Housework

It seems so strange to say, but I’ve been doing a lot more housework lately and oddly enough, though I am more physically tired, I feel as if my day has more focus and purpose in it than when I was just raising my kids.

Ok. That was a long sentence.

I had cancelled our housekeeping service when DH got laid off so our house has not been thoroughly cleaned since April/May. By no means are we filthy people but eventually, bathrooms need to be cleaned. Floors need to be mopped or vacuumed.

However, I am utterly horrible about remembering to do this stuff on a semi-regular basis. So I recently bought an app called Home Routines (it came highly recommended) and I find it very satisfying. I feel as if I am actually contributing something tangible and at the end of the day, I see a bunch of finished tasks and I feel good. Plus, my house is getting cleaner, tidier, and de-cluttered.

It’s based off of the Fly Lady’s methods but don’t let that paralyze you. I was a bit overwhelmed at first, wanting to do everything and be a super tracker of what I was doing. But then I remembered that the app was to serve me and not the other way around.

I decided that I wanted to focus on:

– cleaning
– vacuuming
– decluttering
– sorting mail
– laundry
– organization

Anything that did not help me with these six goals was left off the chore list.

Now some of the daily tasks seem so stupid and obvious. Of course I would still wash the dishes and put them away afterwards even if they weren’t on my daily list. But it makes me feel so accomplished to do the dishes and then check it off!

Plus, I now remember to take my prenatal vitamins and calcium pills as well as wear my night guard to prevent teeth grinding. (Since I am constantly hurting the bones in my feet, I figure this is a good thing.) It also helps me remember that I do a good amount of cleaning throughout the day.

It’s only been three days and even though I don’t complete everything, I feel a deep satisfaction. Plus, I’ve cleaned and decluttered a good amount of crap already. Yay!

 

Impressive

Sometimes, I impress even myself with what I get accomplished. Now, of course, keep in mind that this type of occurrence is few and far between. Hence the commemorating and self-congratulatory post. 🙂

Yesterday, I managed to:

1) Buy a new mattress
2) Buy a new toilet seat (I just broke our 3rd toilet seat – DH broke one and I broke another)
4) Install said new toilet seat (I also installed another new toilet seat the other day)
5) Reorganize 3 kids’ bookshelves
6) Accept delivery of the new mattress
7) Rearrange the furniture in DS (and now DD’s) room – especially arranging the mattresses next to each other and setting up the bed rail so my kids don’t roll out of the window. (The frames are really high up!)
8) Sell a table
9) Start 2011’s yearbook (not just choosing and uploading pictures – doing the actual layout!)
10) Sell a bunch of stock
11) In addition, my normal day of feeding and caring for the kiddos

I’m awesome! Ok, not that awesome. But whatever. I will take what I can get. 🙂

 

Cleaning House

It’s that season again – prepping for the new baby! As some of you long time followers know, for DS, my first, I never really had a nesting phase. With DD, I went crazy and did a massive purging of the house. As suspected, I didn’t do anything for another year and a half until the past few months while pregnant with DS2. 

Since then:

1) I finally attacked 3-4 years of mail and filing – it only took a full day. Sigh. If I would’ve just done it daily, then I wouldn’t have this problem. But it’s done now, and thus far, I’ve been pretty good about keeping up.

2) I am putting up all sorts of things on craigslist (finally). Including (but not limited to): my wedding dress, some floor lamps, an old Kindle Fire, misc. toys, shelves I bought but never put up, etc. Hopefully, I can sell all this stuff before the baby comes. I realize the wedding dress will not go as quickly as the floor lamps did. LOL. 

3) I have purchased a ridiculous amount of used small Legos. I think I’m done now. 🙂 My kids are all set for both the Duplos and the Legos – and all mostly used. 😀 I can’t believe how expensive these things are brand new. RIDICULOUS. What a scam!

4) I need to buy another twin bed to put it next to DS’s twin in his room. That way, the two oldest can share a big king sized bed and the baby can sleep with us the first month or so. Once the new baby is moved to his room, I’m sure the older two will find their way back into our room at night. 

5) I REALLY have to finish our living trust. I had it drawn up when DS was born – over three years ago! I just never read it or had it signed or put anything in it. SO STUPID. Must get this done before DS2 comes along. Otherwise, it’s never going to happen.

6) Since most of my food garden did NOT sprout, I’m wasting a lot of water. So I think I need to plant more stuff – otherwise, I spent a lot of money and water for nothing. I intend to do something soon-ish.

7) Over the years, I have purchased to box freezer to put in the garage and I have stuffed that thing (along with my freezer in the house) as well as my pantry full of food that I don’t even know I have. So, my goal is to eat out of my pantry and freezer for awhile. (Plus, I gotta let the thing defrost.) Perhaps it is finally time to get rid of the gallons of breast milk I have frozen – from DS. (Yeah, you read that right. DS. I gave away all of DD’s milk. I didn’t quite have my act together for DS. I have plans for turning it into soap – but that hasn’t happened. So maybe I really just need to bite the bullet and toss it. BUT IT’S LIQUID GOLD!!!) 

But ultimately, it’s silly to have all this food go uneaten – and since DH is unemployed (though receiving a paycheck), I’d rather we buckle down now and spend less on food we already technically have. It’s almost like a treasure hunt. We have a lot of frozen birthday cakes. LOL.

***

I think that’s it for now. When you have too many items on a to-do list, they tend to go undone. *sigh* I guess the first thing I should do is go to the garage and take out all that breast milk and toss it. It physically pains me but must be done. Wish me luck!

 

Privilege

The other day, DD and DS had dumped all these goldfish crumbs on the stairs. When DS pointed the out to me he said, “It’s ok, Mama. 那個人會來清. (That person will come clean it.)”

We had a housekeeper until DH got laid off. It was a nice luxury – but I didn’t realize that DS thought that was the only person that would clean up the mess – especially since I am always vacuuming up their crap. 😦 We live a life of incredible privilege.

 

Just Happy

We have dear friends over tonight because we’re all going GARAGE SALING tomorrow. 😀 It’s one of the largest neighborhood garage sales (with around 30-40 homes participating) and it’s in a super nice area – KEY. So, I’m prepping for that. I know. How could my house possibly fit more crap? We’ll find a way. Oh, yes.

 

Extra Mortgage Payments

Speaking of financials (since I just did them for the month for our family), I did some fancy calculating about our mortgage. (In my head, of course. Kidding! Here’s a great Amortization Schedule excel sheet that you can use. It’s awesome.) Ever since we got our mortgage, we’ve paid an additional amount every month on our principal. This year, DH wanted us to make an extra full payment a quarter. In total, it works out to about 5 extra payments (in full principal, not just paying down interest) a month. When I input that all in the fancy spreadsheet, we will pay off our mortgage in June 2026. That is 14 years from now instead of 30.

FUCKING INSANE.

The power of compound interest and math.

(Incidentally, there will be arguments that it is not wise to put so much money away in our mortgage since it’s not liquid and the opportunity cost of the market. Suffice to say, we have enough in savings/emergency funds and at this rate, the market is volatile and paying down my mortgage “earns” me 4.875%. That’s better than cash and more certain than the stock market. Don’t worry. We have money in the market.)

This is quite the incentive for me to STOP SPENDING SO MUCH MONEY.

 

Goals for 2012

One of the blogs that I read regularly has a new feature by one of the writers. She now posts up her weekly goals into four categories:

1. Family/Mothering Goals
2. Personal Goals
3. Home Management Goals
4. Business Goals

At the end of each week, she will post how she did. I think I will adopt this as well for 2012. I don’t think I will have any Business Goals for the moment. It is a bit daunting – but I will start on the first three. 🙂 So, for this week – even though it’s Wednesday (I am writing this on Sunday night), here they are:

Family/Mothering Goals

1. Go to the park at least once
2. Limit screen time to 1 hour a day (this includes iPhone and iPad!)

Personal Goals

1. Go to bed before 11pm
2. Create Xmas cards and family calendar
3. Finish 100 pages of Known and Unknown by Donald Rumsfeld
4. Walk on the elliptical for 30 minutes at least 1x
5. Read at least 5 NYT articles a day (NOT the fluffy pieces)

Home Management

1. NOT buy anything online/craigslist (YES – that is a seriously difficult goal)
2. Cook at least 3 dinners
3. Pack at least 3 lunches for DH

Wish me luck!

 

Someone Broke tMPMitW…

And it wasn’t me! It was my mom! hahahaha. (Incidentally, tMPMitW stands for The Most Patient Man in the World aka DH.) So, remember how DS locked himself in the nursery and we had to have a locksmith break the lock? The handle has been a jagged metal mess for the two weeks and literally every single day my mom has been over, she gives me shit about the lock.

Well, we finally got a chance to go to Home Depot today and I bought the four locks to replace all the handles that require a key to unlock them. According to DH, I was upstairs changing the lock in the office/guest room (I started as far away from my room as possible since that was where DD was napping) and my brother told my mom that I was changing the lock to the office door.

In response, my mom made a big deal about the nursery lock being broken and was going on and on about it. Finally, DH replied (on major lack of sleep and not a tiny amount of being sick of my mom telling us to fix the fucking lock already), “Thank you, Captain Obvious. We know. We live here.”

…

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Ok, on the one hand, I’m a bit shocked and appalled because OMG, that’s my mother! But on the other hand, I totally would’ve said something worse – and that’s not even the worst of what I’ve said to DH’s mom. Dear God – my mother can be the most persistent and annoying nag in the world. In one sentence, she can tell you to do something five different times, and when you tell her to STFU already, she gets supremely offended and says you over-react and she doesn’t really tell you that often.

The worst is when she does this about something that there is no fucking possible way to do what she is telling you to do at that very moment. Often, when she does this, we are tempted to say, “Go get a divorce already. Why haven’t you gotten the divorce yet?”

Then, about ten minutes later, my mom comes up and makes one of her comments, “It’s so funny that every one else has their husbands change the locks but you’re the one doing it.”

I almost smacked her. Every time I do something remotely handy that she thinks DH should be doing, she always says this type of shit and prefaces it with, “It’s so funny…” What she really is doing is giving DH shit for not doing something she thinks is manly. She used to give us grief about this all the time when DH would prefer me to drive places. (I drive places because DH commutes about 2.5 hours a day and is sick of driving. Plus, I just yell at him anyway for not doing something that I would’ve done. Truly, it keeps us married.)

Really? That’s what a man should be doing? Then tell that to your fucking husband who is rather handy and drives you everywhere but doesn’t keep his dick in his pants. Too harsh?

 

It Is Finished

At least, the office is. 🙂 YAY! I wouldn’t have been able to do so much if it weren’t for the help of DH, my insanity, and my friend’s mom watching DS and her granddaughter today. I was able to put the finishing touches on the office and all that really needs to be done now is vacuuming and hanging up pictures/things.

If I am feeling extra ambitious, I might tackle the garage. Now, all I need is to get off my duff and return a bunch of items to amazon already. I only delay because I can’t seem to find packing tape. How lame is that?

But mostly, I am feeling super-chuffed! YAY me!! And yay for getting it done under the wire. Hopefully, my posts won’t be so domesticated and lame going forward, but I doubt it. hahahah. Sorry Dear Brother. I am now even more boring!

 

Longer Than I Thought

Hmmm… looks like the office might take more work than I initially thought. Either that, or I am seriously starting to lag due to insomnia. Perhaps it’s that. 😉 I just have to keep telling myself it’s a work in progress and that two years worth of crap cannot be cleared within a two, four, or even six hour period. *sigh*

At least DH moved around the furniture a bit so there is a lot more room and doesn’t seem as cramped. I’ve cleared out a few boxes as well as five giant bags of stuff. Amazing how so much can be recycled, donated or thrown away only to be left with maybe a quarter of stuff to be kept. WHY have I been keeping 3/4 crap for so long?

I think that’s what I find so fascinating as I have been clearing my house. How much of the stuff I held onto because I felt bad about giving it away because my mom or someone special had given me something, or that something had cost a lot to acquire but I no longer (or never did) enjoy the item. It has been surprisingly freeing to just get rid of stuff. Each time I fill a bag (whether to throw away, recycle or donate), I feel as if a burden is being lifted from my shoulders. That slowly, with everything I get rid of, I am becoming lighter and less owned by my things.

What’s that quote from Fight Club? “The things you own end up owning you.”

So true!

It’s funny, too, how my mother has reacted to my clearing out my house. She was not really happy about it! (Can you even imagine?) She kept saying, you never know when you might need these things or fit into these clothes again. It’s as if because I was so free with getting rid of my stuff, she felt I was judging her for keeping all of hers! Hey, she has a 4000 square foot house. If she wants to keep at least three decades worth of clothing (of which, I believe she really only wears maybe 1/20th), that’s her prerogative. But she’s lying to herself if she’s going to wear clothes from 30 years ago (even if they do fit).

I, on the other hand, am no longer going to be beholden to clothing or things that don’t make me happy to wear, (and as a result, languish in the back of my closet, taking up emotional and physical space) or use. That’s something that watching all those TLC shows has been helpful with.

From What Not to Wear, I got the idea of “Why would you have a closet full of clothes that make you unhappy when you look at them? Why have clothes that remind you of when you were thinner, younger, or prettier? Why have clothes that other people gave you (or that you bought yourself) that do not fit who you are as a person and make you uncomfortable or not yourself?”

From Hoarders, I am reminded of the fact that just because you get rid of something that someone you care about gave you, it’s not throwing that relationship away. (I have a particularly hard time getting rid of clothes or things my mom bought me with good intentions. But they either do not match my taste and are clearly hers, or that I have never needed or wanted or given a crap about.) Also, that throwing away sentimental items does not remove the good memories associated with them. (That’s hard, too.) Plus, it is a fight to combat the idea of “What if I need it someday?” And then, to pull back and think that if I truly needed that item in the future, how much would it really cost me to replace it? Usually, it’s only a little bit of time and MUCH less money. Toss it.

As this honing and culling process goes on, I feel more and more myself. Someday, perhaps I will truly get rid of all non-essential items, but there are just so many drawers that contain little items that I doubt this process will ever be finished. I can only hope that the lessons are not lost upon me and that I muster up the energy to spring clean at least once a year. (And if not, perhaps popping out two more babies will do it.)

Whew! This post neatly matches the title – it turned out longer than I thought.

(That’s what she said!)