These days, if you want to come and visit, you're entirely welcome. Just plan on coming early in the week.
You know what they say about the road to hell right? It's paved with good intentions. When we first moved here I was Susie Homemaker. I stuck with my routines, went to bed at a decent hour, Baby Bear was in a great mood... life was good. We even got some painting done and even a little decorating. I'll do a post on the kitchen and dining room soon, we just need to finish up in that area.
But then came things that got in the way. Started chatting on Facebook messenger with friends until Jim came home from work. After dinner chores got pushed aside. We had to run here or there for myriad reasons from helping out a relative to just plain boredom. It rained a lot so that painting wasn't advisable (from what I've read if you paint on rainy days it doesn't dry properly). Seizures and meltdowns reared their ugly heads a few times. In short, while I have been continuing to try and keep the place neat and orderly while making the house more into home, it's been more like swimming upstream while the other fish are busily heading downstream: you're putting out a lot of effort but you're really not getting anywhere.
One thing I've kept up with though, is (mostly) managing to keep Mondays free of distraction so I can get the house back in order. The weekends are now the true weekends so unless I'm babysitting on Sunday, not a lot of housework is being done on Saturday. And somewhere along the lines of Friday, the brains in this house tend to forget where shoes go, and things tend to fall by the wayside.
That's where Mondays come in. That's my time to restore order to the living room, bathroom, kitchen and dining room. The rooms get picked up, the dishes are caught up, the bathroom gets a good scrub down, and the carpets get a good vacuuming. All that fun stuff. Most of it, anyway.
Slowly though, I'm figuring out the spring time slump and getting back into a more feasible routine. A load or two of laundry gets done most days, and today I wrote up some rules for a happy kitchen:
- dishes are done by the end of the night and at the very least are put in the drainer to dry if not put away.
- litter boxes are patrolled daily with regular scrubbing
- Floor to be swept nightly
- Trash taken out nightly.
If I can get back in the habit of making sure those are done regularly, as well as mastering the art of menu planning (and sticking with said plans) I think I can keep a handle on the housework so I can better spend my time with Baby Bear and the Hubs, as well as work in time for writing and art work. Home Sweet House is relatively small, which I am thankful for when it comes to keeping the housework manageable.
So there you have it, folks, my confession for the day. Now, if you'll excuse me, the laundry needs rebooting and dishes are calling. Have a great Monday.
This is Charlie, holding the tv down so it doesn't fly away each night, lol.
Good morning! It's a beautiful, sunny day here in my area. Daylight savings time is upon us. The clocks have been set forward an hour (really, I don't get why we still do that but that's a rant for another day) and like a lot of people, my mind is on spring cleaning. Well, for me, my mind is on cleaning in general. Because of the move, a few things like turning mattresses and general cleanup have been done already. But now that we deal with gas for heat and cooking, I get to learn all about that type of upkeep. The windows could stand a good washing (we have awnings from way back in the day on some of the windows so I get to figure out how to wash the outsides of the windows), and I'm pretty sure the awnings need to be cleaned as well. Looks like I'll be starting a honey do list for The Hubs. He's better at cleaning the rain gutters and that type of thing. It's also time to get moving on a garden and doing a little landscaping out there. I have lots of plans for this home, and hopefully I will share a little of that with you as the weeks go by. Because of our limited budget, not everything on our list will get done this year, but that's okay.
In sprucing up on the inside, I really want to get some painting done, especially in the two bedrooms.
These two photos were taken before we moved. The top is the master bedroom and is a really bright pink. I love pink, I really do. But that is a bit too bright for me. The Hubs has agreed to a much softer shade of pink. The carpet I'm not so concerned with because as soon as I can replace it with laminate or anything else that fits my budget and looks like hardwood and will last a long while, it's outta here, baby! Carpets in my opinion hold a lot of dust, dirt and cat hair, even when you vacuum regularly. I'd rather sweep and damp mop and keep going.
The bottom room there has very poor lighting for the photo. The paint looks chocolate brown there but is more of a cross between chocolate and raspberry. I'm not crazy about it. The bear cave is going to become a blue-green. Since the bear cave is J's room, I don't think curtains will go in there at all. I'm thinking sturdier blinds, and very few additions other than removing the carpet for something simpler. He is truly zen. He does not like a lot of clutter in his space. In fact, the barer, the better. I will honor his wishes on that.
Now that I've shown you the "before" pictures of the bedrooms, I will be sure to keep you updated when the rooms are done. For now though, my sweet husband has informed me it's time to eat , and then I need to finish my laundry and thin out the growing stack of magazines, not to mention catch up on my filing. Happy Monday!
