards? It seemed odd to me.

I have got a ton of clothes to donate, which I am pretty excited about. The only real change I made in this room, aside from clearing it out, was to add in a small trash can so that when Rocky empties his pockets of tissues he can throw them away instead of letting them pile up on a shelf (ewww!). I also took out some worn out shoes that I don't wear any more which made room in my hanging shoe rack for things such as swimming suits. Now I don't have to try to cram them onto the self we have for socks and underwear.

Here is the before

And the after

I'm not sure pictures do this one justice.

This weekend I am tackling the kitchen. Nix's birthday is next Friday and I am trying to have the downstairs completely done by Saturday when we have family coming to celebrate. This may be a stretch because my parents will be spending the whole weekend here so I do have to get the upstairs in order, too. My plan is to send Rocky upstairs with the kids to tackle a basic clean upstairs while I rearrange the kitchen. If I can get the pantry done tomorrow, that will be a huge head start.

Mostly Finished Bathroom

First I must explain my before picture. Since I have yet to retrieve my first before shots from my laptop I took a new one right before starting work on the bathroom. Several things from the bedroom project got moved in as did the cleaners and the previously mentioned tiny box. So, do me a favor and keep in mind that this before really is much worse than my typical bathroom mess.

And now the almost after

It is counted as an almost after because I am done organizing and purging (3 trash bags this time), but the deep cleaning part has been put on hold. While using my shark steam cleaner, which I love, I managed to steam my hand. As I learned in 9th grade Principles of Technology class from Mr.Toy, steam burns worse than hot water. I'm fine, but my left thumb has been sidelined for a couple of days. Thank goodness I can type without my left thumb, right?

Most of the cleaning is done. I just have to finish the shower, tub, and toilet. After that I have promised myself a nice hot bath in my perfect bathroom.

I think the most dramatic part of this room is in the linen closet. Since I was able to move the sheets into the bedroom I opened up a lot of space in there. Combine that with throwing out the junk and things that didn't belong (like the bullets) and I have a ton of room.

The Weirdest Award

I knew that when I embarked on this cleaning journey that I was bound to come across a few weird things in odd places. Up until today the most out of place thing has been a DS game in a stack of papers under my bed. We still haven't figured that one completely out yet. However I have now been crowned the bestest mom ever for finding it.
Today while emptying out my linen closet in the master bathroom I found something that is sure to go down as the strangest most out of place item in the history of house cleaning. I know I am only a few rooms into this, but it can not get any weirder than this.

For those of you who are not familiar with firearms, those are bullets for a .22 caliber rifle. The really strange part is that I do not have a 22 in my house. Even if I did, I still can not imagine a reason for putting bullets in the back of a linen closet. I am pretty sure that this is a box I got when I first learned how to shoot. That dates them back to the mid 80's. I suppose I should find them a nice new home. Maybe somewhere with some woods where the bullets could run around and feel useful again.

Tiny Box

One of the steps in doing the cleaning I am doing is to have a "tiny box". It is a box to put tiny things into. As you are cleaning and organizing you run into all sorts of tiny things that have no home such as paper clips, safety pins, loose change, etc. You take those and put them in the tiny box and then sort them out in the end. All of your tinys now have a home and you know where to find them when you need them. You can stop buying bobby pins and rubber bands because chances are good that you already have more than you need.
My tiny box is about the size of a shoe box. My thinking was that if everything that went in there was tiny then how much room could you really need. Also, I'm great at keeping little things in special spots so they don't get lost. After 3 rooms I have found out that not only am I not as good as I thought, but that a bunch of tiny things take up a lot of room.
I wasn't feeling so hot today so I arranged to take today off instead of Friday. As I sat around doing nothing I began to feel guilty for not getting anything done. I think that is another delightful skill that comes with motherhood, guilt over being under the weather. So anyway, I decided I could sort my already full tiny box while sitting on the couch watching t.v. hoping to feel better. I really wish I had thought to make a picture of this box while it was still overflowing. I had no idea I had so many safety pins. I may never have to buy pencils again. I am still trying to figure out where all the screws came from, but on the bright side I also found all the screwdrivers needed to put them back in when I find out.

Dust Lions

Dust bunny is much to mild of a word for what I found living in the corners of my room. Dust lions seemed much more appropriate. I still can not believe the amount of stuff I pulled out from under my bed. A lot of it should have been thrown out awhile ago. Some of it was things I had been looking for and thought were lost for good. The truly scary thing I found under there was enough dust to choke a horse. I can not believe we have been sleeping on top of that all this time. We (I) have decided that nothing will be stored under our bed ever again and to that end I have tucked our bed skirt up so it no longer hides that area and we will not be tempted. It took me all week to purge this room of junk. I took out 2 full bags of trash, a packed box of things to go through later and possibly store and/or donate, and one table that we had books on. The books are now in our wardrobe where I also found room for all of our king sized sheets, storage space for candles, and I still have a couple of drawers I can put things in if need be. The wardrobe had been a mess of things and a bunch of sweaters I never wore because I forgot they were in there. They have been moved to my closet and all of the junk found a new home or was tossed.

I think the best way to handle my before and afters this time is to use pictures taken from the doorway of the room. I think you will notice some obvious changes right away.

One cute tip I picked up from the book that was helpful in this room is to take a pillow case from your sheet set and store the rest of the set inside. This keeps pillowcases from wandering of, fitted sheets from magically unfolding, and in general keeps things neater.

Below you will find a picture I just took tonight of my den and dining rooms. It has been a full week since I transformed both these rooms and as you can see, it is staying clean.

p.s. I have red flannel snowflake sheets because Target put them on sale for $15 in king size and this was the only print they had left. I don't care how badly they clash with everything I own. They are really comfortable and they were cheap. You can not pass that combination up.

Snow Day!

My friend Tiffany just posted memories of snow days and it took me back to living at the merge of Manley, Duncan, and Reynolds drive hills.
Growing up, my house sat on the corner of the two steepest hills in West Tennessee, and just down from a third. They may have been the only 3 hills in West Tenn. This was great for two things, 1. riding bikes and 2. sledding. It was also good for wrecking both. Everyone from my neighborhood has a story about a wreck they had on those hills. Most of the stories involve trips to the ER. Yes, this includes super cautious me. Although mine did not require medical treatment, I do still have tiny scars.
One year after the perfect snow for sledding we were taking turns riding down the smaller hill next to the house. I guess it was my brother's turn for a trip to the doctor that day because he hit the end of the cove just right and went flying.
My parents took him in to get x-rayed because his wrist was looking pretty nasty. After a few minutes the doctor comes back in and says they need to x-ray the other arm as well. This made no sense because his other arm was fine. Then the doctor explained that Matt's wrist was bent and they didn't think a sledding accident could do that and they wanted to check to see if the other arm matched. It did, and he was sent home. If I had a dollar for every time a doctor has said to one of my family members "We've never run across this before" I could...well, pay all the doctors bills that come after that statement.
I never had a sledding wreck, but only because I was too scared to go fast. It must be genetic because Nikki is the exact same way.