10 posts tagged “organization”

Yeah, I said it! 

I have finally decided to embrace my inner clean freak.

Simon is home on Spring break this week, so if I work it right I'll be able to get him to help.  I am so sick of this pit that we've been living in, so I'm going to actually admit to all of the work that needs to be done around here and post my goals for each day.  (You don't actually have to read them if you don't want.  I'm sure they won't be all that entertaining.) My thought is that if I post my goals where other people can see them, I'll feel more obligated to actually get things done.

(First my excuse.  For the past couple of weeks, I have had absolutely no energy or motivation to get things done.  At first I thought it might be depression, but then I started running a fever and having other upper-respiratory symptoms.  Yesterday I broke down and took some Claritin and Mucinex, and started pushing fluids.  I swear I feel like a new woman this morning!  That's where this newfound desire to decrackify is coming from, I think.)

So here are my goals for today:

Give the kitchen a cursory cleaning.
(I'll save things like cleaning out the fridge and mopping/waxing the floor for later.)

• Put away everything that doesn't belong in there.
• Reload and wash the dirty dishes that Steve put away when I forgot to flip over the clean/dirty magnet on the dishwasher. (Oops.)
• Load and wash the other dirty dishes.
• Clear off and wipe down the cabinets.

(I do need to start cooking up the stuff that's going to go bad out of the fridge, so I'll probably wind up doing a lot of cooking before the day is out.)

Give the bathroom a fast wipe down.
(I need to go back and clean the floor, re-caulk the tub, paint, etc. later. I'm trying to keep my goals realistic for today.)

• Wipe down the toilet.
• Swish the inside of the toilet w/brush and cleaner.
• Put things away.
• Wipe down the sink.
• Put spray cleaner inside the tub and rinse. (I'll give it a good scrubbing later.)

Start the laundry.

• Fluff, fold and put away the clean laundry I have in baskets.
• Sort and start washing the dirty laundry.

(Notice I didn't say I could finish the laundry today.  Still trying to keep it real.)

I promise to check back in at the end of the day and tell you what I really got done.

Edited the next day--
Ok, I did get the kitchen mostly cleaned up.  I did everything but take out a few things that don't belong in there. (There is still a box of stuff left from Steve's birthday party that I need to find homes for.  Where do you store a half-full helium tank?)
I did do everything I said I would in the bathroom.  It would be passable for family, but it still needs a lot more work to be company ready.
I did absolutely nothing with the laundry, but I did get some cooking done. 

Today my plan is to tidy the kitchen back up and then finish cooking all of the stuff that I sorta wanted to cook yesterday. 

Wait, that's not how you spell relief!  (Sorry, those childhood commercials are deeply ingrained.)

I am completely dumbfounded about how much better I feel since this whole Lent thing started.  While I'm still a little worried about a few things, they're reasonable things to worry about and I'm worried about them a normal amount.  It always amazes me how much peace I feel about everything in my life when I focus less on my petty problems, and more on what I think God wants me to be doing.

I've done really well on my decluttering mission so far.  There have been a couple of days when I only spent 15 minutes doing it, but one of those days was decluttering our medicine cabinet, so it was a quality 15 minutes.  The other days, I've spent a couple of hours on the mission.  I'm ashamed to admit how much stuff we have, but I've been working on an area in the back corner of our basement that is stacked high with boxes, and it's almost cleared out!  I'm also a little ashamed of the vast amount of supplies I've moved over into my crafting/sewing/scrapbooking area.  As I run across supplies, I remember buying them.  Heck, I sometimes even remember what project I bought them for.  I haven't been sorting through any of that stuff, I've just been moving it over to the area in the middle of the room that will (hopefully) soon be my craft area.  I am embarrassed by how much stuff is there!  I haven't been getting rid of any of it.  I want to sort through it and see what I actually have before I decide what to get rid of.  I can tell you that I'm all wiggly with excitement about the prospect of being able to actually do something artistic.  I've heard that doing artistic things is a good stress reliever.  I can't wait to try out that theory!

I think my goal for today is going to be to try to sort all of that stuff out.  Since Sundays don't count in the Lenten season, I might even get to do something artistic as soon as tomorrow!!!

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and our new church has an Ash Wednesday service.  (Yes, I walked around yesterday with ashes on my head for awhile.)  Simon didn't fully understand the tradition, so Steve explained it to him along these lines:

Do you remember last year on Palm Sunday, when the kids walked into the church waving palm branches to symbolize all the fanfare people gave Jesus when he first came into Jerusalem because they thought he was going to be the king that they'd been expecting? Then, when they found out that he wasn't there to be their king in the way they thought he was supposed to be, they kind of turned their backs on him, right?  Everyone was so excited about Jesus' coming, and then that excitement kind of fizzled out.

It kind of works the same way with us.  Around Easter time, we feel a renewed excitement about Jesus.  It's like we remember that we can have a fresh start to be the person Jesus wants us to be.  Then Easter passes, and we get back to our normal lives, and our excitement kind of dries up as we forget about what Easter was like.

Last Palm Sunday, you waved fresh, green palm branches.  If you brought that palm branch home, and stuck it on your shelf, what do you think would happen to it as the year goes on?  It would become dry and dusty, right?  Kind of like how our Easter spirit for being like Jesus dries up and gets dusty as the year goes by. 

The reason you don't get to take your palm branch home, is because they save them to burn them to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday.  Kind of like the ashes of the dusty, dried up palm branches helps remind us that our spirit has kind of dried up and become a little dusty.  We need to become a little more humble, and remember what Jesus did for us.  The ashes help remind us to be humble.  To remind us to try to be more like Jesus, and to remind us that we need to return to depending on God and not ourselves. 

I really liked his explanation.

Simon already kind of understands the idea of the Lenten season.  He knows that we give something up or add something to our lives to help remind us of what Jesus went through when he was tempted for 40 days in the desert.  In years past, we've given up things like meat, television and soda.  (Simon didn't like it very much, but he understood.)

This year, since things have already been kind of in a turmoil, we decided not to give anything up for Lent.  Our pastor had suggested to everyone that instead of giving something up, that we take something on that would be spiritually beneficial.  I know that Steve and Simon and I all decided to add a Lenten devotional that we got from our pastor; but after dealing with all of my mom's clutter in her house, I think I also need to take stock of my our belongings because I think my love of possessions is keeping me from God. 

Part of it is because we aren't able to fully use our house because of all of the clutter.  I've always prayed for a home where I could have people over and have an in-home Bible study--but right now you can't even sit around my dining room table because of the clutter.  The other thing is that I think I have faith issues where my stuff is concerned.  It was ingrained in me from early on (by my depression era mother with o.c.d.) that you don't throw anything away because you might need it later. The thing is, if I keep everything I *might* need later, doesn't that mean I don't have faith in God to provide for me when I need it?

With that in mind, I've decided that for the 40 days of Lent, I am going to spend at least 15 minutes every day decluttering some area of my house.  I'm going to take a hard look at all of this crap that I've felt like I've "needed" all these years just in case, and think about if maybe donating it to charity could get it in the hands of someone who needs it more.  I know to some people this is no big deal, but it is actually hard for me to get rid of things like that.  I seriously wind up with anxiety about it, and later on regret what I got rid of for a little while.  It's hard when you were raised that it was bad to get rid of things, but it's a habit that I need to break for myself and so I don't pass it on to Simon.

Wish me luck!

I couldn't let Pancake Tuesday pass without remark, since my very blog is named in this saint's honor!  ;)

Actually, I'm not even making pancakes today.  I overslept this morning, so poor Simon had a cereal bar for breakfast.  They are serving pancakes at our church tonight though.  Steve will be running late to get over there from work, so he won't have time to swing by and pick me up.  He's going to try to get Simon over there early enough to get some pancakes, but Steve'll have to get right to work on setting things up for children's choir.  That should be done by 6:30 so I'm planning to have dinner ready at 7:00 tonight.  I'm not making pancakes for dinner though.  I have stuff in the fridge that needs to be used before it turns south, so I'm finally making the Parmesan Crusted Chicken topped with lemon dressed greens and broccoli and bow ties on the side.  I'm actually glad I'm making it today.  It's lemony, and kind of springy, so it'll be good for today since it's kind of warm and springy outside today.  (It's only 9:00 am, and it's already 56 degrees.)

I can't believe how warm it is outside!  We actually had thunderstorms last night.  It's obnoxiously humid, but I'm still considering opening the windows and airing out the house this afternoon if we get above 60.  It seems so springlike, that I'm actually feeling motivated to get some stuff done around the house!  (And no, I'm not nesting. Flo is officially visiting. I'm sending Steve to pick up my Clomid this afternoon.)

This house is a disaster area right now.  It started when I spent more time over at my mom's house cleaning everything out, and I've never caught up.  It is truly driving me nuts having my house this messy, but I've been feeling overwhelmed.  (I'm sure the hormone roller coaster that I've been no hasn't helped.)   I've actually had days when I just sat here because I couldn't begin to figure out where to start.  It's sad.  Fortunately, I'm feeling this awesome, spring weather motivation today, so I'm going to try to take advantage of it!  I might start out with some FlyLady chaos cleaning.  (Where you just move from room to room and spend 15 minutes at a time in each room.)  The best part about that method is when you're done you at least see some progress all over the place.  Wish me luck!

We had an *interesting* day yesterday.  It started normally enough, although we had gotten a cold front and gone from light jacket weather the night before to an arctic chill by morning.  Steve went out to warm up the car, and it would crank but wouldn't start.  It had been working just fine the night before when we went to the grocery, so we figured that maybe we had some condensation in the gas line that had frozen or something.  Steve walked (in the -9 windchill) over to the gas station, and bought some gas line stuff.  We put that in, and then pushed it farther down the drive so it would be sitting in the sun.  No dice, it warmed up a little but still didn't start so we had to call a mechanic.  The tow truck came about an hour later and got it started, but told Steve that it looked like the fuel pump was going out.  The good news is that Steve was able to drive over to the station and save the tow charge!   We talked to the mechanic throughout the day, and he asked us if the gas gage had been working properly.  It hadn't.  We had to pay attention to how many gallons of gas we had put in, and then kept track of how many miles we should have been able to go before we'd need gas again.  It wasn't as much fun as it sounds.

Eventually we got an estimate for fixing it, and it will most likely cost us around $850 to fix.  Ouch!    The fuel pump is inside the tank with the gas sensor.  They have to replace the entire tank, and the part alone is $600.  It should be done today.  The good news?  The gas gage will be fixed when we get it back.  No more gas math!  Yay! 

I also got a call about the job that I had interviewed for last week.  I didn't get it.   I can't remember if I posted about the interview or not, but I had called about a church secretary job here in town.  I had what I thought was a decent interview, but I think they decided to hire a member of their church.   The guy did tell me that he and the pastor really enjoyed talking to me about church growth, and that they wish they had another job to offer me in that area.  He also kept saying that they felt that God was really going to use me based on our long talk about church marketing.  He actually said that after our interview, he and the pastor sat there for an hour and debated the points I made.  His positive comments were nice to hear.

Steve got a ride with a coworker to work this morning, and we called the mother of a classmate of Simon's to take him to school.  Simon's classmate's mom seems to have forgotten him though, so he's home again today.  When I called the school, I spoke with the aide in Simon's class.  She told me that half of Simon's class was out sick yesterday, and his teacher is out sick today.  Maybe I'm glad Simon has been home so he hasn't been marinating in all of those germs.  There's actually a decent chance that Simon will be home again tomorrow because they're predicting a lot of snow tonight.   We should be ok because his aide said she'd bring Simon's schoolwork he's missed over tonight on her way home from school.  (I always forget that she lives a few blocks away.  She said the next time Simon needs a ride, she'd be glad to pick him up.  I'll have to remember that!)

Throughout everything, I'm feeling very PMS-like.  I had a blood test last Monday, and the nurse told me that I did ovulate, but with the stress we went through finishing everything at my mom's house, I make no promises.  The upside of not being pregnant is that I am so going to have a much needed stiff drink--or three.

My goal for today is to get everything cleaned up and wash blankets and stuff in case we lose power tonight.  They're saying we should get four to eight inches of snow, but it's possible that we'll get some ice before the snow starts.  I've lived through a week of no power after an ice storm, so I always try make sure the laundry is caught up when they start predicting ice.  Fortunately, my laundry is mostly caught up, but I need to wash blankets and towels.  It'll be nice to have it done even if we don't get any ice. 

I promised Simon that he could play Webkinz on the basement computer while I'm working down there.  I figure he can play a math or word game and it will *almost* be like school.  Ok, maybe not. 

And I am SOOOOO glad!  I'm finally starting to feel normal and not freak out about every little thing.  (Not freaking out is very good, btw.)

I also finally figured out that the chromium supplement that I was taking was what was causing my insomnia.  Since then, I've slept through the night every single night.  (Sleep is very good, also.)

We got everything out of my mom's house, and found a place for her dog.  Now I have tons of clothes and stuff from her house in my house.  I didn't want to get rid of them because she still needs clothes, but I have no idea what she can still wear.  Nothing in her house was sorted in any way, shape or form; so I have quite a bit to deal with.  Because of that, I've been down in my basement trying to get it cleaned out.  After going through my mom's stuff, I decided that I can't keep all of the crap we have down there for someone else to have to deal with.  Plus, if you've read my blog at all, you know that cleaning out my basement has been a goal of mine ever since I moved in here.  (Since the basement was already full when we got here.)  I have to admit that I'm pretty overwhelmed though.  I spent two hours down there yesterday, and I actually made a pretty good dent.  I can't wait to be able to set up an area where I can sew and do scrapbooking and crafts.  I don't think I've EVER had all of my supplies in one place and organized where I can actually find them.  It'll be like crafter's heaven!

On the fertility front, I have to go in for a blood test on Monday morning so they can test my progesterone levels.  I have no idea if we've conceived this month or not.  I took the Clomid and have been really watching my blood sugar, but we've also had a lot of stress so who knows.

My immediate plan for the weekend is to spend some quality time with Simon.  He's spent a lot of time in the past week or two being shuffled around while Steve and I worked to clean out my mom's house.  I can tell that he's a little worse for the wear from the neglect.  The DVR taped two new episodes of "Chuck" last night, so I see an evening of pizza, snuggling, and "Chuck" on the horizon for tonight.

I have to say, though, that our friends are wonderful people!  Our friend's Tracy and Mike took Simon all day last Saturday.  In the morning they went roller skating, and in the afternoon Simon and Preston went to a classmate's birthday party where they played laser tag.  Then on Sunday, we took Simon over to spend some time with our friend Lynn.  (They watched movies, played with army men, ate lots of snacks, and generally just hung out.)  Then Monday was a school holiday, so Simon went roller skating with Tracy's family from 1:00-4:00, then Tracy dropped Simon off at Lynn's to hang out while we moved everything out of mom's house.   I also couldn't believe how many people helped us move!  Steve's niece Bonnie and her husband Sam brought their truck and trailer.  Then my college friends Andrea and Brian, and a new friend from church, Jon, all helped us move.  We couldn't believe how quickly we were done!  Since then, we've spent the past few nights over there cleaning up, and I can't express how glad I am to be done with it.

I'm now off to the basement!

I've been extremely anxious lately, and I couldn't figure out if it's because of the Clomid; or the fact that the holidays were so stressful; Steve has been gone every night because of his school play; or because I'm still trying to get everything straightened out with my mom's house, dog, and Medicaid.

I realized today that most of what's bothering me is going through my mom's house.  I'm disposing of her things, and it's a lot more emotionally draining than I ever expected it to be.  I'm not going through a normal mourning process because my mom is still alive, but not the same as she was before.  I'm still trying to work through the fact that she isn't the same person she used to be.  Deep down I know that she seems to be healthier and happier in the nursing home.  She tells me that she feels safe there, but I know it isn't the situation that anyone would want.  I think Kübler-Ross would put me somewhere in between depression and testing, but boy am I dragging my feet.

It doesn't help that we started on this whole fertility roller coaster a few months ago.  I'm pretty sure that the Clomid that I took last month only exacerbated my anxiety, especially since the treadmill didn't seem to make a dent.  I called my doctor's office a few days ago to let them know that I'm not pregnant, and the nurse assumed that I would automatically start the Clomid again in a few days.  Initially, I told her that I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that until next month when I had things better finalized with my mom.  She told me that either way I'd have to do a blood test at the end of the month, and then go in for an office visit a week after that.  I told her to go ahead and call in the prescription.  It turns out that my doc decided to double the amount of Clomid that I'm taking this month, which has been causing anxiety even before I start the first pill.  

I figured I might as well take the Clomid this month--if only to try to have the baby before the end of the year when we have to start on a third year's insurance deductible.  Our insurance is pretty good (although it doesn't cover fertility issues), but for everything but office visits we have a $600 deductible to meet every year before it starts paying.  I'm still getting bills from all of the procedures we had done before we met our deductible last year.  When I went through Steve's benefit enrollment packet, I didn't realize that our insurance goes from January to December with the calendar year, while our Flex Spending Account goes from September to August with the school year.  Usually I just pay a medical bill, turn in the receipt, and they send me a reimbursement check within two weeks--which I turn around and use to pay another medical bill.  Doing it that way really takes out a lot of the sting of paying all of those bills, but because I only put $1,000 in the Flex Account, it won't cover all of our deductible unless most of the cost comes after the beginning of September.  If we get pregnant this month, we'll be due in mid-October.  That would put us in a new Flex Account cycle, but we should have already met our deductible for this year.  That plan will only work if I get pregnant within the next couple of months, or we'll be paying at least $600 of the hospital bills out of pocket for a 2009 baby. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I chose fiscal responsibility over my own personal sanity--which might just be the sign of an insane person to begin with.  God help me.  (And I mean that as a genuine prayer.) 

I've been so anxious over the past week, and the only reason I can think of is my mom's house.  My mom has a lot of stuff, and there have only been two days in the past week when I didn't wake up at 4:00 am and stress out about getting it cleaned out.  (The other two days I took a sleeping pill so I could finally get some rest.)

I went to the OB/Gyn today for my two week follow-up after my surgery.  They basically just asked me how I was doing, and then he told me some details about what he thinks is going on.  He said that my polyp was pretty tiny, but that I had some extra buildup in there so it's probably good that he cleaned everything out.  We talked about PCOS, but I don't really have enough of the symptoms for him to think that's what's going on.  He said that while my progesterone levels have been slightly elevated when I'm supposed to be ovulating, they aren't as high as they should be so he prescribed a very low level of Clomid. (By low level I mean half a pill each day for 5 days.)  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Clomid is one of the generic drugs that WalMart uses as a loss leader.  You know I hate The Evil Empire that is Wally, but I'm not stupid.  I had to wait half an hour, but I only paid $5.40 for my three Clomid pills.  When he first mentioned Clomid a few visits ago, I knew that I was going to have to pay for it out-of-pocket so I started nosing around to find out how much it is.  I found that it's just under $50 most places, so I was thrilled to pay $5.40 for it.

In the meantime, I've been trying to get our house cleaned and decorated for Christmas because I'm hosting Bunco here on the 14th.  We have a cut tree in the living room that has white lights and is snow themed, but we also have an artificial tree that goes in the den that will be covered in obscene amount of colored lights and all of our hodge-podge ornaments that we've collected over the years.  We got two matching couches for the living room over the summer, so I had both of our other couches crammed into our tiny den.  We decided to take some of the other furniture down to the basement so we'd have room for the tree in the den.  We moved our big old console TV out of the living room and down to the basement, then we moved our entertainment center from the den into the living room.  After that we took a big table from the den into the basement, and then moved a smaller TV into the den to sit on the built in shelves.  With all of that done, we now have a sofa on either side of the room, and you have to look down to the end of the room to watch TV, but that's ok.  You have to do the same thing in the living room.  I've been waiting for Simon to get his room cleaned before I put the den tree up because Simon wants to help.  At this rate it might be Christmas 2008 before his room is clean and we can get started on the den tree.

I am almost giddy with what I got done around the house yesterday!  It actually wasn't as much as I'd hoped to get done, but I've recently discovered that I have no sense of reality when it comes to what I think I should be able to get done in a day.  Yesterday I thought I'd get my kitchen all organized and deep cleaned, then I planned to start in on our bedroom.  I figured I'd finish up the dishes, wipe down the cabinets, clean out the pantry and fridge, then mop the floor.  After that I'd surely have time to straighten up and organize our bedroom.  Yeah, right.

I got started and did the dishes, then I decided to get started on the pantry.  Of course I found bugs in the pantry since I didn't budget time for that.  (I seriously abhor pantry bugs, but I know everyone gets them occasionally so I tried really hard not to freak out while emptying the pantry.)  I pitched everything that even remotely looked like a bug might have crawled near it.  I put my bulk dry goods in the freezer, then I wiped out the whole thing and sprayed the heck out of it with a botanical insecticide made for kitchen surfaces.  I threw a few things back in there before I sprayed it (because it said to spray and then close the cabinet for an hour to kill everything in there), but I still need to pull everything back out and organize it.  Then I need to clean out the fridge, wipe down the cabinets, and mop the floor.  I also noticed that the top of the fridge is frightful, and the decorations hanging on the bulkheads have a hearty coating of cobwebs, so I guess I should add them to the list.  At least I don't realistically expect to get to another room today. 

I'm just glad to be getting some of this done before the official start of the holiday season!

It seems that my den has rain water draining into it, but my bathtub water doesn't want to drain out of it. 

I'm just going to be thankful that I have no water in my basement, and I'll take it as a compliment that my tub has such an emotional attachment to the water I showered with.