Teeny Tiny Thoughts, Volume III

Volume I and Volume II are here.

• back from BlogHer ’09, safe and sound
• I had a ball, and was beyond grateful and ecstatic that Adam came along
• I still don’t like to fly, and on the way home had to sit in the middle seat with strangers. I liked saving $$ with Southwest, but don’t like that aspect.
• At All.
• I am still quite happy with my decision to not Twitter.
• We went to the CheeseBurgHer party. And we both wore bags on our head
• we left before security broke it up
• I didn’t puke at all the whole time I was there.
• I came home and puked. I don’t really know why. I feel fine now.
• weird.
• there was puke in the elevators at BlogHer. Somehow I don’t think it was from morning sickness.
• I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
• I loved it
• now I want to live on a sustainable farm
• since moving isn’t in the cards, we’re going for a walk to the produce stand today
• I’m thinking some sort of zucchini minestrone soup, ceaser salad, and garlic bread for dinner.
• I ordered a Breadman last night from Amazon (crap, now it’s $6 cheaper), after reading the raving reviews from Karina
• the kids did great at my parents—-they also seem to have grown 8 inches.
• I can’t wait to put homemade pizza back into our weekly menu.
• anyone have a fantastic gluten free pizza dough recipe? I’d love to make the dough in the new bread machine, then roll it out.
• I had deep dish pizza in Chicago! It was quite dough-y (it wasn’t GF, I’m not personally GF)
• my friend Laura (warning, Laura swears in her writing) had a HORRIBLE cross-contamination reaction at a VERY WELL-KNOWN restaurant chain that advertises gluten free food while in Chicago, and was admitted to the hospital. After calling, she learned that the chef didn’t use clean pans when making items off their gluten free menu. We’ve decided it’s not necessary to name the name of the restaurant chain (she is going to write a letter), but please tuck it away to specifically request clean pans when ordering, even at an establishment that caters to gluten free customers.
• ugh. I hate it that she had to go through this.
• we’re off to the farmer’s market, and to play in the garden

Have an absolutely wonderful day! I’m happy to be home.

Getting Started: A Beginner’s Guide to a Clean and Organized Home

Thank you so much for all of your sweet words about the State of My House. I’m relieved to report that it’s back to normal, or at least normal for us, and that the puking has stopped.

I’m so beyond thrilled to no longer be puking.

We also got to see the baby last week via ultrasound. He/she is swimming around and looks fantastic. I think it’s finally sinking in that another being is on it’s way.

For reals.

I was tickled at how many of you confessed that your homes resembled the way mine looked after about 6 weeks of not cleaning.

There were, um, an awful lot of you.

And that’s okay—-I’m not a judgmental person in the slightest. This is your home, and you’re the boss. But, if you’d prefer to not have your house look/feel/run that way, I’m here to help.

Get Started. Now.

The first thing you need to do is to do a quick clean. Get the crap off of the floor, and the surfaces cleared off. DO NOT TAKE a lot of time to do this—just start moving. My How to Company Clean in 30 Minutes or Less post will be helpful, but mostly you just need a panicked “I’ve got to get this place picked up” feeling in your stomach. Pretend your mother in law is on the way over, or schedule a coffee date with the snotty PTA mom for tomorrow. You need a fire under you to Get. It. Done. This isn’t perfection time, this is Action Time.

Overcoming Obstacles.

The biggest obstacle to overcome in any task is procrastination. In order to start getting your house in order—you need to start getting your house in order. Procrastination is tricky when it comes to orderliness, because sometimes procrastination masquerades itself as cleaning. Do not alphabetize the spice cabinet if you have a mountainous pile of dishes precariously balanced in the sink. Do not worry about cleaning out the garage if you can’t navigate through the family room.

When my second child was a baby, I had friends over for coffee. I realized there was laundry strewn all over the place, but I was so tired I truly didn’t care. One of my friends wanted to free a chair so she could sit down, and began folding the towels that were scattered all over. While she folded, I began feeling more and more uncomfortable.  I didn’t join in to help, or tackle another chore in the house. Instead I stood and watched until I finally blurted out that she was folding my towels wrong. I wanted my towels folded in thirds so they “looked pretty” in the linen closet.

To this day, I’m embarrassed by what I said/did. When your house is on fire, you don’t stop to weed the flowerbed. You act, and act quickly. It makes no sense to have a pretty linen closet if you can’t get to it because the floor is littered with clutter and the house feels cramped and chaotic. I promise there will be plenty of time to organize the towels and sheets. But not until the living spaces of your house are comfortable and orderly.

Another obstacle to overcome is over-cleaning. Do not waste precious time cleaning something that is already clean. Many of the things moms spend the most time scrubbing are actually pretty clean already. Toilets, showers, sinks, dishwashers and tubs are essentially self-cleaning. They need a bit of help to keep them gleaming, but they really don’t need to be scoured weekly or even monthly if they are cared for properly and dirt and grime isn’t allowed to settle in and get comfortable. Once your house is picked up, you can go back and thoroughly clean whatever needs it.

And Then…

Once your house has been quickly picked up, you can go do That Which Bugs You The Most. This is psychological cleaning. If you have a weird bathroom phobia, you might need your toilets to be pristine and have blue water in order for them to feel clean to you. Or you might need to sterilize your kitchen countertops with a bleach solution. Everybody has a different hot button, and for some reason it just needs to be taken care of in order for the house to “feel clean.”

For me, it’s the kitchen floor. I hate our kitchen floor. Hate is a super strong word, but it’s true. I absolutely hate it. We have a small kitchen, so thankfully the icky floor isn’t very many square feet. We have a black-and-white checkered linoleum, and it is a bear to keep clean looking. Any fleck of dust or crumb on the black squares show, and foot prints, and dirty spots appear on the white squares within seconds of a good mopping. In order for it to feel clean to me, I need to scrub each and every square with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, then go back and quickly mop with cleanser. It takes about an hour, and I only do it when I feel completely icked out.

And Then…

Stop. Take a break. Stop working. Instead, call a family meeting and start brainstorming about chores, The Daily 7, and PROM. Your family, your spouse, and your stuffed cats need to help. The house doesn’t get destroyed by just one person, and it doesn’t need to be cleaned by just one person. I will post about chores for kids in detail, but please know that at about age 18 months, children can with assistance clear their own dishes, help load and unload the dishwasher, and tidy up their own toys. If you have dumpers in the house (not a poop reference. Dumpers are children who empty out containers of toys and then don’t pick them up.), get rid of some toys. Put them up high, or put them into storage in the garage or attic. Children shouldn’t have free reign of All the Toys In the World until they respect them and clean up after themselves.

My friend Alison, is a homeschooling mom to 9. She once shared with me advice that I find myself repeating to myself a few times a day when I’m feeling “mean”: “you are not raising children. You are raising capable adults. Every child should leave the  home knowing how to make a meal, sew on a button, do laundry, mow the lawn, and milk a goat.”

Once your family is in agreement that a clean(er) house means a happier mom, you will find hidden time where you can tackle the projects that have been bugging you.

More to come—-I’m off to BlogHer, and want to change the beds and vacuum before we leave. I love coming home to vacuum lines on the carpet.

The State of Our House

Strange things happen when you’re pregnant. Although you know it’s completely irrational, you suddenly feel as if there has been no one, no one, in the history of the universe who has felt the way you do.  Even if you’ve been pregnant before, you realize that you weren’t really tired or sick or cranky in previous pregnancies—that was all just practice for the way you feel now.

And nobody understands. Nobody. Not even your former self when you read past journal entries chronicling past pregnancies. Oh people commiserate, and they share their own stories, but they’re wrong. It’s just not possible for anyone else who has ever walked the face of the earth to feel the way you do.

Nope. Save it. It’s not possible.

So you sit. And you wait. Because at some point you will begin to start to feel a bit better, and begin to get just a teeny tiny shred of your former energy level back. And that teeny tiny burst of energy will feel so amazingly good, that you decide you can take the kids swimming, scrub the kitchen floor on your hands and knees, and make a 4-course dinner.

But then you’ll crash. Because you overdid it. So you’ll sit some more, and wait some more for another burst.

This cycle lasts for months and months and months and you can’t even fabricate these bursts of insane energy with triple mochas or a shot of tequilla.

and that there sucks.

The kids have been great at amusing themselves these past weeks. They’re home from school for the summer, and I love having them around. I also love not having to get dressed to drop them off and pick them up from anything. They have been playing elaborate games involving cardboard boxes, bits of string, and rolls and rolls of Scotch Tape (note to self: buy stock in 3M). There are a few squabbles here and there, but mostly the days are just filled with them asking “can we?” and me answering “knock your socks off.”

We now have an invisible dog, Walter. Walter comes on errands with us. Walter sometimes accidentally gets sat upon, although he really shouldn’t be up on the couch. Walter needs afternoon naps and needs to be read stories. Walter is the perfect pet.

The only problem with Walter is his food and water, which lives outside of the kitchen entry, where it gets knocked over a few times a day. Walter’s food has been outside the kitchen entry for 16 days. 16 days may seem like a not very long time, but when you’re pregnant, things that would normally be endearing seem to become quite annoying, and all you can think while you lie on the couch scared to move so you won’t vomit all over the carpet is about the stale yogurt covered raisins which seem to just be an open invitation to an ant infestation.

Other things that bother you is that you are the only one. THE ONLY ONE who seems to notice the pile of crap in the front entry. The problem with this pile of crap is that you actually made the mess. It’s your crap. You decided to vacuum 4 1/2 days ago, but only made it half way through the house, so now the vacuum sits, still plugged in, waiting for someone to finish the job or to put it away. And the sad fact is that the person you are waiting for is you. Because you’re the only one who cares. And then there are the purged items from the playroom that need to be stored on the shelves in the garage. The shelves that live way over on the other side of the garage, which seem entirely too far away. So you try to ignore the pile of Christmas books and outgrown baby toys.

You try very. very. hard.

oh, and the empty cardboard box? That’s yours, too. You need that box to mail something back, and since you’re going to eventually mail it back, why shouldn’t it just live there for another week or so until you muster up the courage to brave the line at the post office.

There’s also the kids’ sweatshirts which you told them to put there because they can’t reach the hangers in the hall closet, and while they could hang them in their room, or on the neat jacket thingy in the garage, you were feeling nice and said not to worry about them, and to just go play. The front entry also has the pile of dvds that need to be returned to the library, because you decided to cancel the cable for the summer so the kids don’t rot their brains, and have somehow justified that cartoon DVDs from the library are a whole lot better.

The past few days the song from Veggie Tales, “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything,” has been playing in an endless loop in my head. I drift off to a nap, and imagine someone walking in our house, seeing the disaray, and me asleep on the couch. When questioned “what’s going on here?” The kids shrug and answer, “oh, that’s just our mom. She don’t do anything.”

14 weeks. Beginning to feel human again.

Canceled

Oh I so don’t want to write this post.

The publisher I was working with on the Totally Together book has decided to pull the plug.

I hate it that this happened—-I hate it that I have spent a good 8 years thinking about this project to have it crumble apart in one email, I hate it that I got so excited, and I hate it that I talked people, REAL people, into pre-ordering.

I’m so sorry.

Although I’m still sort of kind of sad, I’m not in the sit-on-the-couch-and-wallow stage anymore. Good things are happening: the slow cooker book is practically here, there’s a new baby on the way, the birds are tweeting, the sun is shining, and I firmly believe when a door closes, another one opens.

If you have pre-ordered this book, thank you. Thank you so much for your support, kindness, and wonderfulness. Amazon will not charge your credit card with anything—the order will just sort of disappear.

I am working with an agent who is currently shopping the manuscript to other publishers. I whole-heartedly believe in this project, and feel that it will come to life at some point. If I’m unable to go through a traditional way of publishing, I’ll self-publish, and offer an E-book.

In the meantime, since I’m no longer hoarding material, I’ll get to work on posting more household hints, tips, and cleaning shortcuts. I really should start fresh around here, too. I’ve been so sick with this pregnancy, the house could definitely use some attention.

Thank you again.

xoxo steph