40 Day Challenge: Day 5

Not the best start to the day: Fixing breakfast Naomi dropped her green juice and when it dropped it launched the juice all over the kitchen- me, the fridge, the floor, the cupboards, the buckets. It was alot of green. As I bend down to wipe it up, I smelled something- Naomi had a poopy diaper. Naomi is potty trained, but still wears diapers at night. So she must have pooped in her sleep. Ugg. I got the juice cleaned up and stuck her in the bath. Then I went to change Titus out of his sleeper- oh, nice, he's poopy too. But it didn't stop there- yesterday I changed 5 of Titus' poopy diapers.
So I finally get to eat some breakfast and then all I hear is "Nomee wants you. Sit a 'touch. Read a book Mama. Titus eating something. Up, up, up." And Titus was eating something. It's been muddy lately- even when I vacuum he still finds stuff. Yesterday I dug mud out of his mouth at least 3 times. I'm looking forward to him walking- maybe he won't eat so much if he doesn't notice it. Titus normally naps from 7 AM-9 AM. He didn't today. I needed to go to Costco, too bad it didn't open at 8 AM. Brian forgot his lunch and was going to take only a 30 minute lunch so he could get off work early and we could go to the pumpkin patch. I said I would take it to him, thinking I would make it to Costco. Titus finally went to bed at 9:30 AM which means he would sleep till noon... not going to make it to Brian's work in time for his lunch. Thankfully, Brian said he would just come home. I turned on the dreaded TV (I dread it) I just wanted some time without someone touching me- I felt I had given enough already! I think I sat and played Bejeweled for 30 minutes. I felt better so I started to work in the kitchen- chopping more apples, made a batch of apple sauce and then got apple butter going. Naomi wandered in and started "cooking" too. At least I had gotten enough alone time I was enjoying her.
After lunch Titus was up for a couple hours and I put them both down- Naomi does a "quiet time" on my bed with books and toys (1 1/2 hours) and TItus needed a nap. After about 20 minutes I started working in the kitchen and must have woken him up- he didn't sleep anymore. At least I got dinner going and chopped up enough apples for another batch of applesauce.
I did a bunch of dishes, cleaned the living room and table. We finally made it out the door about 4:20pm to pick up Brian and head to the pumpkin patch. We got home just before 6 PM and it's a church night- Bible Study, Youth Group and AWANA. We ate and made it to church late. It was just Stephen and I that went, Jesse and Luke had homework to catch up on and Brian keeps the little ones home so they can go to bed on time (7 PM). When we got home I did more dishes and straighten up. It's been good to have more incentive to keep things picked up.

40 Day Challenge: Day 4

Not too bad today. Maintaining anyway. Stephen and Jesse did the dinner dishes, so that was nice and Luke and Stephen folded the clothes. School seems to take up so much time these days that chores get put on the back burner.
I need to start working on decluttering the entertainment center...

40 Day Challenge: Day 3

Not so great today- and then I gave up before taking the picture. Because, I could just clean up for the picture... I had done a ton of dishes- you know the big ones that just sit there while you do the normal maintaining ones? Yeah- I have too many of them and I washed them all. I gathered all the tools from putting the door in and cleaned up that part of the kitchen. I made Stephen Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies to take to school for his birthday treat. (He said "I just want to share something with Mr. N so he knows what a great cook you are." Aw Shucks!!)
I was so busy cleaning/working in the kitchen that I was rather late for dinner- ended up making French Toast- but added shredded apple to the batter. Didn't work so well and took longer to cook them, too bad- on a Boy Scout night.
Cleaned the master bedroom a little... with everything going on in the rest of the house, it tends to be a catch all.
I wrote out the clues to our annual Road Rally at church, and yes, I played some computer games. I actually forgot about my challenge and then remembered close to 10pm that I need to take a picture. And then I looked around. Oh well, I thought, and I took the picture anyway.
I'm going to try to take the picture between 9 PM and 10 PM each night. So, this is how this part of the house looked when I went to bed:

40 Day Challenge: Day 2

Today was easier... typically on Sunday we are gone from 9 AM- 1 PM and then again from 5 PM- 8 PM, so the house is normally trashed Sunday night. But Naomi and Titus have runny noses so can't be in the church nursery. I don't leave them in the nursery too often, Naomi sits really well in church. But we are in the nursery when I feed Titus or take Naomi to the potty, so I decided to stay home and not get other people sick. I vacuumed, made sure the table was cleared off and did several loads of dishes.

40 Day Challenge Day 1

I was browsing through Wordless Wednesday a couple weeks ago and came across this post by A Mountain Mama and it challenged me to look at my life. I have struggled with house keeping. It just doesn't come natural to me. It's not habit. It frustrates me. I enjoy a clean house, I feel better physically and emotionally when I have a clean house. I have used Flylady's method and it does work and I followed it for several years. But I haven't stuck with it. We moved, tore our house apart, etc and I just gave in and gave up.
So, I decided to be brutally honest and post it on the internet. I figured I could take a picture each day and post it and keep track of what I did. I would like to maintain a decent house and also improve it so it's actually decluttered.
I figure if I can do it for 40 days, then it should be habit at the end and I can move on to something else that needs attention. :-)
So, here it goes: Day 1

Menu Plan Monday

Monday Tuna Bake
Tuesday Tavern Burgers (I'm going to try them with melted provalone.)
Wednesday Pizza
Thursday Lasagna
Friday- something simple for the kids- Date for Brian and I (woot woot!)
Saturday Bierocks

For more menus visit: I'm an Organizing Junkie

2 1/2 months...

I submitted this blog to see if I could do some pay for posts soon and they changed their terms, so the blog has to be going for 90 days before I can do that. I'm dissapointed. I was really wanting to start ASAP... I do really want those couches! I could do them on my cooking blog... but really don't want to. Still thinking about it. Frustrated.