An Overdue Snapshot

Yikes! It's been 11 days since my last entry! Here we go:

What's at the top of my to-do list?
--Catch up on cropping!!! I've scheduled two crops for myself, OUTSIDE the home, because it's the only way I keep the commitment. This is a TOP priority now. I've slacked too long and I'm just getting further behind. It's time to treat it like maintenance and have a regular schedule of cropping. Because time is at a premium, I'm settling for two a month until I do a crop weekend in January. I'm not waiting for my friend's homes or schedules to be available...I'm scheduling them at a local crop store...so if I need to go by myself, I will. No excuses.
--Finish painting the railing upstairs
--Ask my mom if she can watch Mary while I'm Mommy Helper for Ben's preschool
--Take Sam to get his bands put on and pay the Orthodontist a lot of money

What have I accomplished in the past couple of weeks?
--Fly lady!! I've been following her plan. We've gone from the Kitchen, to the bedrooms, to the Master Bedroom. I've cleaned out closets, drawers, the fridge, painted baseboards, railings, and touched up doors. My house is so much easier to clean now because it is organized! It is the most exhilirating feeling to finally be making it a priority. I felt too overwhelmed before, but now the time is right. I just grab time wherever I can get it, kids napping, Ben at preschool, weekends when Ted's home. It's like my house is ready to be on the market and it's not for sale! Before I needed an excuse to keep my house this clean...a birthday party, a babysitter coming over, etc. Now, I'm ready at a moments notice. Ted's cousin's family e-mailed and asked if they could stay at our house for the weekend during a family golf tournament. I didn't have to think twice. Sure! Four more people added to our houseful of six. It's great to always feel "ready".
--I had my first PTO meeting with the parents. It went great! I showed the slideshow and got a lot compliments from it. We also had samples from our Shop For Our School vendors and there was plenty of food for everyone. We also had a speaker from our new Keys to Success program. It's DONE. There are only two a year and the last one is in April.
--I've done a lot of organizing for PTO that would be boring to anyone but me. We've got Chuck E Cheese coming Monday and a Fundraiser at Chuck E Cheese's Monday night. The following week, we have a McTeacher night. At the end of the October is our Family Halloween Trivia night.

What's been bugging me?
--Mary won't wear underpants anymore. She wants her diaper. I guess the constant pottying in the toilet was too strenuous. She did it perfectly except for the poop part. She doesn't want to do it anymore. I'm stuck in the diaper stages a little longer. I'm going for a big push when she turns three. The girl is stubborn, she may not like the "Ben Approach" of do or die. We'll see. I'm giving her a break while I think up a game plan. 1) Hide diapers and tell her we are out. 2) Offer huge incentives (what's bigger than the Care Bears, big girl's bed and ear peircing that I've already offered her??) 3) Wait until she's ready.
--How behind I am on cropping
--My family room carpeting is FILTHY. It is really disgusting. I don't know how old it is because it was here when we moved over 3 years ago. You know how you put off putting in new carpeting until your kids are out of the messy stages? I don't think I can wait for that. I'm thinking February or March when that income tax return comes in. I know we said no more home improvement while we save for highschool, but I'm sure this small little improvement couldn't hurt?
What's been making me happy?
--My involvement in school
--Fly Lady
--Accomplishment
--A sense of purpose
--Ben finally enjoying preschool instead of begging me not to take him
--The PTO meeting is over

This, That and The Other

Bedtime with Ben and Mary--Lately, we've been trying to group Ben and Mary together on the bedtime routine. Before, continuing the habits of Mary's baby years, we'd lay Mary down and then put Ben through the brushing teeth, reading stories bedtime routine. Then I realized, "Duh...it's time she got in the habit of brushing her teeth too,"... instead of just playing with her toothbrush. And "Gee, I guess she deserves some book reading too!"

After coming to this alarming conclusion, we started our bedtime routine for Ben and Mary 15 minutes earlier so we could allow for the extra time to deal with them both. You would think this would be easy. Why can't it be?? Well, it's the book reading part. I've never had it be so difficult to read to two children before. They each picked a book and then when I started to read one, the other one cried because their book wasn't read first. So after that night, I started alternating who got to go first. I thought this would solve the problem. No. They fought over being able to respond to the questions in the book. Ben would always beat Mary to the punch on answering and Mary would start crying. So then I said, "If it's YOUR book, you can respond to the questions...if it's not, you have to wait until your book". Not tonight. Ben wouldn't agree to this and instead of having a nice, charming reading session, it ended up with tears and tantrums and Mommy deciding to read to no one. This has happened more than once. They are so competitive. I'm wondering if we'll have to take turns with them individually? I know. It's ridiculous. I think so too.

Fly Lady--On to other topics. The whether has been beautiful here lately...in the 70's in the afternoons and lower in the mornings. I love having the windows open with fresh air breezing through our house. Fly lady has been going great! The system is keeping my house clean! In fact, Abby's birthday party was such a breeze because I only had to worry about the meal! Not the house! The zone this week is the bathroom and an extra bedroom.

Potty Chronicles- Ben pooped in his pants today! There is no reason for this! He KNOWS what to do and he didn't do it. I took away all gaming, but I wonder if that's enough. Mary has been wearing underpants except for bed time and poops. Some day we'll have it all together and the topic of poop and pee will be a thing of the past.

Preschool--Ben is beginning to warm up to preschool. He's talking about friends in his class and he doesn't complain anymore when I tell him it's a preschool day. I think the fact that it's three days a week keeps him on a pattern of going and actually makes it easier than our Mom's Days Out.

My Trip to Toys R Us with the Ultimate Toy Fanatic--I knew it would be hard to take Mary to the toy store, but take her I did. She wanted everything. I just tried to shop quickly with my mom to find a Christmas gift for her. It was pure torture for Mary to go through those isles full of goodies for her, and turn away with not so much as gift from the dollar section. We survived, and my mom got her gift without her knowing. And then she fell asleep on the way to picking Ben up from Preschool.

A Nice Walk--Tonight I took the kids for a walk since the weather was so nice. It was great getting the fresh air and exercise. I hope to do this more this fall. Ted had Men's group, so it was just us. Ben and Mary were in the double stroller, Sam was on a scooter and Abby was on roller blades. We were quite the family on wheels.

PTO --Our first PTO event, Grandparent's Day, went great! We were all worried everyone wouldn't fit into the church at the same time...but we did! I think the Grandparents liked attending mass with their grandchildren and the cinnamon rolls and coffee in the cafeteria were a big hit. They felt appreciated. Our next event is next week when we have a big PTO meeting with a presentation from a new character building program were doing called "Keys to Success". We'll also have food from our Shop For Our School vendors. It will be a big night. I hope it all goes well. It will be my first time leading a meeting like this.

ENFJ--This is my personality after taking the test. Of course, the the second time I came up with ESFJ. I think it depends on my mood when I take it. Go ahead and try it! It's 72 questions but I was amazed at how quickly it went. Here's a portion of what it said about me:

The Teachers are found in no more than 2 or 3 percent of the population. They like to have things settled and arranged. They prefer to plan both work and social engagements ahead of time and tend to be absolutely reliable in honoring these commitments. At the same time, Teachers are very much at home in complex situations which require the juggling of much data with little pre-planning. Such ability to preside without planning reminds us somewhat of an Provider, but the latter acts more as a master of ceremonies than as a leader of groups. Providers are natural hosts and hostesses, making sure that each guest is well looked after at social gatherings, or that the right things are expressed on traditional occasions, such as weddings, funerals, graduations, and the like. In much the same way, Teachers value harmonious human relations about all else, can handle people with charm and concern, and are usually popular wherever they are. But Teachers are not so much social as educational leaders, interested primarily in the personal growth and development of others, and less in attending to their social needs.

The ESFJ emphasizes the Provider in me. So I tend to go back and forth between the Teacher and the Provider. What are you? A famous ENFJ is Oprah Winfrey! Of course!

The Potty Chronicles...The Fourth Child

With all of these "cleaning focus" I got derailed from my plan to potty train Mary. Whenever I put underpants on her, she's doing a better and better job of pottying in the toilet! The problem is, she wants a diaper whenever she wants to poop. Yesterday, she had a doctor's appointment for an ear re-check. I excitedly told him about Ben's good news (Ben was too shy) and said if it wasn't for him, Ben would still be pooping in a pull-up. I told him that now Mary had the problem. He said that you should not keep putting them in a diaper and confirming their fear of pooping in the potty.

With a new determination, I bought Mary new underpants and decided I'd make sure she wore them every day from here on out. The problem is bed time and poop. Since I really haven't had her wear underpants more than a couple of sporadic days, I decided to wait for the underpants at night until we have more successful diaper free days. First thing this morning, I changed her into underpants (as I've said before...it's more about training the parent!). Then it happened, I smelled gas and she asked for a diaper. When she saw I wasn't going to do that, she started crying and begging. I really, really tried. And then I thought maybe it was too much too soon. I'll go along with this for now while we get used to underpants and then work on the poop. She can't POSSIBLY take as long as Ben did. Why do my last two have to do this when my first two didn't?? I have to look on the bright side. I'm on the last one. We are so close!

No matter what the doctor says, I usually don't ignore my instinct. And my instinct says right now, one thing at a time. I just got her peeing on the potty. I don't want to taint it with a lot of fighting about the poop. I want to revel in the pee for right now. Poop...pee...pee...poop...it's all I say anymore...

Yesterday I organized my pantry. I got rid of expired food, bread crumbs and Cream of whatever soup that I know I'll never use. After throwing this stuff away, my aunt who helps run a food pantry said, "Don't throw that stuff away!" She told me take all that stuff...except the expired stuff...to a food pantry! So don't do what I did!

But you can clean out your pantry like I did and you will feel great! I have too many syrups because I couldn't see through the mess to know I had syrup. And don't look at the Cheerios...One small box is left over from camping and another was give to us. We won't be buying Cheerios for a while. My worst shelf was the canned good shelf. I decided to organize that one by rows. The first row is mac n cheese, rice and other pasta meals, the second is sauces, gravies and ketchup, the third is syrup and dressing, the fourth is canned meals like Chef Boyardee, chili, and soups, the fourth is vegetables like canned corn, artichokes, red peppers, etc (not a big canned veggie person), the fifth row is chicken and beef stock. I don't have to deal with spices or baking goods in my pantry because they are in a lazy susan in the cabinets.

I took everything out first and lined each shelf with contact paper. It brightened up the whole pantry because every time I slid a can across the painted shelf, it left a dark mark and I had dark marks all over the shelves. This is so much better! Don't have lovely visions of me having all kinds of time to do this. I did it while I talked on the phone with my brother's ex-girlfriend. I had to pick up the kids and then finish the project with the kids running around with their friends asking and needing and wanting. I just made it a priority and focused on it. It just wasn't a priority before.

It's going to be a busy weekend with the kids home half day today and off tomorrow because of our carnival weekend. I'll probably clean out the fridge and put my clutter drawers on hold because I'm at a lost as to how to organize them. One book I'm reading says I should use drawer dividers. Containers don't seem to work. They are rarely the right size and then they overflow. I have to figure out where to find drawer dividers. Or maybe I just need different containers. We'll see.

The meal planning has been going well. I realized I sometimes don't feel like the meal that is planned for the day, so I will jump ahead to the next meal. I seem to rarely exactly follow it, but that is not the point. The point is that I have all the ingredients and the plan to make a list of meals for two weeks at a time. It is so freeing not to have to worry about what the heck to make every day. Last night we had paninis and they were yummy!

Last night I helped set up for Grandparent's Day. Right now as I type they are getting ready to celebrate mass with 377 Grandparents and about 357 students, not to mention whoever else goes to that mass and the teachers. There was a big panic as to how they would all fit. I've been praying about it a lot because at this point, it's out of our control. I'm hoping to see future Grandparent's Days split up somehow. Although, Ted reminds me, I won't be in charge of this next year!

Flylady's in the House

Flylady's in the kitchen this week. So I am looking at the areas in my kitchen that need work. My neighbor gave me the idea of using up the items in your pantry. I like the idea that everything in your pantry should get regular use or why keep it? Everything had an intended purpose when I bought it, but somehow I got sidetracked and forgot what the purpose was. Now I'm looking at that Campbell's Cheddar Cheese, Creme of Celery and Creme of Chicken Dijon and feeling uninspired by them. I've changed my cooking style and don't use the "creme of's" anymore.

There are other ingredients I know I can put to use: Stewed tomatoes (pizza or spaghetti sauce), Diced Tomatoes (chili when it gets colder), refried beans (bring a dip to someone's house cause I have a LOT), Artichokes, Chopped Black Olives, Rotini, etc. I decided to pitch the soups and find recipes that include the ingredients in my pantry to use them up. The other items in my pantry are easy to use and don't take much thought like the instant potatoes, pancake mix, canned corn, etc. And why do I have two bottles of syrup?? And why did I buy more spaghetti when I already had some stuffed in the back? If I knew what was in my pantry, made a planned list, this wouldn't happen. Now I am making a planned list, but I just now figured out what was IN my pantry.

I'm hoping in the future when I purchase food, I can follow through on my plans to make it. I'll often get excited about a recipe... make it... no one likes it... and I had already bought double the amount of ingredients! I'm also looking at my pantry and wondering how I can organize it better? Time to search the internet!!

A Snapshot

I thought I would write a "Snapshot" since it's been a while since I've done one.

What have I accomplished?
--I've cleaned up and reorganized my storage room and the unfinished part of our basement.
--I'm following Flylady and trying to maintain a clean house. It's so much easier than I thought it would be. It's the first time in a long time I'm selecting anything but "large" on the load size of my washing machine because I'm doing it daily. I'm even LOOKING for things to wash. For example, yesterday, I threw in some jackets for Spring.
--I totally cleaned out my Foyer closet. I don't even recognize it anymore! I found an idea on how to organize my hats, mittens and scarves and found an idea on-line:

I put this hanging organizer in my laundry room because my foyer closet is an accordion door. I love it! The little kids have their hats and gloves on the bottom and ours are on top. I love the way we don't have to go searching for mates anymore because it's all organized!
--Last week, I cleaned up the house and have maintained it. This may seem like a rudimentary idea for many of you, but for me it was an ideal I held for later in life. With Flylady, this means wiping out the sinks after you use them, making your bed as soon as you get out of it, continually loading the dishwasher as soon as you dirty a dish, not waiting for "laundry day"...but washing a load every day, and purging EVERY DAY in the special zone of the week. It has me so excited about keeping my house clean, I can't wait to wake up in the morning! I know it sounds corny, but feeling on top of this stuff is totally exhilarating. This is all great timing because I have 3 Fall birthdays coming up so the house will be ready for people to come over.

What is on my to-do list?

--Come up with a menu for Abby's birthday meal. Pasta, garlic bread and salad? I need something simple.

--Clean out Abby's closet. Store clothes she's outgrown...give away clothes I don't want to keep for Mary. Do the same with her chest of drawers.

--Clean out my closet and the clothing closet downstairs. Give away clothes I don't wear anymore!

What's bugging me?

--I need to focus on potty training Mary. It just takes a lot of attention and I'm a little distracted right now.

--The grass is really high and I need to mow it...but it keeps raining! But we need the rain so I don't mind.

--All summer long the rabbits ate my "Creaping Jenny" so they never creaped ANYWHERE. They never amounted to anything more than low buds.

--I bought "indigo" eyeliner from Mary Kay and an eyeshadow I don't like. I think I might take her up on her offer to return anything I don't like. I hate returning stuff, but you know what? She talked me into stuff that's NOT ME!! I was trying to stretch outside my box, but sometimes the box is there for a reason...years of doing the wrong stuff!

What's my latest obsession?

--PURGING and keeping the house clean!

What's making me happy?

--I feel like serving on the PTO this year and last year has really helped me feel important again. I have met and worked with so many cool people. It's kept my mind busy when I'm home all day. I have the whole school year ahead of me, but I feel very comfortable in the position and don't worry about it like I used to.

--Meal planning and Flylady. I don't have to think at the last minute about what I'll have for dinner. I have a plan for the whole month! Soon, I'll have to do my shopping for the next two weeks.

Just Say NO

Why can't I say NO? I often find myself in these situations where I am somewhere I don't want to be, doing something I don't feel like doing...all because I couldn't say "NO!". I remember in 7th grade, my friends talked me into going out with a guy I had NO interest in. I went out with him and broke up the next day. I can think of countless other examples: Being called into work on my day off, going shopping at flea market when I'd rather be shopping somewhere else, applying for credit cards so I can save 10% on my purchase, agreeing to serve on the PTO, and door to door people...forget it! I'm a sucker! I've been talked into magazine subscriptions, candy, braided bread, frozen pizza, and Girl Scout cookies. I've attended Arbonne parties, Pampered Chef, Discovery Toys, Party Lite, Creative Memories, U-Design Jewelry, and can't seem to walk away without placing an order. I've "helped" my friends by hosting Pampered Chef, Mary Kay, and Creative Memories. I really helped my friend when I accepted her invitation to be come a consultant. I've taken calls from my high school, the police department and fire department and agreed to "help" them with a donation or to sponsor a poor kid to attend a boxing event.

For some reason, I think saying NO would make me rude or a bad person. I think I need a class on saying NO. I want my daughter to not be afflicted with this illness that affects so many women. It could keep her out of trouble in her teens for sure. But I need to start with myself. I've learned to talk myself out of door to door sales purchase with the following excuses: "I already bought Girl Scout cookies from my daughter"..."I'm sorry, I'd rather donate directly to your company than buy this wrapping paper...where can I send the check?" (They never give me an address)...and simply..."I'm sorry, I don't really see anything I want". This is all much easier to do with a stranger.

Tonight, I realized I have not come far in this area. A fellow Children's Liturgy liturgist asked me if she could give me a makeover and send it in for a competition where I could be featured in the Mary Kay magazine and win a trip to New York! Of course, I'm not saying yes to her because I think I'll be featured in the magazine or win a trip...I'm doing it to help her out. And because I think I "owe" her because she helps me with Children's Liturgies. Later, I realized, this is just to get me buy make-up! How can I be so naive! She said I could get $25 in free product. I figure I'll go, get made up and get my free product and go. I was so confident in how quickly I could go through this process that I scheduled myself to run errands at Target afterwards.

I went to her house tonight when I really just wanted to relax at home. We go through the whole Mary Kay process (which really hasn't changed. I remembered the whole ring finger thing, as well as how to rub up and away, and the blotting and everything. It hasn't changed! I mean, who puts on make-up with their RING finger!!! I don't like being restricted like that) We take the before and after pictures and everything. And then it came time for me to pick out my free product. Well of course she showed me the cute pink case that I could insert all my little eyeshadows and blush and the lipstick just so! It was so cute. And she'd give me a discount on the pink container since they now selling the grey. I started looking at colors and factoring in my $25 off and before I know it I added eyeliner which I thought was included, but wasn't and I walk out spending $45! How did I do that? I was so close to leaving with just the hand spa kit which would have been $30 and I would have only spent $5!! No. I have to get the cute kit in a pink container to hold the eyeshadows that I NEVER wear! I am fine with blush over my eyes! I break out the eyeshadow for weddings. I am PURGING for gosh sakes! I don't need to ADD!! Anyway, I don't get out of there until 8:45pm and I'm TOO tired to go to Target.

What's done is done. I can only try to learn from my mistakes and move on. I know my best course is to avoid the situation to begin with. But I still would have helped her out. Even knowing what I know now...I still would have gone. Maybe if I could do it over, I would have said No to the eyeliner. I should focus on the success: I said a definite NO to the skin care line "I have a butt load in my bathroom that isn't being used now". She pushed HARD for the skin care. She even offered to let me pay in 6 installments..."I don't finance make-up". I also said no to hosting my own facial party. Aren't you proud? Hmmm...maybe I'm not as bad as I thought.

My New Obsession

Ever since I cleaned out our PTO Cabinet at school, I've been wanting to purge, purge, purge!! I can't get my hands on enough areas soon enough! I'm trying to slow myself down and make permanent habits that last longer, but I can't help it. I'm flexing my Super Woman muscle again and you just can't hold me back. We took advantage of the holiday weekend and cleaned our storage room! Talk about purging! I so believe what Peter Walsh from "Clean Sweep" says, "Don't organize clutter...get rid of it!"



I often get my house looking good on the "outside", meaning, what you see can look picked up. But if you were to open a closet or a cabinet, or a drawer, you'd see how organized I really was. My storage room was one of those areas that needed to be gone through. Now we are looking for ways to get rid of all the trash! We're using our neighbors and adding extra bins to the curb, hoping they will take it away!! But in the meantime, it's sitting in my dining room waiting to go out the garage door nearby. Getting a huge charge out of cleaning my storage room, I'm making a list of the other "hidden" areas of my house that need purging and organizing. Today, I tackled my closet in the foyer. It's not all the way done...I still need to go through the hat and glove box (which should have been brought downstairs during the summer!) and the jackets.
As you can see, this closet is overloaded. One of my favorite things to do is to move the items that aren't used as much, out of prime areas. I moved all the games (we mostly play in the winter) up to Ben's closet which is almost bare on the shelves. I kept the puzzles because the kids love to play with them but I don't want them in their reach or puzzle pieces go EVERYWHERE!! I took all our pool stuff (beach bag and inner tube) and stored it downstairs. I emptied the bags and put the sunscreen and goggles in separate shoebox containers so I know what I have for next year and I don't have to guess on what I need to buy...it can easily be seen on the storage shelf. I got rid of some games (Twister and Pokemon) and gave a couple of them that had never been played to school for their new incentive program. Now it looks so much better!!
I'll move the feeding seat to Ben's closet after Leah comes over Thursday. I still watch her one day a week. The bags on the floor are clothes that go to my sister and some are for the poor. The shelves above are free for whatever I want to have accessible. I'll keep the floor space for the kids backpacks when they are home.

My closet is a mess, I want to do this area next. I keep Christmas wrapping paper in there! NO MORE! I have a pillow that I was going to center all my decorating around in my family room. It's not gonna happen! I need to toss it! Or cover it so it matches what I DO have. My clothes are a mess. I don't wear half of them! I don't have a walk-in so space is at a premium!



And this jewelry cupboard that is attached to my dresser is a mess! It's probably 1/6 jewelry (most of it doesn't get worn), and the rest is baby teeth, old licenses, prayer cards, a stamp pad??, a Christmas bow, a tooth brush??, and yes, that is a picture of me when I was in like 1st or 2nd grade! I can't wait to get my hands on this storage space!


Flylady is helping too. I'm checking our her site too. When Mary was young, I couldn't "fly". Now that she is almost 3, I can follow her routines much easier. I'm just NOT getting the e-mails! Those are a pain. I've been printing the info for the month in what area to focus on and getting ideas on how to KEEP it this way. I'll keep you posted on my current messy areas and hopefully will be able to show you some AFTER pictures!!