Breathe

Today Gremlin was at school, Chicken was at kindy, W@dsy was at work and I was home alone with Poppet. I loved it. It wasn't the first time, in fact it has happened twice a week for most of the year.

But today I stopped.

I stopped trying to catch up on laundry and baking and sleep. I stopped feeling guilty about being lazy and not doing enough housework or being a good enough mum. Poppet was screaming at me for no reason and she wouldn't stop.

So I stopped.

I took a deep breath, wheeled her screaming in her high chair to the bathroom and turned on the taps to the bath. She stopped screaming and just watched me. I stripped us both down and we got in. She was calm and happy. She usually hates baths, she spends the whole time trying to get out, normally she has one of her siblings in the bath with her (a parent supervising of course), but today it was me. Today we played in the bath, we giggled, we played with toys, we fed each other blueberries, we just had fun. I had been so busy for so long trying to get everything done I was missing out.

Its time to make myself breathe, accept that I'm not perfect and simply enjoy the amazing life God has given me.

Isn't she just beautiful.

The Clean Machine

As most of you who know me can attest, I hate cleaning. Let's face it few of us actually enjoy it. The main problem with being a stay at home mum now is that I have to look at my messy house all day, every day.

So after a little while of not working I realised that I had to organise myself or I would go crazy. I did what any modern housewife would do in my situation and whipped out my smart phone and googled "how to clean" and "how to organise." Obviously I found a lot of websites on the subject and spent a little too much time drooling over beautifully organised and labelled cabinets that cost waaaaaay too much for a single income family. I tried a few different cleaning plans but realised that too much structure drives me just as crazy as chaos does! After a lot of trial and error I have learned these things:

• I don't have to do everything at once
• I need to cut myself some slack. I won't have time to enjoy my house if all I do is clean all day
• Take regular breaks
• It's okay to mow half the lawn one day and then the other half the next day, it's a big lawn!
• Even doing the smallest bit of housework is better than doing nothing at all
• If I feel like cleaning out an entire room or cupboard, that's okay too
• My crazy kids enjoy "helping" me clean, so just go with it
• My friends are awesome and listen to me whine about lack of motivation on the phone and encourage me to get off my butt
• It's okay if my house doesn't look magazine perfect, it looks like my family actually live here and enjoy it

Okay, so my methods aren't daily cleaning plans but they are working for me. How do you guys keep up with housework?

PS. After much research on the internet, if you are not sure how to clean something, the answer is probably "use white vinegar"

Getting Things Done

Okay, haven't posted in ages, been busy, nothing too special, just normal busy. Oh and I did end up shaving my head. Thanks so much to those who sponsored me for the World's Greatest Shave!

Today I went a little crazy.

• I made pancakes for breakfast
• Hubby and I took the kiddies to swimming lessons
• Voted
• Tried unsuccessfully to get the kiddies to take a nap
• Let W@dsy have the afternoon off
• Took the kiddies to the zoo (yay for yearly passes)
• Kiddies then decided to nap in the car afterwards, the cheeky munchkins
• Took the kiddies shopping for those things you always seem to need and never get like cutlery drainers and car mats, oh and I got 2 seasons of Sherlock Holmes, I think I've got a a crush on Benedict Cumberbatch.
• Chicken went to the toilet at the shops and did a wee! That's the second time this week!
• Got home and stuck the kiddies in front of a DVD with W@dsy
• Removed all rubbish, toys, dodgy old car seat covers etc from the inside of the car, vacuumed and scrubbed the interior clean, put on new car seat covers and hung "new car smell" air freshener in the car. (BTW I am stoked they have "new car smell" now I can pretend my clean car is new, at least the interior looks good, might have to try getting to the outside soon)
• Now time for a bath and another Vanilla Coke Zero

Phew, it's a good thing I only go crazy like this every now and then. 

That Room

I have discovered that all homes of a certain size have "that room" the room that no-one sleeps in, that's used for everything else. Our room is an office/sewing room/dvd storage/general dumping ground. So as we have an inspection this week, I decided to tackle it.

 Before

After

 

 

Okay so it doesn't exactly look like a magical cleaning fairy godmother appeared and made everything better, but it feels better to me. I can actually walk into the room and find things, and there is room for me to do my crafty stuff. And even though you can't see it, the cupboards are all tidy and organised.

Even though cleaning sucks, at least you can see if you have acheived something.

Cleaning

AHHHH! It's that time again. Yup, our property manager is doing an inspection, that means a whole weekend of cleaning. Ikkk.

Don't get me wrong, I kinda think it's a good thing that she comes around every 3 months or so, it means we actually clean and the chaos gets kept to a minimum. She's not picky or harsh and she's never asked us to clean anything up.... but I feel I need to have everything spotless. Kinda like that person who cleans before the cleaning lady comes. Sometimes I invite people over for dinner just so I feel I have to clean.

But I really really hate cleaning. I mean really really hate it. I'm a hopeless slob, left to my own devises I'll probably die in a pile of dirty dishes or something similar. I am currently avoiding the enormous pile of laundry that has been staring at me for a week or two. But it must be done. By Thursday morning my house will be spotless (somewhat) ready for the inspection and by Thursday evening, it'll probably be back to square one.

Better go, laundry calls :(

Training and Washing

I wish kids were programmable. It would be cool if you could just install a toilet training program when they are ready and they would be toilet trained.

Gremlin has managed to occasionally go to the toilet since before Chicken was born (she's now 9 months) but for some reason he decided to stop. So I have decided to spend the next couple of days convincing him that being toilet trained is the best thing ever. After an entire day of Gremlin in undies, he successfully managed to urinate in the toilet twice. I know I should be proud and grateful etc. but I'm not. If he can get there sometimes then why can't he get there every time? Surely it's less uncomfortable for him to go to the toilet than to wet himself? But apparently I'm supposed just smile, tell him it's okay and mop up the wee again. All I can say is that I am impossibly grateful for the person who invented the washing machine!

Yes my new washing machine arrived today and it's beautiful. I've probably set women's rights back several decades by saying that but who cares?

Anyways, it's shiny, it's new and most importantly it's huge! Hopefully this means I can wash more clothes at one time. But part of me thinks my laundry pile will simply grow to compensate for the new washing machine size. Oooh, my lovely new machine is chirping at me to let me know it has finished, I had better attend to that.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's sequel, My New Dryer. The clever delivery man forgot to put my dryer on the truck today, so he'll drop it around tomorrow. Gee, my life is so interesting.

Darn Washing Machine

In some ways I hate the computerization of appliances, and right now, I really hate it. The pipe where the water goes into our washing machine came out. This would normally not be a huge problem, except that the water that went everywhere fried the circuits in the washing machine. Now I have to buy a new one! Grrr. Now I am on day 3 of dead washing machine and have a HUGE pile of laundry to be washed. I'll probably spend my spare time (ha) in the next few days visiting family and stealing the use of their washing machine. I think it's time we all became nudists, that way there would be less washing.

Gardening grrr

Gardening is sooo not my favourite chore.

W@dsy and I had planned our day, we checked the weather reports so we could catch the one day without rain, we arranged for my father to take the kids in the morning and we borrowed the mower.

We were going to attack the lawn. We dropped the kids off, collected the mower, got home and it started to rain. A good ten minute soak later and we got started. The sky completely cleared up which sounds like a good thing except the rain had wet the ground just enough so that I couldn't weed without getting wet, the weed killer won't work on wet plants and in the increasing heat of the day it felt like steam was coming off the ground.

After a few hours we stood up and surveyed our handywork, our yard looked tidier. That's all, just tidier. Hours of work, scratched up hands, sunburn and sweat and all we have is the satisfaction that the yard will stay tidy, until you know, it starts growing again.

I wish we could just have a plastic lawn, trees and shrubs so we wouldn't have to mow or weed or prune. Oh well, at least we'll start the new year with a somewhat presentable lawn.