Cleaning Fool

I have been a cleaning fool for the past 2 weeks.

It is like that crazy nesting phase I got while I was pregnant.

I let the housework go completely in between camping trips and the disaster I fondly think of as my home was finally starting to get to me. Plus with the MIL planning on visiting next week, I was starting to go a little psycho.

Oh yes, I said next week. What happened to her being here while I am on vacation in 2 weeks? She just decided to change her plans last night. Ummmm, that is too bad MIL. I can NOT change my vacation time with this little of notice. So Hubbs can entertain her while I relax at work.

Anyway, back to cleaning talk.

I started with the office/playroom. I had gone through the boys toys a long time ago. The boys got to keep some, a lot went into the trash, some went to my mom for my nephew, but the majority went into the living room to be given to Step MIL for her CPS kids.

FIL came by to see our "new to us" truck yesterday so I put all the toys that were still sitting in my living room into the back of his Tahoe while he was playing with the boys.

Yay, I have my living room back again!

After FIL left, MIL called to tell us that she was changing her plans.

Huh? Dude! What the hell?

So I took my frustrations out on the bathroom.

You all already know that I am a stockpiler, right? Well, if you didn't, surprise! Please don't think I am like those hoarders you see on Intervention or some other TLC show. I (try to) only keep things we are going to use. Unless it is free, then I give it away to someone who can use it or it gets shelved until I have a yard sale.

What can I say, I love all things coupon! Especially if it smells good because with all these boys in my household, things can start to smell like ass, quickly.

My problem is, I can't keep things organized between stockpile shopping trips, which used to be every weekend. So my bathroom was stuffed full of stuff. I pulled everything out of the cabinets, out of the drawers and off the shelves. That all went in the hall. I grabbed a box and started filling it with the crap like body spray, body glitter, mousse, gel, hairspray, volumizer, gloss oil, sculpting wax, teeny tiny hair clippies, expensive shampoos and conditioners. All the junk that I was never going to use went into that box and set in the bedroom for the yard sale.

I just realized that I could have supplied a strip club for a year with all that stuff. Aaahhhh, the pre-children days.

After all the junk was gone, I organized all the stuff I was keeping.

It looks like a store in my bathroom. All the shampoos, conditioners, bubble bath, buddy bars, band-aids, body wash, and everything else body related are put away in their own rows. The kitchen cleaners, the bathroom cleaners, the Pine-Sol, carpet shampoo, mildew remover, oven cleaner, CLR, Magic Erasers and everything else cleaning related are put away in rows too!

I even got all of my smell good stuff under control. The Glade candles, the refills, the Air-wicks, their refills, the Plug-Ins, their refills, the Renew-zits, Febreeze and all that stuff are all organized in drawers.

My biggest accomplishment was getting space for bath towels. Bath towels are my Achilles Heel! I am really picky about towels. I can't dry off my body with something that might have touched somebody else's ass. I just can't do it.

So everybody gets a new towel, every time they bathe. And I only do laundry once a week. 4 people x 7 days x 1 or 2 bath/showers a day=a TON of bath towels. And washcloths, and hand towels.

Usually, after I do a load of laundry it all goes into the laundry pile until someone needs something to wear/dry off with. Whatever was needed gets removed from the laundry pile. Nothing ever gets put away. If I am feeling super motivated, the clean stuff might end up in their designated laundry basket. Kids clothes are supposed to go in one basket, Hubbs socks get their own basket, grown up pajamas, thongs, boxers and my socks go in another basket, and towels get the biggest basket.

Tonight I am going to not only sort all the towels, I am going to fold them and put them away in their new home, under the sink. For the first time in almost 7 years, I finally have the room to put the towels IN THE BATHROOM, where they belong.

That, in itself, will be one of my greatest accomplishments.

If I end up finished with the towels with enough time before the season premiere of House, I might start on the pantry.

The hall is pretty clean.

The kitchen is good, except for the floor needing to be mopped and the walls around the stove wiped down or repainted. I try to stay out of the kitchen as much as possible. It makes my head hurt. Hubbs will have to deal with that room.

The living room is passable, except for the carpet smells like dirty feet. But the steam cleaner can be ran on Saturday or Sunday before nap time.

You would think with my anal retentiveness and my OCD issues, my house would be cleaner than it is.

Happy Freaking Thanksgiving

Well, the plan was to spend today over at FIL's.

Things never end up the way I expect them to.

Last night, we stopped by FIL's for a quick dinner and to spend some time with BIL. While we were there, my FIL's bulldog almost bit Bobblehead. He was just standing in the kitchen between Hubbs and I with his back to the dog, minding his own business. All of a sudden, the dog rams his head into Bobblehead's back, knocks him down and lunges at his face.

Unfreakingbelievable. This dog has been an asshole since they got him. He is a chronic biter. He has bitten step-MIL, FIL, BIL, Hubbs, the mailman (twice), all of FIL's friends, who knows who else, and now has tried to bite my youngest.

That stupid dog is lucky that Hubbs got to him before I did.

Anyway, we left shortly after we got Bobblehead calmed down. On the way out to the car, Hubbs and I decided that we didn't want to spend Thanksgiving trying to protect our kids from the asshole dog.

We stopped by Safeway on the way home and picked up Thanksgiving dinner. We spent $41.40 and saved $23.25. We bought a Rotisserie Chicken, a bag of Clementine Cuties (oranges I think), 2 more gallons of milk, stuffing, boxed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie filling, cream of mushroom soup, gravy powder and black and green olives. All the stuff WE like, not what everybody thinks we like.

We got up around 8 this morning and dinked around until about 10. Then I started making my very first Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, I am 26 years old and have never even helped with the holiday cooking. That's why we got a chicken instead of a turkey. I wouldn't even know how to get the damn thing out of the bag.

So I made a pumpkin pie, stuffing, green bean casserole, the chicken, gravy, a relish tray, and scalloped potatoes. By myself, with absolutely no help. It was super good. I am so impressed with myself.

Of course FIL is pissed that we missed Thanksgiving dinner. Ummm, control your asshole dog? Its simple.

All in all, today turned out pretty well. It wasn't the disaster I dreamed it would be and it was nice not to have to deal with the other people in our family.

I even got out the good dishes that I have never had a chance to use. Hubb's grandma Betty got us a set of beautiful dishes for our wedding present 6 years ago and I FINALLY got to use them.

Red Bull Friday Update

I got more accomplished this weekend than I expected to get done.

**yay**

But it is making me feel a little manic. Oh well. It will pass I'm sure.

I will get to what I accomplished in a minute. First I have to share something. Hubbs and I are going to look at a new house tonight. I am a little scared to own a real house. I was looking forward to having the whole next year to ease myself into this whole idea.

About the house and neighborhood:
The house is 3 bedrooms, 2 bath and on a supersized lot. Its like a lot and 3/4. The house was gutted and completely remodeled. New Berber carpet, updated appliances, everything is new except the bath tub. FIL lives across the street and around the corner. It is half a block from an elementary school, 4 or so blocks to the Jr. High and 5 or 6 blocks from the High School. I am pretty sure Hubbs said that the seller is asking $100k.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that 1)I like the house and 2) we are able to get a loan or convince the owner to carry the papers for us.

Now on to all the stuff I got accomplished:
1) I got LOTS of cleaning done. The laundry even got put away.

2) I made Christmas Crack, Hot Cocoa Mix, and Sugar Cookies. Everything turned out delicious. I brought a Tupperware bowl full of Christmas Crack into the shop today and everybody said that it was awesome!

3) I went grocery shopping. Took Bobblehead with me because Monk Man wouldn't get up from his nap with Hubbs.

4) I wrapped 15 presents. That's about half of what I needed to get wrapped but there are still a few more weekends.

AND, I started a new blog. I need to get all of our shit organized, even more so that there is the slim chance we are getting a house. I need to get our finances under control and I really just want to get my shit together. So I made an all new blog for organization and control. I will post the address as soon as I have an entry up. I am kinda slacking on it already. Whoops

I got a lot done today

1) I just finished up 2 loads of dishes but I have 1 load to wash still.

2) I just put the 3rd load of laundry in the dryer. Everything is washed but nothing is put away.

3) I didn't get the carpets cleaned but I did cook dinner (Baked Mac & Cheese) and made Iced Tea.

Hooray for me!

Oh! And I made Monk Man Windex the sliding glass door.

I just paid off another account

It doesn't feel as good as the other payoffs have felt.

The Backstory:
Bank of America issued me a card with a $10,000 credit line. Me, being the dumb ass that I can be sometimes, I spent it all. Twice. Things were fine until I got married. The post office wouldn't forward the credit card statements to me, they sent them back to the credit card companies. Before I realized it, I was so far behind in monthly payments there was no catching up.

So the BOA account got turned over to collections. For too many years they have been taking a monthly payment out of my checking account. Yes, I gave them my banking information. I didn't know any better. They were threatening lawsuits and court ordered payments and I freaked out. Not one of my better judgement calls.

Fast Forward to Today:
The collection agency called me at lunch right before I was leaving to come back to work. The girl that was managing my account offered me a settlement of $1480 which was 40% of what I still owed.

I jumped at the chance to get this account gone. I didn't take any time to talk myself out of it. I didn't even take the time to check the checking account balance. I just said "Yes, that's what I want to do. Can you take the money out of my account today?"

After the phone call was over I transfered the money from savings into the checking account. Then I texted Hubbs and told him. I was a little worried that he would be pissed for not discussing it with him first or something but he was okay with it.

Now, an hour later I am feeling buyers remorse. Seriously, I want to throw up. But we happened to have the money sitting in savings for this type of thing, paying off credit cards. It will be an extra $130 a month that I can throw at another account or put in savings. That should make me feel better, but it really doesn't.

With the current state of the economy and all these banks failing and needing to be bailed out, I would really feel better with the money in savings instead of someone else's pocket. I know the money will be replaced soon enough and we still have a good amount in the savings account (should anything happen) to get by on if we had to.

Gah! If I would have known 6 years ago, what I know now.............I guess you (I) just have to live an learn.

I hope someone out there learns something from my mistakes. If just 1 person is helped by something I have blogged about, it all would be worth it. KWIM?

Red Bull Friday Update

I actually managed to get most of my Red Bull Friday crap done. Granted it DID take all weekend, 3 Red Bulls and a nap.

So Friday I expected to:
Find the Wii Game
Clean the carpet with soap
Work on the book
Sewing
Cutting and Glueing
Sleep in
Mop the kitchen

In reality, I:
Found the Wii Game--It was in a Spongebob case.
Cleaned the carpet, with soap--Yep, cleaned the 2 recliners while I was at it.
Worked on the book--I didn't write much but I did get a new chapter started
Cutting--I cut but didn't get around to glueing or sewing.
Slept in--Yes! I slept in for an extra hour and a half on Sunday
I even mopped the kitchen.

I know I spelled glueing wrong. Spell check didnt help in the least. Someone please tell me how to spell glueing correctly?

Hi!

I am still here! Hubbs got home from Iowa on Saturday morning and between him and work, I haven't had much computer time.

Ummmm, whats happened the past week......

We went to the woods on Sunday for the Elk's Club Chili Cookoff. I think next year we will try the whole camping with kids thing. Maybe. It rained for about half the day but Monk Man loved it until I made him take a nap in the car because he was getting cranky as hell. Bobblehead couldn't have cared less about being out there.

We took my family out for dinner at the Outback on Monday. All of em. How many is all? Well, there was me, the 2 kids, Hubbs, my brother, 2 sisters, Ollie, my Kookie Cousin and her 2 kids, my Grandma I, and Spanky and Nonnie. I grabbed the bill before Spanky (my dad) noticed it on the table. Ouch, it was almost $300. But we had it in the checking account so we didn't charge it plus my parents have treated us to so many dinners, it is only fair that we pick up the tab once a year. At least that's how I am justifying it.

After dinner we headed over to Best Buy to look around and to wear the kids out so they would fall asleep for the hour long drive home. That was an expensive look around. We ended up getting a Playstation 3 and a few games for Hubbs, a Sponge Bob game for the Wii that Monk Man wanted and the newest season on DVD of House for me.

Yesterday (Tuesday) Hubbs got the trampoline (that was sitting on the front porch for a week waiting for my neighbor) set up for us. Hooray! Monk Man and I bounced for the better part of an hour yesterday evening, until the mosquito's started eating me alive.

Today, I am just working. How freaking exciting.

I took a mental health day for tomorrow so I can spend it hanging out with Hubbs and the kids and preparing myself for Friday. Hopefully one of us will come up with something interesting (and cheap) to do. Otherwise we will be camped out in the living room in front of the TV all day. But that's okay too.

Friday is a big, scary, super stress day for me. Monk Man gets his ear tubes at 9:00 a.m. I know it really isn't a big deal and I am going to freak out about nothing but worrying is what I do best. (I think I have said that before?)

Plus, Hubbs is going back to Iowa again. That sucks too. I mean the money he is making is awesome and we are finally getting back on track with this debt elimination thing.

But

I really miss him and I hate that he has to leave again. He is having to miss out on so much.

So, keep me in your thoughts on Friday. I need all the good vibes I can get so I don't completely fall apart. Saturday I will update on how the surgery went and whether I maintained or not.

Looky what I did this weekend

Ugh. I caught the cleaning bug again.

I am exhausted! But I did get a lot done.

My Stockpile in progress: Its so organized and pretty!


My baking stuff, spices and bread


My Fudge making stuff


Under my sink


The rest of under my sink



The storage in my "Office"


More of my "Office"--Who else do you know that eats THAT much Ramen Noodles?



Another shot of under the sink


2 1/2 empty shelves!


The hall pantry is being cleaned out for all my appliances. Like the crock pots, the deep fryers, the coffee machines, extra dishes. Notice everything is a plural? When we had our wedding shower we received a lot of duplicates. All that stuff is spread out all over our house. I have a deep fryer in my bathroom cabinet, 2 sets of good occasion dishes in my bedroom, you get the idea.

It makes me feel really good about myself that I am actually (finally) getting one of the things done that I had planned on doing while Hubbs is gone.

Post # 100

Wow. 100 posts already.

Post 101 is in the works.

Books

I borrowed this from Mom on the Rise.

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list. How many have you read?

The instructions:
Look at the list and:
Blue font=you have read.
Green font=you intend to read.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. 1984 - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchel
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92.The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Books read? 20
**In my defense, most of these were read in High School. Lately it seems that if it wasnt written by Stephen King or part of the Cat Who series, I havent read it. Hey, where ARE the Stephen King books on this list!?!

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Clean Computer

So I finally have a clean computer again.

It only took 3 tries and all day to get everything erased and re-installed.

The first and second times I wiped it out yesterday, I opened the program files and everything was still there. Third time was the charm I guess.

I had to go to Walmart and spend $40.00 for new World Of Warcraft games for Hubbs since Monk Man scratches every single disk we own.

The kids were still napping so I finally got to go somewhere alone. For the first time in probably a year. Sad, very sad. I know.

Paid off another one!

I have been holding my Economic Stimulus money so I can pay some more towards my unreal amount of credit card debt.

I finally got the Orchard Bank statement today. I paid it off completely. This is the 2nd card we have paid off in 3 months.

Next card? Capital One. Maxed out at $800. I need to talk to Hubbs because I think we should pay this off completely too, since we have the money to do it now. But I really sleep better at night having that extra cushion in the checking account. I also REALLY want to do some MAJOR food shopping. I am totally getting into this stockpiling thing. IDK which would be to do.

I guess I need to corner Hubbs and give him no way out of the conversation and make him decide.

It doesn't look like we will make it out from under our credit card debt by next February (stupid economy and stupid railroad) but we will be VERY close.

I cant tell you how good it makes me feel to see that we are finally getting somewhere with this debt nightmare. I felt so hopeless for years and couldn't figure out how to fix it.