Category Archives: Cleaning

Someone replaced my batteries when I wasn’t looking…

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…and gave me the ability to actually accomplish things without feeling like I was going crazy. Could this be that sought-after but rarely-seen magical beast known as…productivity?

Today, I managed to vacuum the entire apartment, sweep and mop the tiled floors, get all the laundry washed, dried, folded, and sorted, clean the bathtubs, make the beds, scrub the kitchen counters and sink, and do the general tidying up.

Before noon.

Has anyone seen that episode of Desperate Housewives where one of the women took Ritalin and turned into an insane cleaning machine? It was kind of like that. I’m still trying to figure out how I managed to do it. It was weird. The place looks so fresh and clean and decluttered. I could get used to this. But I kind of hope that I don’t, because I have a feeling that this is not going to be a permanent thing. Even so, I feel really proud of myself. I feel like I finally busted through that housekeeping plateau that has been nagging at me lately.

Now if I could just bust through the weight loss plateau next…

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Commercial break cleaning

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I should start a cleaning service where this is exactly what I do. Because I’m really getting good at it.

Lately, when Ethan is napping, I have been taking the opportunity to catch up on some TV. In the interest of not being too sedentary or falling behind on housework, I have been using the commercial breaks to speed-clean. It’s amazing what can be accomplished over the course of about eight or nine non-consecutive minutes.

For example, I watched an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” the other night. Don’t judge. That show is hilarious(ly ridiculous). In the space of the commercial breaks, I managed to unload the dishwasher, change out the laundry, stuff diapers, and do general tidying. By the end of the show, though I hadn’t put forth much effort, the place looked really good and I didn’t feel that nagging “I really should be doing something productive right now” tug in my brain. Which was quite lovely, since that tug has been more like a choke chain lately. If the house is already clean enough, I use the time to do some exercise. It’s a lot better than what I’ve been trying lately, which has been attempting to tone up with a vigorous regimen of drinking coffee on the sofa. 

Obviously, this doesn’t exactly help me accomplish the big stuff. Things like vacuuming, organizational projects, etc. require more time and concentration than I can give during a commercial break. But what this does do is allow me to take care of the smaller things without feeling frazzled or like I’m not getting any time to myself. It has been a very simple, effective way to get the best of both worlds.

And now Miley freakin’ Cyrus is singing in my head. Damn it.

MBFPCP: Days ten through seventeen

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Yikes. I’m a wee bit behind on this. I’ve been doing the equivalent of a project a day, but I have had to double- and triple-up a few times (should there be a hyphen there? Too lazy to Google. Someone just tell me). I am, in fact, caught up through today, but I haven’t actually taken pictures of every project – a couple just aren’t really interesting enough to need a picture from me. The one from Pinterest is good enough (or better).

So, what did I do on days ten through seventeen?

A freaking lot.

I tossed out one more bag of junk as part of my modified “40 Bags in 40 Days” project (which, by the way, I may revisit next year for Lent. Not because I observe Lent, but because it would probably be easier to remember to do it). The bag of junk came from all over the apartment, rather than one concentrated area, so there’s really no point in taking a picture. But after getting rid of 10 very full bags of useless items/trash, I can say that I feel a lot lighter. It’s amazing what a difference a small effort like that can make! It took maybe 10 minutes a day to fill a bag, sometimes less, and it looks so much better.

I attempted to turn a cheese grater into an earring stand, which is a great idea in theory, but it turns out that I really don’t have as much jewelry as I thought I did. Basically, I have a (unpainted. I know. Lazy) cheese grater sitting on my dresser with four pairs of earrings dangling from it. So it looks kind of stupid. Perhaps if I actually paint it and treat myself to a few more pairs of earrings, it will look better.

I made my own air freshener, using baking soda and essential oils. I used peppermint since it’s one of my favorite scents, and it actually worked incredibly well. The scent is strong, but not overwhelming, and it’s ridiculously easy to do. I’ll probably redo it with a prettier container, since right now it’s sitting in a Tupperware container covered in tinfoil. Not terribly attractive.

I did my best to organize my laundry closet with what resources I had. We had been given a set of baskets for a wedding gift, and I love them but have never had a place to put them until now. I was so glad to find a good use for them!

Before

After

Organizing under my kitchen sink didn’t really go as planned since I realized I didn’t actually have any of the materials featured in the pin. But I guess it looks a bit better.

Before

After…not sure why it ended up looking so much more crowded post-organization, but whatever.

Pin fail: I was planning to organize my entryway like in this pin, and I even had a cute wicker basket all ready to go. And then I learned that the basket didn’t fit on the table. So I guess we’ll try that one again some other time.

In attempting to clean and organize my fridge to look more like this, all that happened was me getting very depressed over the fact that there is absolutely no food in my fridge and I really need to go shopping. And I also need to scrub my fridge, so no pictures because it’s kind of embarrassing.

I made these coffee cubes, which are awesome. I liked them a lot – I poured vanilla almond milk over them – but Adam was the one who really freaked for them. He likes coffee but can’t drink much caffeine without feeling sick (and I don’t buy decaf because it’s stupid). These let him get the coffee taste and drink a ton of his beloved milk without overcaffeinating.

Finally, I turned the hangers in my closet around to see what I really wear. I thought this was a great idea since I always have trouble remembering the last time I wore some of my more formal stuff. I’m not wearing much from my closet at all right now, since most is still too small or meant for cooler weather, but I figured it would be a good idea to go ahead and get it taken care of now.

So it was an eventful few days. And I know I’m still technically behind, but I promise I’ll get the documentation up as soon as I can. Days eighteen through twenty-five will probably wind up being another big post like this one, since we leave for the beach on the 26th and that will wind up being cocktail week, natch.

If you’ve got any great pins you’d like to share, send ‘em my way!

MBFPCP: Day two

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Hoo boy.

Today was…well, it sure was a day.

Ethan is going through a Daddy phase right now. He finds comfort in Adam more than me, and while I know he is a baby and therefore isn’t doing it to be difficult, it sure feels difficult when I’m alone with him all day and can’t make him stop crying. He pretty much cried all day unless he was asleep, so I couldn’t get around to doing the second day of my 10 Bags in 10 Days, based on this pin, until about 7:00! I put Ethan to bed and cleaned as quickly (and quietly) as I could.

Before, the bathroom looked like this:

Pay no attention to the lady in her husband’s pajama pants.

And my brother’s bathroom wasn’t much better (though in the interest of his privacy, I didn’t take pictures of his). However, about ten minutes and one grocery bag full of junk later, it looked like this:


I ended up rearranging the medicine cabinets so that medicine and first aid was on top (a habit I want to get into now, before Ethan’s old enough to reach), then moved my makeup and our other grooming items into the middle and bottom shelves. Since I don’t wear makeup every day, it made sense to get it out of the way to free up the counter. Under the sink still looks a little messy, but it is loads better than it was and I can actually see what everything is!

In my brother’s bathroom, I found something I had forgotten about…six boxes of that Nads hair removal stuff. When I was pregnant, I had this idea to stock up since waxing at home would be so much cheaper and easier than shaving my legs every couple of days! What a genius idea! Until I used it once and thought I was dying. Y’all, that stuff hurts. I am not tough enough to deal with it. And then there was a leak that damaged the other boxes of it. And I still have no idea why they were in Jonathan’s bathroom. So, yes, a total waste of money, but it’s a great (somewhat embarrassing) story for me to share on my blog.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to attempt cleaning out the pantry. Yikes.

My Big Fat Pinterest Challenge Project: Day One

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Yay, I did it! I actually started my project like a big girl. I decided that it would be easiest to focus on household organization for the month of July. That’s usually my #1 most frustrating thing – I’ve grown to really dislike clutter and I get aggravated when things are out of place. I know for a fact it’s Mommy Instinct (yes, it’s capitalized, because it is a Thing) because clutter never used to bother me that much. I always wanted my place to be clean, but never exactly organized. Not anymore.

Pinterest has lots of great ideas and tutorials for getting your place to be as organized as possible. One pin that struck me was called “40 Bags in 40 Days“, in which the pinner got rid of a bag of junk every day for over a month. I am doing a modified version of that and committing to 10 bags in 10 days. Today, I focused on my nightstand.

You might not think that something as small as a nightstand would hold a bag’s worth of junk. You would think wrong. My nightstand ended up being additional storage in the move (which, if you recall, was pretty hit-the-ground-running, so we were stuffing belongings into anything that would hold them). Which means it looked like this:

I know. It’s awful. I seriously don’t know why half of those things were in there. I found a bag that goes around a bottle of Crown Royal and a plastic cucumber that was apparently a cast gift from one of the productions of As You Like It that Adam was in. Why was plastic vegetation given as a gift? I don’t know. I’m sure it made sense in context, but I had no context, so I just put the plastic cucumber on Adam’s nightstand, realizing the weirdness of placing a fake, green, phallic vegetable where everyone could potentially see it and do a double-take. And then I started plotting many, many practical jokes. Bwahaha.

Anyway, I cleared out most of what was in the drawer, did some re-arranging, designated some junk, and put a few things back where they actually belonged. The end result?

Yaaaaay, it’s a big-girl drawer! I’ve got my girly stuff like lotions, tea lights, and a lavender infuser oil burner thingy that I got for Christmas and forgot about (sorry and also thanks, Lindsey, I promise I’ll use it now that it has been re-found!), as well as our Comcast information because I haven’t figured out a safer place for it just yet.

I’m feeling really good about this. It took all of five minutes and I significantly de-cluttered a problem area of my home. Now I have a lot more space in that drawer if I need, several unnecessary items are gone for good, and I, you know, followed through on something I said I would do. I’ll be accepting my medal any time now.

Tomorrow: the Great Decluttering continues when I tackle…THE BATHROOMS!!! Dun dun dunnnnnn.

And now for something completely different…

I had what I can only describe as a relapse in my depression and anxiety last night. I was up until 3:00 cleaning the apartment and doing some meal and grocery planning, but I was sobbing the entire time. Hence why it took me until 3:00 AM. I’ve been feeling those emotions threatening to bubble to the surface for a while now, but I figured it was just normal motherhood-related stuff, not PPA/PPD.

Now I’m almost ready to admit defeat and that I’m not able to deal with this entirely on my own. I’m going to give it just a little more time – in case it really was just a particularly bad day, which happens – and then I’m going to start looking into talking to my doctor. As hesitant as I am about the notion of being unable to cope on my own, naturally, I also know that I can’t keep doing this. It’s affecting every aspect of my life and I can’t let that continue much longer. So I’m hoping to get a grip on myself (and, TMI alert, but I’m also sort of hoping that it’s at least partially PMS-related, because my body has decided to freak out once a month now…which wasn’t so much the case pre-baby. Thanks, hormones!), but I’m also willing to go to a professional if that doesn’t work.

Oy.

My dumb, self-indulgent Pinterest project that I’m totally going to do no matter what.

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So, I’m a little obsessed with Pinterest. I’m almost angry at the friend who introduced me to it, because for everything sketchy and potentially wrong with it, there are some neat aspects to the site. Sure, there is a lot of beige, twee, Deschanel-style generic cuteness going on, but I have found some fun/interesting/smart ideas on there.

Normally, I’m not one of those “I’m gonna do a 365 Project!” people (well, except for my 365 Days of Shakespeare blog, which apparently people are still reading. Go figure. I put almost no effort into that thing…perhaps it’s about time I revamped it and, you know, tried). I generally find them kind of dumb, because no one ever seems to follow through and finish them, and they usually just fizzle out with a bunch of lazy excuses about why they weren’t completed. Or they’re 365 photo projects – the type that makes anyone with a decent digital camera think they’re a photographer.

So…why am I doing a silly, self-indulgent, Pinterest-inspired project that will most likely end in me giving up halfway through?

I dunno. Because it might be fun.

I’m not a crafty person. This surprises people for some reason. I think I must give off a crafty vibe, because whenever I admit that my gift-wrapping skills are akin to a drunk, blind kindergartner who has never touched gift wrap before, people seem confused. I really don’t know why. The last time I crafted something, it was a scarf. And it didn’t even have fringe on it. I don’t even know how to purl. I used to cross-stitch a lot, but I wasn’t particularly talented at that, either. For some reason, though, when I see all those cutesy-clever crafts on Pinterest, I kid myself that I could pull them off. So that’s part of why I’m doing it. I think it would be nice to be better at doing things by hand, rather than buying them.

Also, quite frankly, I think it would validate me in some way. I think I’ll feel some sense of accomplishment. I have this notion in my head that SAHMs are all crafty and organized. I know that’s not necessarily true, but I feel like becoming better at prettying up the house on my own and creating nice things from scratch will make me feel more like a mom. I know that probably doesn’t make much sense, but I want to at least try.

So, starting at some point in the near-ish future (probably September), I’m going to come up with 365 projects, recipes, and crafts that I found on Pinterest to try out. There will be a range of topics – I’ll focus mainly on beauty, fitness, food, and home decor/cleaning. There will probably be a few randoms throughout, but nothing’s set in stone just yet.

My hope is that this project will A) Be completed, lest the Mayans were right and B) Teach me something. I don’t know what. I just want to legitimately learn something so I can call it good.

So thus begins the Great Gathering of Ideas on Pinterest. God help you if you’re friends with me on there – you’ll be flooded.

Apartment therapy?

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Sorry I’ve been MIA for a few days – my sleep schedule has gotten all out of whack and I’ve been distracted by just about anything even remotely shiny.

I’ve been looking around at our apartment lately and have been trying to come up with more ways to make it feel like home. In our old place, we got really lazy and only hung up a few things, didn’t really try to decorate beyond “yeah, that fits pretty well in that spot”, and just generally didn’t try too hard. Now that we’re in this new place – Ethan’s first home – I feel this pressure to make it homey. My mom has been really helpful with this…she came over and helped me (read: did it for me). She hung up almost all of our paintings, posters, and photos, helped me figure out a better way to arrange the furniture, and gave me a few more pictures for Mother’s Day.

Our place has a nice, open floor plan, which I love. It feels a lot more connected than our old apartment, with the added bonus of it not trying to kill us. There’s a slight “1950′s tract house” feel to the layout, which just makes me goofy-happy since some of our furniture is midcentury. The tricky thing about apartment living, though, is that you generally are not allowed to paint rentals. I think we technically could do some painting if we really wanted to, but we’d have to paint it back if we moved out. While we’re tentatively planning to be here for at least two or three years, if all goes according to plan, that still seems like a little more trouble than it’s worth. That’s my laziness speaking, I know, but I just don’t really see the point of taking the time, money, and energy required for painting a room if it can’t be a permanent thing.

So for those who are fellow renters or who are just more creative than I am (not hard to be these days – my brain is fried): any suggestions? How do you dress up the plain white walls and beige floors of your average apartment?

Mommy’s little helpers: the kitchen

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So I asked a bunch of my mommybuddies for tips that allow them to save time and money around the house. I got so many responses that I had to divide them up by room! Here are the best tips for the kitchen:

SAVE TIME BY…

  • Brewing coffee right before bed, if your coffee maker doesn’t have a timer. The flavor is just fine after sitting overnight, and all it takes is a quick reheat (or just put it on ice) and you’re good to go! Plus, then it’s ready if you need a pick-me-up in the middle of the night if you’re like me and are too tired to stay up but too wired to sleep after a feeding.
  • Preventing splatters in your microwave: when reheating, cover food with a wet paper towel.
  • Cleaning as you go. Keep a bag or a bowl handy to toss scraps, peels, and packages while you cook so you don’t have a scattered mess.
  • Making larger meals and freezing a portion to set aside for busy nights.

SAVE MONEY BY…

  • Using half the recommended amount of dishwashing detergent. Unless there are heavy stains, your dishes don’t really need so much soap (and this will help keep dishes from looking streaky or having buildup).
  • Menu planning. Yeah, yeah, this is the tip every blogger cites, but it’s for a reason. I planned a weekly dinner menu for the first time recently (I used to just go to the store and have a free-for-all), trying to match ingredients to my best ability. The result? An entire week’s dinners for $27! I used some ingredients that I already had, like frozen chicken breasts and rice, added in some new ones, and saved a ton of money!
  • Using coupons. Duh, I know, but I’m the queen of clipping coupons and forgetting them. Now I keep them in the diaper bag!
  • Buying in bulk. I used to think it was silly for a small family like ours to buy in bulk, but now I’m eating those words. For example, our local market sells six chicken breasts for $11-$13 depending on weight. At Sam’s, I can get almost twice the amount of chicken for the same price!
  • Making your own cleaner: fill a spray bottle halfway with equal parts vinegar and lemon juice, then top with water and mix (DO NOT use vinegar on granite, though).
  • Using cloth wipes and towels instead of paper towels.
  • Using cloth napkins.
  • Saving plastic takeout containers to use in place of Tupperware.
  • Writing your shopping list on the back of opened bill envelopes.