I love you guys.

Today, according to Flylady, is Family Fun Day.  Ours started off well... I got up at 5:40 to feed the baby and ended up staying up since I was wide awake.  I got ready, cleaned up the bathroom and the kitchen etc and just generally made a good start to the day.  Charlotte and Jess got up early too and were surprised to see I was already up and about.  Mary came at 9 to visit and pick up Charlotte and they left around 10.  I decided to check my email about that time and that's when I heard about Alaina.  Alaina is an online friend of mine.  I've known her for years on a homeschooling list I belong to and also on Facebook.  She is a w... she was a wonderful woman, writing long posts about her family, her animals, her love of beautiful coats... she had 6 children and a husband who seemed to love her with all his heart.  She suffered a horrendous accident a few years ago and was still traumatized by it.  She underwent countless painful surgeries and was still in recovery.  Yesterday afternoon her and her husband were involved in another car accident.  He survived, Alaina did not.  The shock of discovering that one of your friends has died is unbelievable.  Only yesterday I was reading one of her posts online and now she is gone.  Her loss has impacted so many people, far and wide but of course the biggest impact will be on her beloved family.  What can I do to help them?  So very, very tragic.  In order to honor Alaina I want to make sure that my friends know how special they are and how much I love them.  Over the next few days I will take a moment and write a few words to each of my friends letting them know how much they mean to me.  I hope Alaina knows how many people cared about her and what a big hole she is leaving.

On the fourth day.....!!

Another early start... managed to get up before hubby and the kids!!  Got dressed etc and got Miss Millie dressed and changed too!! ;D  Today's mission was to clean the skirting boards and up along the ceiling in the dining room AND the holiday mission was to take down the rest of the Christmas decorations.  I got the trees stripped of everything but their lights ( I love the glow of the tree lights and it's the hardest thing for me to give up!) and every other Christmas ornament is now put away ( thought I REALLY need to organize that closet ...  it's such a mess!)  Tomorrow we'll put the trees out and hubby can bring in the shopvac for the needles!!   Jessie's friend Charlotte came over to visit today, I chatted with Mary, her mom, for a while, then my mum wanted to go out to the store.  She headed out to the van and we prepared to wave her off.  Moments later she returned... no washer fluid.  I found some, we refilled the van and off she went.  I came back in the house to find Mary leaving!!  Her plans had changed with a phone call and she was off.  The baby woke up so I started to feed her.  I could hear the dog barking outside ( but apparently no one else could.....!) and I tried to relax to feed babe whilst ignoring the dog.  Suddenly I heard an all too familiar sound... the sound of a cat puking under the dining table!!  GAH!!  STILL nursing I tried to shoo the cat into the kitchen where he could puke on vinyl ( for EASY clean up!!) but to no avail.  Since I was standing anyway and the dog barking was getting on my last nerve I carried Millie down to the basement to let the dog in.  The dog tore past me and headed up stairs and proceeded to devour the cat puke.  Oh. My. GOD I hate when she does that.  I screeched at her and the kids came running!!  Madness I tell you. Once Millie was fed I put her in her "spaceship" and started to wipe the boards.   I pulled the couch away from the wall and about fainted.  There was another cat there!!  Well... there was enough FUR to MAKE another cat there.  Bloody cat. I continued on along the floor wiping up dust and cobwebs.  I found Jessie's long lost hat BEHIND THE PRINTER....(!!???  What?!!? ) and I moved the piano and cleaned behind that also.   The DUST was horrifying.  Of course during all this Millie sat quietly and played fussed and whittled so that I had to get the girls to entertain her.  For some reason every time Charlotte looked at her Millie would cry!!  Poor Charlotte!!  Rather, poor Millie!!  Charlotte thought it was hysterical.  Jessie and Charlotte tormented Millie by telling her the ending to the Harry Potter saga... !!  Those girls are a hoot!! :D

Anyway, I eventually got the room put back together and although it's not immediately obvious it's nice to know how clean it is behind the couch now!!    I made fish for dinner with a peach cobbler for dessert, cleaned up the kitchen, shined the sink, got the kids to bed, got myself showered and ready for bed and now I'm playing words with friends and crocheting a basket!!!  Why yes, I will sleep well tonight!! ;D

Family Fun Day tomorrow!!  Thank goodness!! ;D

On the 3rd day of January...!!

Still here and hanging in there!!  Today's mission was to sweep the front step and clean the front door and the Holiday mission was to spend 15 minutes putting away more decorations!   I put on Jack's winter coat, my boots and some gloves and set to work sweeping!!  It really did improve the look of the place and, as a bonus, I found the lost bird seed.  It was where we store it, in a trash can, right by the front door.  We've walked past it every day for a year, maybe two years.  ..  Do you KNOW how many hours I've spent looking for that thing!!!!! LOL!!! **sigh**

Anyway, I swept the entryway, cleaned the door, put away various bits and pieces that had been left by the door "on the way" to the garage.  Looks lovely out there now!  COLD, but lovely.   The inside entry looks much nicer too!  Coats are away, shoes are neatly placed, the divider area is clean (AGAIN!) ...  people do love a flat surface to put things on!! :D  I spent my 15 minutes in 3 separate 5 minute portions today.  I put away various little things and later took down all the baubles that were hanging from the ceiling.  I suppose I'll HAVE to take the trees down tomorrow....  ah well!  Can't very well be minimalist and yet cling to two giant, dead trees!! : D

This afternoon a guy from Andy's appliances came by to fix my dishwasher!!  Thank goodness!  and also to investigate why the dryer was making such a noise.  I'm the type to not sweat that kind of thing. I HATE paying a call out charge to people just for a "noise" but luckily (!!) the dishwasher fell apart so the call out fee made more sense.  The lovely appliance guy arrived early, fixed the dryer and the dishwasher AND the little gizmo that tells us how many minutes are left on the washer!!  Yay!  I'm sooo happy the dishwasher is fixed.  I kept my sink clean all day but BOY that was a pain!!!

Hubby went out to hang photos in Starbucks tonight and Jess and her Garry went out to the mall... shopping, a movie and Panera.  They had lots of fun!  Jack, Millie and I stayed home and spent a lot of time dancing!!   Rex came home with Burrito Bowls from Chipotle.  Oh how I love those things!! ( If you know something horrible about them, please don't tell me....!!)

Oh!!  I'm thinking of shaving my hair off again.  I'd hoped to do it on the first, for the New Year, but hubby talked me out of it.  I'm not sure that he meant to, but it was enough to make me not do it.  Now it just seems odd to do it in the middle of the month for no apparent reason, but still... I did receive a lot of compliments on it when I did it before and honestly, I think it suits me!! ;D  What do you think??

Well, that's all for now... oh yes... one more thing... when I came down from my shower tonight hubby said he'd made me a "small but significant" present...  warily I opened the cupboard to find he had bought me one of my favorite chocolate bars, Ritter Sport MINT .... AND INDIVIDUALLY WRAPPED EACH SQUARE!!!! This is a HUGE deal because usually I open one of those bars and I can eat the whole damn thing without blinking.  Individually wrapping the bits is a genius move!  I had said in the past that I wished they were individually wrapped!!  It will  a) slow me down and b) force me to acknowledge how many bits I've eaten since I'll have the wrappers to contend with !!!!  What a wonderful guy!!! ;D

Ok... well I'm really going now!  Catch you on the flip side!! :D  G'night!!

(Did I use enough periods for ya, Apes!?!?.......)

January 2nd, Day TWO! :D

Well today started out great too!  I did all my morning stuff as yesterday, dressed to shoes etc!  Hubby noticed the make up this morning...!!  The sink was shiny from last night and the kettle was full and ready to go!  I'd laid out Millie's clothes along with mine last night so getting her dressed was easy too! Today's missions were to take down some more Xmas decorations and to clear the hallway.  I did both of those and then went to tackle Jack's bedroom.  BOY that kid's room was a mess.  He has so many toys.  Nothing really major, just little plastic this and thats.  Stuff that people give him at the store or the bank or the beach, junky nicknacks...  stuff that makes me bananas!!!   We cleared it all out!!  I got a huge contractor sized trash bag and together Jack and I tossed a ton of stuff.  Anything in good shape that doesn't get played with is going to the Children's home.  He's happy to give away his toys "to another boy" so it feels good to clear out and leave him with only the things he loves.  Luckily my Mum is here to take care of Millie otherwise I wouldn't get any time to do things.   I know ultimately a tidy house isn't the be all and end all, but BOY it makes me feel a lot better!

After Jack's room and lunch I took some time on mine.  I had three laundry baskets full of clean clothes to put away.  Since the baby's room is our room and I cleared out some of my drawers to make space for ALL her clothes, it's a PITA to put my stuff away since I don't have enough room.  I'm REALLY looking forward to tossing out some of my clothes from my closet! ;D

The house is starting to feel cleaner already and I'm much more happy about it!  It was really getting to me!  I'm a tad reluctant to put away the decorations as the house always looks so bare without them, but hey, I'll do it if I have to !!  :D

The only snag we had today was the dishwasher.  Hmmm.  The door fell off.  Huh.   Guess we wore it out!!  In a moment of serendipity though, I had called the appliance repair guy an hour earlier to come out and check our dryer.  He's coming out tomorrow so I'm going to ask him to look at the dishwasher first!! We had to take everything out of it and wash it BY HAND in my shiny sink !!!   Didn't take long though.. not even 15 minutes!! :D  And it's SHINY again now!!

So, I'm curious, have you got all your decorations down yet?!  Have you started Flylady or another system for taking care of your house??  Would you like me to start writing about something else now?!?! :D  LOL!!  (Don't worry, I will, when Something Else happens!! LOL!!) Oh and would you like me to post before and after pics when I tackle projects??  I wish I'd taken pics of Jack's room!  You would be amazed!! :D   Let me know in the comments, I love to hear your feedback!!

Going to start getting ready for bed now, see you tomorrow!!  Night all! ;D

New Year's Day!

So.... I started my Flylady following today by getting up, washing my face, getting dressed to shoes ( and putting on make up!!) cleaning the bathroom sink, mirror and toilet and making my side of the bed!  Hubby was confused!!  He said "What's going on?! You are moving with some sort of.... purpose!!?"  LOL!!  I guess that just shows how I'd been moving before!?! :D  I went downstairs and put the kettle on. Whilst it was boiling I unloaded the dishwasher and put in a couple of cups that were out from last night.  I dried the sink, wiped the counters and checked today's missions.....  One was to clean the fingerprints off the walls and windows in the dining room and the Holiday mission was to clear out any Christmas leftovers from the fridge.  I decided to do those both after breakfast.   Hubby decided to make us all breakfast...  french toast, eggs, bacon and so on!  We all ate it up ravenously and I thought I'd have to reclean the kitchen... BUT, and I'm not kidding at all here...  hubby and the two big kids cleaned the kitchen back up and loaded all the dishes in the dishwasher without me even mentioning it....!!  AND IT'S JUST THE FIRST DAY!!!!!  Wow!!! :D

Whilst baby was napping I set my timer for 15 minutes and got to work on the walls and windows.  I didn't think I'd have to worry about the walls but no sooner had I looked at the first light switch I was amazed!!  YUCK!  It's amazing how dirty stuff can get without you even noticing!  I cleaned the walls and then tackled the window.  Here I was lazy and just wiped the window without using my special window cleaning thingy...  now they are clean but streaky.  Not fun when the sun shines in!!  Ah well.. at least they are clean.  I'll worry about the streaky next time.  I still had 6 minutes left so opened up the fridge and tossed out all the leftovers, rinsed out the bowls and loaded them into the dishwasher.  It filled up so I decided to run it.  I took the trash out to the garbage can, tomorrow is collection day so I thought I'd just walk it to the end of the drive for pick up.  (Um.. I was wearing regular shoes and it's thick snow out there... no grip no grip no grip!!)  Anyway, I have since unloaded the clean dishes and the kitchen is looking lovely.

Jessie is busy cleaning out her bedroom today... she's got bags of donations and stuff she's throwing out.  I can't wait to get to my closet... I'm going to let the Minimalist train of thought lead the way for me.  I don't need hundreds of outfits ( I don't really HAVE hundreds....) in the winter I wear jeans most of the time and in the summer I wear capris.  I need to just accept that and be done with it!  I guess I keep thinking I'm someday going to turn into a romantic with flowing skirts and buttoned up blouses, but I'm just a T shirt and jeans kind of gal!!  So anyway, I'm planning on going through our things and purging.  The less we have, the less there is to clean up! ;D

Well... baby is calling!!  I should get back to my cuddling by the fireside with the hubby.  Sooner or later Jess will return ( she had to stop her cleaning project when she spotted a runaway dog in our yard, she's out with her Granny trying to find it's home now ) and I'll need to get some hot chocolate going to warm up the detectives!  Ooops... spoke too soon... apparently Jack is hungry now too ... what a surprise!! ;D  Can't wait to work on my menu planning...  that's going to help a lot too!!

Tonight after dinner and after the kitchen is cleaned and the sink shone, I'm going to lay out my clothes ( and Millie's too ) for morning. I think that's such a great time saver in the morning and really cuts down on the faffing about!!  I'm excited to be back on the Flylady wagon!!  I'm such a nerd!!

Enjoy your first day of the year!!

New Year's Eve...!

Well since we had a new baby and hubby got a new job this year... I wonder WHAT can happen NEXT year!? We Do have "An Exciting Thing" planned... more on that later.  For now I want to lay out some goal for next year.  Not resolutions, I know how they are so discouraged these days, but something to aim for.  Right now my main goal is to get back to Flylady!  I'm going to try to follow Flylady every day for a year.  Now I've done it before and I think it works great, but I've fallen off the wagon and need to get back on by golly!! :D So, starting tomorrow, it's Flylady 365!! I'll keep you posted how it works out.... I need to blog it to keep me honest!

I know I have more goals to post too, but baby is stirring and I've got "things" to do!  Have an awesome New Year's Eve... even if it's spent doing nothing more than pureeing baby food!!

See y'all next year!! ;D