Yesterday afternoon we spent some time cleaning. A few items checked off the list around our house were:
- I did a sort of deeper clean of our bedroom (dust, vacuum, straighten, etc) and decided to wash all of the pillowcases for our many different decorative toss pillows on our bed. I can’t even remember when they were last washed… so that seemed like a good thing to do.
- The kids cleaned their rooms- dusted and vacuumed
- I dusted and vacuumed our sunroom, and the kids helped to put a bunch of stuff away (sunroom has been their makeshift “school”, so it has become sort of a constant mess of papers, pencils, books, sweatshirts…it is driving me nuts).
- Ivan cleaned our master bathroom
- I spot cleaned and scrubbed down a little travel purse/ bag that I have had sitting in the laundry room since we got home from Mexico (not machine washable but had little dirt spots all over that needed attention)
- The kids dusted and vacuumed the living room
- I washed and folded all of our “cleaning rags” that had accumulated from the week
- I made some good progress on starting to transfer some of my old photos from the external hard drive over to my Amazon photos AND I got my email inbox totally cleaned out
I was feeling really good about all of this until later in the evening when I was just walking through the house, looking around. All of a sudden, a sort of quiet rage bubbled up inside of me. WHY DID MY HOUSE LOOK SO MESSY?!?!
Seriously. We JUST cleaned. Yet, it looked all messy already to me! The living room toss pillows were all messed up, there were phone chargers laying around in the kitchen, half empty cups of water left out, shoes strewn about by the door, random papers on the counter (and I could see some crumbs), and there was a little purple gummy eraser thing shaped like the poop emoji on the kitchen table. (What?! Where did they even get that? And why is it in my kitchen. I hate the poop emoji!)
I am trying to just breathe and deal with the fact that having us all in the house 24/7 means that life is going to be a bit messier. My kids are moderately good at picking up after themselves, but I think we have different….standards. Their idea of “I picked up” does not always equal MY idea of “I picked up.”
I try to be patient and just call them back to finish the job but sometimes IT JUST REALLY TICKS ME OFF!! I especially get annoyed if I am the one that did the cleaning/straightening/picking up and someone comes through and messes it all up again.
I’m just getting sick of the house looking quite so “lived in”. It’s not a major mess or anything and all things considered, it’s probably not bad at all. But I do sometimes miss the days when the kids go off to school and I can then enjoy a house that just stays straightened up the rest of the day. I am not a big fan of tons of clutter and it just makes me a bit irritable and out of sorts if it gets too out of hand.
I heard somewhere this past week- I can’t remember where, so I can’t quote it; I think it might have been on a podcast??- the following quote which is totally accurate:
Cleaning your house while the kids are home is like trying to brush your teeth while eating an Oreo.
Amen.
In other news, the kids did get a good amount of outside play time yesterday since the weather was decent. Overcast but not freezing, so it worked. They came in from their bike riding in the cul-de-sac to have a quick snack and this ended up happening:
They saw a clip of a movie in passing on TV- I think it was maybe The Wedding Planner with Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey- where they roast marshmallows over a candle flame. I suggested that this probably isn’t the best idea in actuality but they tried it anyway. I’m sure they consumed a nice dose of candle scent chemicals, but at least they limited their s’mores to just 2 each…
Last night we rented the first Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (well, not the first original from the ’90’s but the first new one). We’ve all seen it in the past but it is just so hilarious and a real favorite of ours. We were all in the mood for some comedy so we decided on that one. I really do love to laugh. It is just fun. My best friend from my childhood and I used to laugh so hard when we were together that we could barely breathe. I miss those days! Watching a good comedy always lifts my spirits.
Ok, happy Sunday all. Have a wonderful day. I am off to try out a new Beachbody program. I started up the 21 Day Fix Extreme this past week but wasn’t really loving it as much as the original 21 Day Fix. A new mom “friend” I have gotten to know on Instagram is starting one called The Work today which looks like a pretty intense regimen, but I decided to join her and try it out. I thought it might be fun to be doing a program in sync with someone else, for accountability purposes and just to know someone else is getting after it today too!
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| A sweet old photo I ran across from when Asher was a baby…I really cherished those sweet moments reading to the boys in the glider while they drank their sippy cup of milk before bed. He was around 15 months old here. |
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful today for some warm weather coming our way!! I caught a clip of the weather on the news just before this and saw that it is supposed to be up in the mid/upper 60’s for the whole end half of the week!! We have been going on these daily walks which I love, but it is just not always that enjoyable when it is windy and cold. Some warmer weather will feel wonderful.
GRATEFUL KAE 
Oh boy do I commiserate with this one! I suppose it’s just the chaos theory that nothing clean can stay that way, but just once I would like to have a totally clean house! I always kind of feel like once that happens I will have ‘won’ adulthood. But even i manage to get it pretty good (like, mom and dad coming to visit good) it is a totally wreck within a day. It reminds me of this post, which always has me falling on the floor laughing every time I read it:http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html?m=1Clean ALL the things!!! Ha!Anyway, it’s really hard to have so many people in one space for so much time. These are really unusual times, and as with so much, give yourself some grace. Although I know what you mean – it is really annoying to work so hard just to have other people destroy it!
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Hahaha! That post is really funny! Very true…we always have the best intentions until we just…don't anymore. Ha!
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