Weekend update 3/6

I'm going to try to make this short because I'm tired and want to go to bed.

Here's the update on my PIPs:

Cleaning & Organizing
I was so happy with the way the house looked last week, I'm less happy this week. After the party on Saturday and a busy Sunday with church and two birthday parties I had a lot of catching up to do. We had my daughter's school trivia night Friday and I helped with that all week and we went to my in-laws yesterday and my parents' today for my daughter's birthday. More things just built up. I will pick up stuff and put it in a basket to put away later. Or, I'll take a bag of stuff somewhere (like to trivia night or my in-laws) and it will sit there to be put away later. I've got a lot of that stuff to put away. That starts to stress me out because I don't see when I will get to it.

Time
Did well with time most of this week. Today we barely slid into church on time because I ran six miles this morning and started later than I should have. I didn't get upset with the kids though and that's often what I feel bad about.

Family
Not a ton of time with anyone. I have to work on that. Especially this week since I will feel the need to clean and put things away. Since this blog is about an honest look at my life, I must mention my sister. I'm not going to go into great detail because I think I'm going to write an entire post about it but I have huge concerns about her and her drinking and am not sure what to do about it.

Food
I did better this week than the previous week but it was still nothing to be proud of. I need to get more fruits and veggies into my family. They can't eat them if I don't offer them. That's going to be a priority. My husband was gone much of the week and I tend to use that as an excuse not to cook. He's going to be gone much of this week and the week after next so I'm going to have to change that mind set.

Being Green
I brought all the cardboard boxes and paper from my daughter's gifts back from my in-laws house. They don't recycle and I just can't put it in the trash. So I have several boxes to break down and put in my recycle bin.


Money
I think I'm doing well with money. There are things I see that I am tempted to buy on impulse but have been taking a moment to think and then don't. I'm proud of myself for that. I need to clip and organize my coupons. I hate that they are sitting there not being used because I know there are some for things I have been buying. I'm going to try to do that this week as well.

I'm going to be on Hoarders.

Have you ever seen the tv show Hoarders? I think it's on TLC. I am going to be on Hoarders. Not because I am a hoarder and not anytime soon. I am going to be on Hoarders because my daughter (I'm afraid) is going to be a hoarder. She wants to keep E*VER*Y*thing. I'm not talking about sentimental items. I'm not talking about toys. I'm not talking about things she's made. She does want to keep all those things but I think she's going to be a hoarder because she wants to keep a styrofoam cup one of her friends tore up and turned into a "cup monster." She wants to keep some pieces of paper a different friend tore up and called a hat. I'm trying to explain that what she wants to keep is those friends or those memories and that getting rid of the items (I was thinking trash) doesn't take away the memories or the friends. I convinced her to part with the cup monster. Now I have to work on the hat.

I know she gets this from both me and my husband.

Currently, in our laundry/storage room (which isn't very big) we have years worth of a professional magazine my husband gets. He will NEVER go back to them. If he needs some kind of information he will search on the internet. He's not going to take time to find the magazines and then look through them. He also has almost every note or card a student ever gave him. He's been teaching 19 years. That's a lot of paper. I'm sure he wouldn't even remember some of the students names.

I, on the other hand, know I have hoarder tendencies. I'm just one tragedy away from being a hoarder. On the show, the people often begin their hoarding after an event where they lost someone or something significant. I know that could be me. I can barely get rid of junk as it is. I am working on it though. In the last year I've done some significant decluttering. I'm still a work in progress. Hopefully I can help my girl overcome genetics.

Spice storage

The weekly challenge this week at A Bowl Full of Lemons is kitchen organization (I'm linking up.) The "thing" I chose today for Thingy Thursday is used for spice organization, which helps with kitchen organization. They are called Spice Clips. I'm sure I got them out of a catalog, maybe Home Improvements. They allow me to hang my spices on the inside of my pantry door, which is a space that was unused and gives me easy access to them. Here is what they look like:





As with so much of my organizing,they are more practical than pretty.

I like the idea of having all of my spices in matching glass jars. But that's not happening anytime soon. This works great for me.

In both pictures you can see a couple of the clips broke. I think I can break each individual section off so I mighty get around to that someday. If I add more (which I have a few extra) I will use Command strips. That would also make it easier to remove the broken ones.

Here is the packaging:

I'm linking up to Things I Love Thursday at The Diaper Diaries. I wouldn't necessarily say I love these, but I like them a lot.

PS
Please don't judge me on my spices. I'm sure some of them are way past their prime. Being the kind of cook I am, I just feel good that I use spices at all.

I remember being at a Pampered Chef party in the past and people tried to get me to buy the garlic press because at the time I had never used fresh garlic. At another one a friend was so excited about the herb keeper. I just could never see myself using fresh herbs. Last summer I grew some herbs. So, I may have a long way to go, but I have also come a long way.

Run, Mommy, Run!

I'm putting this in my blog so I have to do it.

What is "it"?

I've registered to run a half marathon.

Next month.

It's not as crazy as it sounds. I ran my first half marathon in April of last year. I ran my second half in the fall. I know I can do it. The problem is, since it has become so flipping cold I have not been running. I'm hoping by putting it in this blog, I will be more motivated to do it.

I would love to motivate someone else to run, too. If you think you can't, I beg to differ. I'm not saying you will be able to run a half marathon next month. I wasn't able to run a half marathon one month after I started running. I just started running and figured it out from there.

Here is my story:
I was active pretty much my entire life until I got pregnant with my second child. I took off a couple of years and when my son was about two I went back to aerobics classes. My husband started running a few years ago and I thought he was crrraaazzzy. I had tried running for exercise before. I hated it. I'd read about the "runner's high" and so badly wanted to find that. I couldn't. So, I quit every time. Then, he said he was going to run a half marathon and I really thought he lost it. Why would someone want to spend that amount of time running? I had other things to do. Not only would he have to spend a couple hours on race day running, he would have to spend hours and hours training for race day. Then I saw him lose a lot of weight. Plus, he could exercise whenever he wanted, wherever he was. I also figured, if he could do it, so could I. He was NEVER active. He WAS NOT an athlete. If he could run, why couldn't I?

I decided to join him on his half marathon in Memphis. I would run a 5K. I started by running around my neighborhood. On my first run I hated it. I thought "This is why I don't run, it's so boring!!" My husband lent me his iPod. It made a huge difference. If I didn't have that, I'm sure I would have quit. I ran the 5K and felt really good about it. Then I saw some of the people who crossed the finish line of the half marathon and my competitiveness kicked in. I was not going to run only a 5K if they were running a half marathon.

I decided on that day that I would try to run a half. It was December. I ran my half in April. I ran super slow but I did it. I finished and I ran the whole thing. I was (and am) really proud of myself. I could not have done it without my husband's support or an iPod. One other thing that was hugely helpful is a GPS watch. I gave one to my husband for his birthday before he ran his first half. He shared it with me and it helped me pace myself. One problem I used to have was that I would run too fast, too early and get worn out. Plus, the GPS gave an estimate of how many calories you burn. I remember during one of my first long runs the calories burned was over 1000. That's a lot of calories.

So, I consider myself a runner now. I think you could be one, too.

Messy faces tip

Over the past seven years, I have watched many children in my home. When my daughter was little she got sick, a lot. Because of all the colds she caught, she had chronic ear infections. She had tubes put in her ears on her first birthday. That helped some but she still seemed to get sick more often and get sicker than the other kids. We eventually had her blood tested and found she had a low IgA count. (It's an antibody.) All of that made me a total freak about kids spreading germs. I know it's going to happen when you have kids around each other, but I did everything I could to limit the spread.

If you have children, you know that when they first start eating solids no matter what you do, they get messy. After each meal they have to be washed off. I had at least three kids here at a time so I needed to wipe off at least three messy faces. I know some people would use disposble wipes. I was too cheap. I know some people would use one washcloth on all three babies. I didn't want to do that because I was trying to limit the spread of germs. So, I found small, cheap baby washcloths (probably at Wal-Mart or Babies R Us.) I would use a new washcloth each day for each child. I was able to color code the washcloths. My daughter would get pink (my favorite color), another girl would get blue (her favorite color), the third would get green (she's a St. Patrick's Day baby) or yellow.

I wanted to use the same washcloth all day (or maybe even for a couple of days) so I needed a place to hang them to dry and stay until I needed them again. Here is what I came up with:



I used medium sized Command hooks to hold the bibs (right now I only have one bib wearer, I guess it's time to remove the other hooks) and small hooks to hold the washcloths. Everything can hang up to dry and it is all out of the way.

The only thing I would warn against is letting the washcloths touch the wood cabinet. The paint is chipping a little bit at the bottom. I would either use the larger hooks because they cover more area or I would use hooks that could be installed under the cabinet.

I'm linking up to Works for Me Wednesday. I'm also linking up to A Bowl Full of Lemons for this week's Weekly Challenge.

Pic

February jobs recap

Last week I posted (here) what my Februrary jobs were. I did that so I would be accountable for getting those jobs done in February. At the end of January, I was scrambling to get through my jobs and didn't get to a big one and I ended up being sorry I didn't get to it (see above post.) Again, this month I didn't get them all finished. This time they are minor jobs, though, and I got to some other big jobs because I was getting ready for a party we had here Saturday. I'll just add the ones I didn't complete to my March jobs.

Here are the February jobs and how I did.
Kitchen-
kitchen windows (done)
cabinet fronts (done)
vac curtains (not done)
wipe trash can (done)
clean under disposal cover (done)

Hall-
dust vents (done)
dust doors (done)
dust baseboards (done)

Entry-
dust entry light (done)

Master bedroom-
wash comforter(done)
turn mattress (not done)

Office-
dust baseboards (not done) I'll do this when I dust in there next

I don't feel so bad about not getting to all of the above jobs because of some of the extras I did get to. Like this one...

The vent above my microwave has never been cleaned. It's a job I never thought of. Actually, in all of my researching about cleaning I don't ever remember someone else suggesting it, either. I would wipe the outside but never be able to reach the dust inside. Here's what it looked like:



Look at the greasy dust on the edge. It looks like fur.

I unscrewed the cover and put it in the sink. I sprayed it with Shaklee H2 degreaser and let it sit for a few minutes. Then, I wiped it off. It really didn't take much scrubbing.

Here's what I ended up with:




I also cleaned above my stove (I guess I didn't take a picture.) I have wiped that area before but it is tough to get off all that grease. I used Shaklee H2 degreaser again. It looks much better. I had previously cleaned the fan covers (see here) but this time I also cleaned the light fixture cover (another area that had never been cleaned) and it is so much brighter.

With those HUGE jobs being finished, I don't fee so bad about not getting to the kitchen curtains or office baseboards.