I don't wanna!

I get the "Don't Wannas" as I call them quite often which is when I start sliding down the slippery slope into the corner mountains of laundry and the messy house problems. I had an attack of the Don't Wannas tonight; the kitchen was messy and the back room was messy and I had to put the kids to bed/sigh/. I sometimes get overwhelmed easily and this was one of those times. By the time 8:30pm rolls around I've been up for 15 1/2 hours, have cooked and cleaned up after 4 meals(2 breakfasts and lunch and supper - although I do get help from J with supper cleanup), done a good amount of chores and walked to the school and back twice. I know that a lot of people work harder than I do, I understand that but at the end of the day I really really don't want to do my final kitchen clean up and house tidy. I really really didn't want to do it today. I did though. The kitchen is clean and the house is tidied. I didn't get a whole lot done today with housework(I'll have to do something like 4 loads of laundry tomorrow) because today was grocery/menu day and that always seems to suck up a huge amount of my time.

For those of you that may ask here is my menu for the next 7 days:This week I seem to be cooking mostly out of my Company's Coming cook books which is what all those "CC--" things are about. J suggested a lot of the suppers this week so it wasn't as hard as it could have been. He spent $190 at the store this week and before you fall out of your computer chairs he did tell me that the extras he bought(for Halloween) made up the difference from the $150 that was actually on MY list. We also got things this week that are infrequent buys like dishwasher soap and baking powder and baking soda. I didn't like hearing $190 but we do have the money to cover it this week due to my amazing saving up for the van repair going over what we actually needed to repair the van(hopefully! /knocks wood/). J will get it fixed this weekend and be back to driving himself next week(which has the unfortunate side effect of upping our gas expenses which are halved when he is carpooling).

We both feel money wise we are doing well; Not making new debt and living within our means. Yay us!

I feel I did very well tonight; Doing my housework even when I Didn't Wanna. Yay me!

Cass :)

3 Week celebration!

Okay I'll admit to not doing fantastic so far this week but the laundry is done and the house looks more than reasonable. I cleaned the oven yesterday and the other day I cleaned the toaster. There was over a cup of crumbs in it!!

Today was gloomy and rainy and I looked around and figured that everything looked good enough and I needed a day of a lighter workload. I am completing my usual routines though so the house and laundry are under control.

Go me!!

Part two of: The misbehaving keyboard and my adventures in transit land.

First the good news: I have a new keyboard of course it will be up to you all to decide if what I had to go thru today was worth the getting of said keyboard.

My day has been dysfunctional right from the start. Today's breakfast was French toast but I forgot to spray the pan before I cooked J and I's so ours turned out badly but still tasted good. I don't like it when my cooking turns out badly though so it didn't bode well for my day. The kids' breakfast turned out better but before then I had to deal with a poopy M and change her bed ... she had accidentally pooped in her Goodnights while she slept.

My morning then reverted to smooth sailing for a while and I got the kids to school okay although same jerk had smashed glass in all sorts of places around the school as well as on the way to the school and there was something that very much resembled puke on the sidewalk near the school as well, Ewww!

Once I got back home I chatted on the phone with another local stay at home mom and worked on cleaning up some stuff I had boiled over on the stove. One thing led to another with the stove and I ended up spraying the oven with oven cleaner while I was at it(which I still have to wipe out/sigh/). That pretty much sucked up my entire morning. I made lunch for the kids and then went to get them.

M was very obstinate and not moving at all so I sent K & A ahead so they could eat their lunch before they had to go back to school. M was very difficult to get home and I was not pleased with her but we finally got back and ate lunch. As a side note we didn't turn on the TV while we ate lunch and actually talked, it was very nice! Soon it was time for K & A to go back to school so they did and 10 minutes later M and I were out the door to go grab the first bus keyboard in tow.

Our first bus was late so we missed the connecting bus and had to wait a half hour for it. When we got off the connecting bus the doors shut before M could get off the bus which scared me to brief tears but M was fine...the bus driver was kind enough to come out and check on us as well so I managed to fight back my tears until the bus left. I could just see in my mind the bus pulling away from me with M still in it /shudder/. I needed a break after that so we stopped off at a coffee shop for a snack and a drink(M got a snack and a drink I just got a pop). We hit a bathroom(because I didn't want a repeat of last trip) and then walked over to the computer store. We had been away from home for 1 hour. I would like to state now that it is probably about 10km from my house to the computer store. It took me an hour to get there.

At first it didn't look like they were going to exchange the keyboard but then the guy(who probably didn't want to deal with a whiny lady and her whiny 4 year old) came thru but had to do a straight exchange luckily for me they didn't have the same model in and so I ended up with a slightly older model that will hopefully stand up better. If not then I will just swap keyboards with A & M's computer since they never type anyway so a malfunctioning keyboard won't bother them!

I got out of the computer store just in time to catch the bus to my local mall and when we got there I opted to go in and have some ice cream and use the bathroom. We then had to wait for the bus longer than usual since someone must have thrown up on the bus so they had to clean it first./sigh/

On the way home I decided to get out near a quieter route home and there is a park right there and M wanted to play for a little while so I said we could stay for 15 minutes. 5 minutes in she announced that she had to poo(Why is it always poo with me?!?!) so we went behind a tree but some had ended up in her pants anyway. I had some paper towel in my stroller so I stuck some between her and the poo in her pants and cleaner her up the best I could but she still screamed when I told her we had to come home.

The walk home was quiet and M fell asleep(which I knew she would) and is still sleeping. The new keyboard works fine and I am happy enough(even though it has a red back light yuck) it has silver faced keys so there isn't a lot of glare in bright light and I'll just keep the back light turned off. I'm happy but now I have to go make supper! I will share menus another day Vixn but mostly I just paw thru my cookbooks until I find something I think would be interesting to make :)

Later!

Cass :)

The misbehaving keyboard and my adventures in transit land.

Let me start with a sad tale ... okay it's not sad merely mildly frustrating for me and probably rather dull for you but this is my Blog so; Neener neener :)

Now as most of you who read my Blog know I got a lovely new computer from my mother several months ago(Thanks Mom! I love the new shiny computer!). Well two weeks ago I noticed there was an issue with the keyboard not giving me letters(specifically the letter l)when I hit the key. So I took it into the computer store where we got the system. However I came home with the same malfunctioning keyboard because I couldn't reproduce the error while I was at the store. I thought maybe it had just been dirty and the crumb that had been causing the trouble had fallen out in transit so I gave the keyboard a good vacuuming and hoped for the best.

I noticed however that the keyboard was still messing up and since I typo badly enough as it is with no hep at all and a fully functioning keyboard I was very displeased. I persevered and finally discovered what the problem was; If I didn't hit the keys right on I got no letter. Not on all the keys but on a few if I hit them in the top corner or a little off the center at all I got no letter. I thought "Finally I can prove to them I'm not nuts and they can give me a less fancy keyboard that types when I hit the darn key anywhere!". So I waited patiently for my wonderful friend L to have her car again and she took my back today, two weeks to the day from when I took it in the first time.

After doing a quick search on the website of the computer store I discovered that the keyboard I had that came with my system was actually retailing for $70. I thought "Surely they'll be more than happy to give me a less expensive keyboard!" L took me in and surprisingly I got the same tech as two weeks ago who actually remembered me(probably as that crazy lady with the not broken keyboard). This time I explained exactly what the issue was and he saw for himself what the issue was and that sometimes even when you hit the l key right on you get nothing(darn cursed l key). I said "This is not good." he gave me a line about how it's a gaming keyboard and that it has only one pin under the key so I have to hit the keys squarely or I'll get nothing. Fine. I replied "Yes that's all well and good but it doesn't work for the way I type and that is a problem! I'm not asking for the same keyboard again, I'll be happy with that $25 over there, lets just get this done." Oh no he had to talk to his manager and he was unhappy that I didn't have the box blah blah.

Well then it was "We can give you store credit but we have to wait until the maker of the keyboard is open so you'll have to come back during the week." I explained to him, again, that I did not drive and coming back during the week involved me on transit for a good length of time and was there anyway we could work something out ... but no of course not. Miffed but feeing I had made a tiny bit of progress I left with the same gosh darn malfunctioning keyboard for the second time!!

I got home and checked the transit routes but once I had set up the morning plan(bus, transfer to another bus, walk to store, deal. Then bus, transfer to another bus, get kids and make lunch) I checked the store hours and they open exactly 25 minutes before I have to be on the bus home. Darn. So guess what I get to do tomorrow afternoon with a tired almost 4 year old in tow? Uh-huh...I get to go back to the computer store. I seriously considering teaching M how to throw fits on cue so I can say "We could have taken care of this yesterday when I had no kids with me, but no. I could have even taken the bus and come in this morning with no kids but you don't open until 10am, so no. This is normally her nap time so there's nothing I can do with her screaming she's tired and this is entirely your own fault lets get this done so I can take my screeching kid and go home." I probably won't ...

What will probably happen is that I will walk in ready for a fight and they will give me what I want and I will leave(I will however still be ready to throw a fit, just in case I actually get to). I told my dear J this evening "I am not bringing that darn thing home again. I will break it over the counter and throw the pieces at them and stop and Staples on the way home to get another keyboard but I will not bring that double cursed thing back again to this house!" :) He said I sounded like my Mom ... I agree. You know what? She sounded exactly the same in her 30s as I do now in my 30s. /lol/ I think it's very funny.

... I will add to this Blog tomorrow and let you all know how it goes. Wish me luck!

Cass :)

WooHoo! We reach the magic number again!

As I'm sure you all know I have been meal planning all of our meals for about 3 weeks now. I have also been doing my best to stay in control of the housework ... I have passed the 2 week mark with that and am still doing well.

I am endlessly surprised by how much planning all our meals has cut our grocery bill. J has us on a tight budget of $175 a week with the goal of $150 a week or less if possible. We used to spend about $200 or more a week. Of course we started by only shopping once a week, if something was forgotten or ran out too bad. At that time I also started planning suppers but the rest of the meals were "What do you want?" "I dunno, what do you want?". Shopping once a week helped a lot but planning all our meals has helped even more! J actually said that just my list would have cost us more like $130ish but that he picked up a couple things not on my list that we'll use but didn't strictly need.This week's total bill was $148 for a week of food for our family. I was so happy that we made it under the $150 mark for the second week in a row.

Anyway just wanted to get that down before bed. If you're looking to waste less and spend less give meal planning a try and shop once a week and no more than that. Having to only think about what to cook once a week is very nice, the rest of the week I just have to look at the menu:) The kids are eating better at meal time because they know there is only fresh fruit and sometimes homemade cookies to snack on and nothing else to eat until the next meal is served. I'm seeing a great improvement in their eating.

Cass :)

Is a load a day too much?

I actually went on the defensive about laundry the other day with J when I told him I was doing two loads a day he felt that was too much. Of course those were the days when A wet his bed(which he hasn't the last three nights!) and M's bedding isn't an issue right now because we have her in Goodnights. When a child wets the bed(either A or M) I have to wash an extra load because the blanket is a load on it's own. If they both wet it's an extra 2 loads bringing my daily laundry up to 3 loads.

Just clothes and household stuff like towels is one load a day(I never separate so we have no whites to speak of) which is about 7 loads a week, 14 loads if there is lots of bed wetting going on and 21 if Meeghan is not in Goodnights. J felt that was excessive he said something about 'normal' households having a 'laundry day'. Uh-huh like I want to spend all of one day doing laundry(I did that two weeks ago Tuesday to get rid of the laundry mountains in the corners of the rooms) so I ended up being a little harsh with him. I guess he has a hard time imagining how we manage to dirty an entire load of clothes and towels every single day.

Is it too much? J, K, & I all wear clean shirts, underwear and socks each day but pants can go two days. A & M wear an entire new outfit each day and sometimes jammies as well(although both children prefer to sleep in as little as possible). I change the kitchen wash cloth and towels everyday as well to keep them from being germ spreaders. I use the old towels each morning to wipe down the bathroom(including the toilet) . I've replaced the laundry hampers(that could hold two or more loads each) in the kids' rooms with baskets(that we already had). I had three baskets that held laundry in progress, now I have one free basket for laundry in progress or I have to take one from a room. This has worked great. Each day I walk thru the house and gather up the stuff that needs washing and toss it in a basket and then put it in the machine. It fills the machine, I'm not doing mini-loads here. Then I pull yesterday's load out of the drier and fold it and put it away and use that empty basket to replace the one I took from a kids' room.

It's been so nice not to see laundry mountains in every room!! Everything is always pretty much done. After all it's kinda hard to whine about laundry if you only have to do one load!!

Cass :)

Step by step - My version of "In the beginning."

I was thinking today and I have been asked(okay maybe only by one online friend but I have been asked) what exactly I do to keep things under control. I follow FlyLady although there are lots of groups that basically send the same message of baby steps and not letting yourself get discouraged. It all starts with a clean, shiny sink. Yup for me it is a simple as that! Watch this video and you'll see what I mean.

For me a clean sink is the key. For me once the sink is clean I am lead to wipe the counters and keep the kitchen tidy. If the kitchen is tidy I get such a nice happy feeling when I walk into it that I want to keep other areas of the house looking good as well. Walking into a messy kitchen makes me feel like going back into the basement and climbing into bed ... anything but dealing with the huge mess.

If you are really rotten at house keeping, like me, take a small step at a time and don't give yourself too hard of a time when you don't get everything done. Don't be too easy on yourself either though that is a surefire way of backsliding right back into a cave in the mountain of housework that will grow up around you. I try to remind myself on a regular basis that it's all worth it. I can do this and when I am done I can stand back and enjoy the way my home looks.

FlyLady says to just do 15 minutes at a time ... pick one fairly small job at a time and do it for 15 minutes. You'll be amazed at how much you can do in just that little 1/4 hour.

I love ruts, habits, routines and rituals. So for me having a list of things I do every single day is very satisfying. So quite a while ago I made up routines that I do everyday. I follow the ones that are given out on FlyLady customized for my house and energy levels. I have spent pretty much no money and have gotten a huge amount of peace from it when I am able to keep it up. I am vowing to myself that this time it's for keeps. I have a Morning, Afternoon and Evening routine that I printed out and put inside clear plastic sleeves(2 in each sleeve) and they are clipped together with a big old heavy alligator type paper clip like this. I keep them hung up in my kitchen and check off completed chores with a dry erase marker and then I erase my checks when I am done and flip the slip to the next list(for morning and afternoon) then I have to unclip the lists and flip them fro evening and my inspirational end of day thoughts.

That's where I started. A clean sink and routines...

Cass :)

Things that make me go "Hey that's cool!"

Yeah I'm weird but I'd like to make note of some of the things I have re-discovered for myself because they are memorable for me.

**The sky is cool - it looks cool and is lots of fun to look at.

**If I don't stop and holler "C'mon!" to M every 3 minutes while we are walking back and forth to school she comes just as fast as if I did.

**Toilet bowl cleaner is good for more than just the inside of the toilet bowl ... it can get nasty crud off of other parts of the toilet as well!! I discovered this for myself just today(it was clean the bathroom day) and on a whim decided to put some of the blue goop on the stain on the back of the toilet rim surface(it's been driving me nuts on my daily wipe down of the toilet) and it got it off!! /happy dance/ . Yeah I know ... but like FlyLady says "Nothing says I love you like a Clean toilet to throw up in when you are sick!" of all the things to resound with me that is one thing that really sticks.

On the phone with my Mom today and she told me in the past my record for keeping the house clean and under control was a month and a half. My vow to myself is to start the new year with a clean house. Keep the supportive comments coming because we all need encouragement in our goals even the simple-seeming ones. I can do this ... I love how the house looks and feels to me when I get my work done. My satisfaction level is almost Zen like and yes I am well aware of the fact I am odd but this is my job. My dream job really since as far back as I can remember I always said I was born into the wrong time. Even when I was 12 I felt I would have been happier when women's main roles were to raise children and keep house.

I love being home. I am proud that my kids come home for lunch every day. I am proud when my family gets fresh baked bread and I cook everything they eat. I am proud when I know exactly what is in the food that is nourishing their bodies. I feel a huge amount of elation when I look at my routine list and everything is checked off. It makes me smile when I can check off a hard chore that I did even though I didn't want to. I am happy when my house is in order and my life runs more smoothly because of it.

Cass :)

I week celebration!

Because even small steps should be praised. I'm doing well and happy with how the house looks. Yesterday my chore of the day was the kitchen and I wiped down all the lower cabinet doors as well as the front of the stove, dishwasher, pantry and fridge(all of them are white). I was very surprised at how much better they looked ... how dirty were they?

I have more laundry than usual today. The last three days it's been all I can do to scrape up two full loads a day but I have mostly thanks to A's continuing bed wetting. Everyday this week I have had to wash a sheet and blanket from his bed and the blanket is always a load on its own. I don't mind though two loads a day is pretty easy. Today I stripped and changed K's bed with fall coming on now she's using blankets again and she's been sleeping on top of her memory foam pad(Thanks for that Mom she loves it) with no sheet for over a month so i thought it was time to make up her bed properly. I'm sure she'll sleep much better tonight. That of course added to the laundry considerably(2 blankets and a sheet) so I now have 4 loads of laundry today...although 3 of them are blankets so very easy - just feed the machines.

My chore of the day today is to wash floors ... normally I would have washed the kitchen floor yesterday but the humidity and warmer than usual temperatures here in Southern Ontario wore me out so I left it to today. This morning I re-printed my routines(the stuff I have to do every single day) in a bigger font and added Lock doors to the list for Evening Routine as I again forgot to close and lock the back door last night and it was open all night(I've done this several times over the summer - I tend to be forgetful). J gave me a chill when he replied to my "Well I can't get it every night ..." with "Think of that when someone comes into the house while we're sleeping and takes one of the kids." Yeah I won't forget again ... talk about put a scare into me!!

Anyway enough slacking I'd better get to work ... and M is upstairs on her own again I just know she's up to something!

Cass :)

I'm Simple.

No this isn't another Blog entry about a D'oh! moment in my life. I just wanted to Blog some thoughts I was having this morning. Mostly it struck me at about 7:45am this morning when I realized I was done my morning chore list(not to be confused with my chore of the day - I have a list of basic chores I have to do everyday to keep the house looking nice). Knowing that my morning chores were done and I did not have to do a single thing until 11:10am when I walk up to the school to get the kids and walk them home for lunch. It made me very happy. Then on my way back to the house(limping because I managed to hurt my leg somehow on Thursday) and listening to my MP3 player(I have a little iPod shuffle that I love) I realized that it doesn't take me much to be happy.

There are things that make me mad in my life, don't get me wrong. I spend some of everyday angry for some silly reason. My point is that it doesn't take much to have me laughing and smiling again and I am deeply grateful fro that.

So far the house is staying under control but remember I haven't even hit the one week mark yet. With meal planning all three meals a day I only have to think "What should I make?" once a week and then look at the menu for the rest of the time(I've done 1 week of meal planning all three meals so far). I found out on Thursday when I went in to swim laps that the pool, that was supposed to re-open Oct 1, will be closed until the first week of November because they found out they need to do more work on it. Ah well, gives me time to get this whole doing housework under my belt and ground into my thick skull.

I thought I had more to say but this Blog has taken me half the day to write(stuff keeps coming up) and now I forget. So - Later!

Cass :)

The best laid plans ...

So recently I have once again been trying to get my life on track, get settled into my routines that I know work and sticking to it. Of course as my Mom pointed out to me the other day "You're very enthusiastic when you're talking about these things Cass but your follow thru needs work.". She's entirely correct ... I'm great at planning. I'm wonderful at planning and writing down my plans and I'm even pretty good at sticking to said plans, for about 3 days.

As with many things in my life I have real success issues. I know this very well about myself and I hear knowing the problem is half the battle but sadly it's the solving the problem part where I fall on my face. Basically it's like I am afraid of actually succeeding. I see this in everything in my life from my housework to the games I play on my computer. I very rarely manage to follow thru on anything. So I end up opening my eyes and looking around my life every few weeks and saying "How did I let all this go for so long!?" At this point it's mostly the house and the things I have to do here that I am trying to focus on. Of course that covers quite a bit of stuff. My To Do list looks something like this:

TO DO
Get into a routine with the house cleaning and stick to it.
Meal plan 3 meals a day and a suggested snack every week.
Keep the laundry under control.
Set up and stick to a daily routine to help A with his school work.
Keep an eye on M, if you can't see her she's doing something you won't like.

My extended list includes decluttering, getting into the Y, finding time for J&I to be alone as well as budgeting and cutting costs. This week(yeah all 2 days of it) I am doing well. I got thru my morning routine before I walked the kids to school today(I have to be able to do that so that when I start going to the Y everything still gets done). I have been meal planning all three meals as well as baking a lot of things we eat from scratch(just since Thursday though). J expressed concerns this morning that I would get tired of the time it takes to do this and I said to him "I have time, even when I go to the Y in the mornings I have loads of time. I can't use time as an excuse. I have to quit wasting it."

I'm right. I am very good at wasting time and it needs to stop. I'm not 12 anymore I'm 35 and it's way past time that I grew up and started doing more with myself that nothing. How can I look at J and know I love him when all I do to replay everything he has given me(a home, 2 children, the option not to go out to work) is whine and moan about what a mess the house is and how I can't seem to keep my act together long enough to keep it that way for more than 3 days at a time! I have no excuses. I'm in good health and I am capable. I know what needs to be done and have the tools to do it. I know exactly how to keep the house looking great by only doing an hour or two of housework a day. If knowledge is power why do I spend so much of my time feeling powerless or is that just my utter lack of motivation to do anything I'm feeling?

So I'm kicking myself in the backside ... again ... and hoping this time it sticks. I can do this. The key is that I need to keep doing it!

Cass :)

PS - In case any of you were wondering my neck is feeling better just a tiny bit of stiffness left.