Another decent day

So every other Thursday I volunteer a warm line phone shift for the nursing mothers counsel. I've been doing it for months and finally got an actual call from someone needing actual support. (Ive only ever had business related or telemarketing calls before). I hope I was able to help.

So I started my day actually getting up and dressed and glancing at the calendar and remembered to set up the NMC call forwarding. Took my meds and put away a load of laundry. Then got a bottle ready in the fridge and sat down to pump. Ellie wakes, and, accustomed to having "morning milky" in bed, snuggles on the couch for some. After a few minutes I got a NMC call and hid in my office to talk. Ended up talking for a decent amount of time then had some after call work to do. By this time it was nearly 10:45 and Ellie had fallen back to sleep on the couch. I swept the living room floor so Penny could crawl around and not try to eat anything dangerous. I nursed Penny a bit and poured Mikey some cereal (I offered eggs) and went to work. Forgot to eat breakfast myself.

On my break from work I nursed Penny, pumped and made myself oatmeal to eat when I got back to work (we have a team meeting directly after my break on Thursdays so I am able to eat).

On my lunch break I guided Ellie making lunch, (score for unschooling math, science, using scissors and involving Ellie- even if all we ate was breakfast "corn dogs" aka sausage wrapped in pancake on a stick). Then nursed penny nearly back to sleep before returning to work.

After work, My MIL had brought home (we live on the same property and often eat together in the shared home theater) sandwiches for dinner and we watched football. (They did, I relaxed some, ate, then rebooted laundry and cleaned my kitchen a bit while grandma held baby). I set Ellie up with a craft activity- real dried leaf collage with markers and glue on recycled cardboard (score for that) while I worked .

When MIL left, Penny played on the floor a bit then went in the Boba on my back to finish up the dishes. I set Ellie up with a movie in our bedroom which she wasn't interested in. Penny fell asleep on my back so I kept working picking up the house (it's still a wreck though) since I knew she wouldn't transfer well. I got a load of towels folded onto the changing table in the bathroom (didn't wanna bend down to put them away) a mountain of dishes washed, kitchen swept, shoes picked up and recycling sorted.
I cleaned for nearly all of Wall-E.

Once Penny woke I took a break then put the towels away and picked up a basket of laundry in the bathroom then read to Ellie while Penny played.

When we came to bed Ellie declared that she wanted popcorn with Wall-E. (which was long over) I told her tomorrow we could but she was upset so I suggested she write a reminder.
(Score for turning a potential tantrum-ish into literacy activity.)
So she wrote a note with help spelling, but she did sound out quite a few letters and wrote them all herself. "Ellie wants to play games and eat popcorn".

Pics: the floor before I got it clean, the baby I kept happy and fed and my literary genius.

The mom I wanna be

I want to wake up, get dressed and get my morning routine done.
Then I want to eat breakfast with my daughters and talk to them.
Then I want to go outside and just let Ellie play. Perhaps get some exercise in.
After outside play time I will get ellie a snack and prepare for work. Get a bottle ready, fill my water cup, make a healthy snack and pump milk /nurse the baby.
I want to focus on work for my entire shift, and focus on the kids my breaks.
After work I will connect with the kids and make dinner.
After dinner, set Ellie up with an activity and clean the kitchen, wear Penny if needed. An hour before bed we will play a game and/ or read.
Once kids are both asleep. I can blog, Facebook, craft, or do an organization project.
Go to bed at a decent hour.

Let's do this!

A decent day.

So I woke up tired, but motivated. Got up and dressed. I started a load of laundry. Then I made split pea soup. I had cleaned out the freezer yesterday and found a meaty ham bone and several containers of homemade turkey stock (yes from Thanksgiving). So I started the crock pot.
Then took Ellie outside to play in puddles. A new goal to make sure she plays outside every day!
Came inside and gave Ellie (and her leaf collection) a bath. Then pumped milk and nursed Penny to sleep before work.
After work (which was a good day) I finished the soup, made corn bread muffins (actually Ellie did most the work! Another goal to involve her more with housework and cooking) and switched the laundry.
We enjoyed dinner with my in- laws and I did NOT go get Dairy Queen as I wanted. (Other goal to not spend $!)

When we got home from eating / hanging out at the in- laws I washed up a mountain of dishes. Partially with Penny on the counter and most the time with her on my back.

I also resisted the urge to turn the tv on for Ellie while I worked, instead taught her the awesomeness of lining up dominos and knocking them over.

Then I made dessert for Mikey. I had found (who knows how old- I think from Halloween year before last) cake crumbles in the freezer (I forget what happened but I am guessing the cake was too crumbly to use?). It still tasted ok so I mixed the crumbles with cream cheese and smashed it into the bottom of a Tupperware and covered with instant pudding for a pie of sorts. It was ok, but I wouldn't make it again.

While I could have done more around the house , today is a day I can be proud of.

Quit the lazy! Or Why do I get motivated to make changes in my life late at night when Im in bed?

I'm laying in bed thinking of how little I did today. (reading blogs about other people who are also not so great at the housekeeping job bestowed upon them) The house is in shambles and I even considered getting the baby walker (we use it when Penny is hanging out downstairs for short periods of time because it is no where near safe for her to crawl around) for her so I could get some cleaning done (gasp! I am really not a fan of them!). Instead I just held her or watched her while she played on the floor and had to keep stopping her from eating random garbage and small items. Not a good use of my time.
So.
I'm getting up right now at 12:27am to clean the bathroom. (Since the kids are sleeping I can't clean in the main room of the loft- kitchen , living room, and bedroom).

I'll be back when bathroom is good or a kid wakes.

...

Ok I'm back, got the counter sparkling and the toilet as clean as it'll get tonight.

Then hubby got home and needed to mess it up, so I decided to risk working in the kitchen quietly with just the over-sink light.

I decided to start on the end of the counter and work in, I got quite a bit picked up and put away.
There is still a mountain of dishes. Because dishes are noisy.


In my defense I wasn't completely lazy today, I did get my freezer and small pantry shelves moved over to the new room earlier today. (these are before pictures)

I also put away a half basket of laundry and picked up 2 more baskets and worked (for pay!) 6 hours, kept my kids alive (here is proof:)

and gave Penny a sink bath and changed 4 poopy diapers (plus pee ones too of course) and mopped a pee accident and pumped 3 times to get 6 ounces. Oh and I vacuumed the open area in the living room (thanks to broken glass jar this morning). And I tidy'd my desk while working. So not too shabby of a day!

Movie Moving and office organization

Our current project is to move our movie library down stairs and move our office/craft/pantry stuff into the space that was the movie library and game room.

So we weren't even sure if it was physically possible to move the movie book cases down (they were moved around a little during the remodel 4years ago but not down the stairs).
But we had to try.
We enlisted the help of 3 friends, 2 guys and a gal.
Mikey boxed up 2 book cases to start, labeling each box with the shelf # and A or B. As soon as the guys got bookcase A downstairs the gal friend unpacked boxes 1a-12a and the guys worked on moving bookcase B. As soon as she had the A boxes emptied I started boxing up the next A bookcase and she worked on unpacking B boxes, the guys moved the bookcases as soon as they were empty and carried the full boxes down and empty boxes up and helped pack/ unpack as they had time. We continued on this way until all 7 bookcases were moved down and most movies put away.

These pictures are already-started and after. The true before-pics would show stacks of games on top the book cases and the shelves would be full and the play table was covered in toys.
The play table has been emptied and legs taken off to get it out of the way.

Most of the random stuff on the tables has been put-away.

I also organized the attic better to make room for stuff (attic- bound stuff tends to pile up in this room and I'm storing some of the stuff that was in the office since I really don't need it constantly.)

So far I moved my misc dresser, my home- management desk/bookshelf and the small blue dresser over.

Life Lately

So it feels like every week is just so crazy. It really isn't most the time, I'm just either catching up after crazy or preparing for crazy on the days it isn't crazy.

Hubby and I have decided to rearrange to make Ellie (3 years 7 months) a bedroom (she's been in a sidecar crib attached to our family bed since she was almost 2 and was in bed with us before that).
We don't plan on kicking her out the minute her new bed is assembled but I wanted to start transitioning her as she's ready.
(It can't really be child-led sleeping-relocation if she doesn't have a choice other than her sidecar.)

So that is our current crazy, moving everything out of the game/movie library/play room to make that room am office and then moving Ellie's toys, dresser and new bed into the current office.

So perhaps I'll blog this process.

The point if this post is, crap I don't know, I want to be realistic and say I'm just not managing my time well or that I'm lazy and I wanna be a complainer and say that we went from being sick to a busy weekend to my period to seasonal allergies (I refuse to believe I'm sick again, even though my antihistamines haven't been working.) really though, I wish I had my shit together. My house is a wreck, luckily we bought somewhat convenience foods or I don't know if we'd even be eating lately. I'm just tired of a messy crazy house and tired of having too much I need/want/should do and not enough energy/ time/patience to do it all.

So as an effort to not be such a grumpy gills, I will end this with a list of good stuff.

I decluttered most of both of our clothes closets the other day. I got all (except Ellie's) clothes folded and put away neatly, purged a few items. I packed away Ellie's too small shoes and penny's too small clothes.
I did an art activity with Ellie, and she even played outside today.
I'm ruthlessly purging my office/craft stuff as I bring things into the new room.

Family Halloween Costumes.

I know it's cheesy, but it's also so fun to coordinate our costumes each year.

Here is a look back:

First Halloween married
Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf dressed as Granny.
I made the wolf head (and legs you can't see in the pic), the hood and apron.

Ellie (Yoda)'s first Halloween. Daddy is a big Star Wars fan.
Myself as Princess Leia and Hubby as Hans Solo. (We had friends go as Some other characters also).
I made my costume out of an angel costume and turtleneck with a belt I made.

We were classic toys. Raggedy Ann, a sock monkey and a teddy bear (I will have to find a picture with hubby in it soon) My sister was a Lego girl mini-fig.

I did not make any of our costumes this year. 

Wreck-It Ralph (the movie), Vanellope Von Shweetz and Fix-It Felix. (My sister was also a character, Taffyta Muttonfudge (A mean girl bully to Vanellope).
I altered my hoodie, my skirt, "made" pants with 2 different designed legs, and made a bunch of candy clips for my hair (Vanillope is a "glitch" in a candy/sugar themed video game in the movie.)
I made Felix's hat and shirt patches.

This year we will be Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

I just wonder how long I'll be able to convince Ellie, and eventually Penny, to go along with my ideas. (Although Ellie thinks Jake was her idea).

Hard Water Stains Gone, Thanks Friend.

Someone on the ABFOL fb group posted her before/after of the years old orange hard water stains in her shower gone thanks to Bar Keeper's Friend.
I had a can because it was recommended for dishes. I didn't get great results with dishes but am quite pleased with it for hard water stains!