On the bright side, I’m feeling a lot better today.  I’ve had some energy and have been able to get some cleaning done.  Plus, at least one of my sisters is flying out this weekend to help me clean and pack.  I am so grateful to have such supportive siblings!  I’ve talked to two storage places near our new California home and pretty much gotten permission to go ahead with leaving the trailer for a weekend at each of them once I reserve a storage unit.  I’ve chosen a moving company (ABF U-Pack) and priced how much it would cost to pay truck unloaders to help us in case the Elder’s Quorum there isn’t big enough to have people available to help out when we need them. ABF is the moving company we used last time, and although some of our stuff was damaged in-transit, I totally blame our method of packing the truck.  The truck drivers were friendly, helpful, and on-time.  The customer service people on the phone were also very professional and helpful, and answered every question I had before, during, and after the trip.  They knew exactly where our truck was in-transit and since we paid them nothing until the shipment was delivered, I didn’t worry about whether they would show up at the destination or not.  It all went perfectly.

Yesterday Colin Freecycled a ton of our stuff.  We gave away our old brown couch that was falling apart, the baby swing that almost certainly wouldn’t make it through another cross-country summertime move, a broken lamp, our old DVD player that only worked 10% of the time over the last year, a couple of column-esque candle holders that I’ve never figured out how to work into a decorating scheme (especially since we very rarely use candles), our fake Christmas tree, a huge garbage can, and some other odds and ends.  I feel so free!  Colin packed up a bunch of our books, movies, and CDs, and our bookshelves are nearly empty.  I’ve thrown away bags and bags of “stuff” and still have more to go.  I really, really hope we can keep the space we use on the trailer this time down instead of using the whole thing.

Living Room Before

Living Room After

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After

Bedroom Before

Bedroom After

The truth is that it’s been waaaay too long since I’ve vacuumed.  Like, weeks too long.  And I feel guilty about it.  I found some ants around last night and I’m sure there are more bugs lurking somewhere.  It’s got to be done.  It’s my one big goal for the day.  It won’t really take that long–probably 30-45 minutes for the whole apartment, tops.  I’ll feel so much better when it’s done.  Colin is about as interested in whether the floor is vacuumed as he is interested in going to a craft store, so he’s never going to get around to it.  The whole house will be cleaner because of the picking up it will take to get around to vacuuming.  It will be healthier for all of us.  I’m going to get it done.

Here’s the plan for un-procrastinating this task today:

1.Take a before picture.

2. Eat lunch

3. Put kids down for naps

4. Pick up floors as fast as I can, using my timer to get myself to do it fast

5. Move furniture, using timer again

6. Vacuum, using timer

7. Move furniture back, using timer

8. Take after picture

9. Post pictures on blog

10. Take kids swimming (the pool is open!!!)

I just put my sheets in the washing machine with some liquid bleach in the water.  Yikes!  The problem with bleach is that it does its job too well.  Every time I use bleach to clean my laundry (or for anything else), I later discover tiny (and sometimes not-so-tiny) white bleach spots on the clothes I was wearing when I measured and poured the bleach.  No matter how carefully I work, I always make a mess.  I can’t tell you how many shirts and pants I’ve had to get rid of because of bleach spots or little holes in my clothes where bleach ate through the fibers.  And I don’t buy clothes very often, so it’s a big deal to have to toss an article of clothing every couple of times I use bleach.  It’s gotten so I only use the stuff a couple of times a year because I’m afraid that no matter how careful I am, or whether or not I’m wearing any clothes at the time, I will make a mistake and end up spilling or splashing the stuff on something that will be ruined by it.

I had a friend once who used bleach pretty much every day.  She would clean her bathrooms and kitchen with it regularly and wash her white clothes in it.  She diluted it for some things, used it straight from the bottle for other tasks.  She said it made her feel certain that the house was disinfected and it would keep her family from getting sick.  I told her about my fear of ruining everything darker than white and asked how she managed to keep the bleach only where she meant for it to go, and not bleach anything unbleachable.  She told me that she wears an old sweat shirt on top of her clothes, and that seemed to do the trick of keeping everything safe.

I imagine myself donning an old, ratty sweatshirt atop my blouse and bluejeans, then pouring bleach into the washing machine with the laundry.  So far so good…oh, but somehow some of it splashes onto my jeans!  Bleach spot.  Then I imagine wearing the same sweatshirt and jeans and cleaning the bathroom counter and floor with a bucket of diluted bleach.  Ooops…the cuff of my blouse gets out from under the sweatshirt while I dip a sponge in the bleach water and gets whitened.  Then I kneel on a still-wet portion of my newly cleaned floor to clean a stubborn spot and I have a white knee.  I don’t think a sweatshirt will do it for me.

The jury is still out on whether my current clothes have been ruined by my recent attempt to whiten and brighten my sheets, but I’m willing to guess that I’ve got some damage.  There must be a better way.  Do you use bleach often?  How do you manage to keep it on the things it should be on and off the things it shouldn’t?

Yes, I have a couple of mini-charts for the kids (it’s helping Degen with his potty-training), but I primarily use incentive charts for me! I bought a pack of about 1500 tiny stickers for myself last year and give myself a sticker each time I achieve a goal. My vertical axis is a list of my goals, and the horizontal axis is a list of dates. Every day that I work out, I give myself a sticker. Every day that I read my scriptures, I get a sticker. Every day when I put away a load of freshly folded laundry, I put a sticker on my chart. You get the picture.

There’s something magical about a visual representation of my accomplishments, however small. When I see a bunch of little stickers on the chart, I feel like I’m headed in the right direction a little bit at a time. Somehow I feel motivated to do the dishes, and it doesn’t make me feel so bad to think about how there will be more to do again almost as soon as I finish because at least I have something (a little sticker) to show for it.

I keep my chart on a wall by my bed and check it for ideas of things to do regularly throughout the day. When we lived in a house, I kept it in the family room where I could check it while I was playing with the kids or watching TV or feeling lost or overwhelmed. It’s a great antidote for those moments when I can’t remember why I do what I do, or even what it is I do, really.

I mostly use the chart for goals I work on daily, and sometimes weekly goals, too. I make the goals simple and measurable so that I can’t waffle or loophole myself out of a feeling of accomplishment. It’s not just a to-do list–each goal is there for a specific reason that’s linked to my vision of how I want to be. That makes charting my progress meaningful and motivating.

We’ve hardly spent any time on our porch since we moved here, partly because it was a mess.  We’ve tried to cram so much stuff in this little apartment that a bunch of it just ended up outside in the back.  At first, that was okay because the porch was mostly enclosed.  But soon after we moved here the wind blew down the fence, the fix-it crew tried to fix it, and it blew down again.  So they just removed that part of the fence.  Luckily we’re pretty secluded, but the apartment complex people asked us to bring some of our things inside and make our porch look nicer for the good of the community. 

So, Colin brought our refrigerator (yes, we brought it from our other house and kept it outside) into the living room a couple of days ago.  Today I saw the improvement and felt like getting the kids outside, so we got our brooms and cleaned up.  There were tons of leaves from the Fall drifted up to our door and in between boxes.  We have an outdoor cabinet thingy with doors on it and I put almost all the boxes inside it, after sweeping out the cobwebs and several wasps nests.  There are a couple more wasp-nest looking things in there, but they were on the top shelf and looked scarier than the rest, so I think I’m going to leave them for Colin when he gets home.

Now that everything is organized, neat, and clean, I want to spend more time out here.  I’d really love to have a couple of pots of flowers and vegetables, even though we don’t know how much longer we’ll be here.  It seems like I get the gardening bug just before we move every year and I never get to see the fruits of my labor, so to speak.  If I planted in pots, at least I’d be able to transport them next time we move.  It’s so nice to have sunshine!  Every spring I realize how much I’ve missed the sun during the winter–at least I usually don’t realize I’ve missed it until I’ve got it back.  The flowers on the trees are beginning to bloom and they’re so fresh and pretty. 

Degen just went inside to get another glass of spitting water, so I had a chance to grab the camera for some spitting pictures!  I’ll get them up later today, so stay tuned…

Oh!  Wouldn’t it be fun to barbeque tonight on our newly-cleaned porch?!

I really need to do it for the health and sanity of myself and my family, so my question to you vacuuming-lovers out there (I know you exist!) is–how do I learn to love vacuuming?  What do you like about vacuuming?  What sunny side or silver lining can I think about as I vacuum instead of the reasons I mentioned above to avoid the task?  I’d much rather be happy about doing it and do it often and feel better about the state of my house than my current status quo of occassional vacuuming and general carpet messiness.

Feel free to brainstorm in your comments.  You never know–what may seem like mediocre advice to you may be the switch for the light bulb in my head.  Thanks!

• About 100 duplo blocks
• The duplo container
• A package of wipes
• A wrapped-up dirty diaper
• A plush green dinosaur/dragon (Degen Dragon)
• Maggie’s pink windbreaker
• Two paper plates
• A blanket
• Two white socks
• A “choo choo shoe” (Thomas the Tank Engine sandal)
• Three coloring books
• A DVD player box
• Maggie’s Dora the Explorer riding toy
• Box of play tools
• A purple egg carton
• The lid to the duplo box
• A dish towel
• A pair of Degen’s brown pants
• A Better Homes and Gardens magazine, March issue
• A reciept
• A pile of kids’ books
• A booklet of Christmas music
• An audio/video cord