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?

It rains in the Spring.  I like rain because it smells good.  It makes everything feel clean and new.  It gives variety to my life.  I even like thunderstorms because it makes me humble and reminds me of the power of God.

Flowers!  The flowers start to come back and they smell good and help me to be cheerful.

Easter.  My birthday.  May parent’s birthdays.  Passover.

The sunshine comes back warm, but not too warm.  I always forget how much I missed the sunshine during the winter and it’s like a great surprise every year.

Green grass and leaves.

Strawberries!  I had strawberries for breakfast with a little whipped cream.  Who knew that two cups of strawberries has fewer grams of carbs than a cup of cereal?

Other spring fruits and veggies!  Asparagus, artichokes, apricots, avocados, and pineapple.  (I just found a list of fruits and vegetables by season–with pictures!!–here)

The farmer’s market starts up again and I can find good produce next month!

General Conference

Kites–I should bust out our kite and take the kids kite-flying with all the wind we’ve got right now.

Spring Cleaning.  I rarely actually do a whole huge Spring Cleaning, but I do get a little bug in my head helping me to get motivated to try to get things back in order.

Anticipation and planning of summer vacations.

Did I mention flowers and sunshine?  I really love those…