My Cleaning Weekends

I used to dread the weekends my kids would spend with their dad.  At first, I was lost without them. Fast forward a year and I look forward to my weekends alone.  Before I was driving, my kids didn't really do much because it was hard to make plans when I never knew if Bob would be home or not. Now that I am in charge of their schedules, I find myself running around all the time.  Almost everyday after work I am either picking kids up somewhere or taking them somewhere.  I feel like I am always on the go, and I now look forward to the weekends when their dad is in charge of those things.  It's nice having two days every two weeks to just relax and spend time alone. 

Unfortunately, that time is usually spent cleaning my house.  I don't mind doing the dishes and the laundry, but I absolutely hate cleaning the bathrooms.  Especially the kid's bathroom.  The cat box is in there, and though it is their responsibility to keep it clean, they never do.  Their tub gets really bad, and there are some days I feel like calling in a salt lake city commercial tile cleaning crew to come in and clean it for me. It usually takes me a good fifteen minutes to get it clean, and trust me when I say I work up quite a sweat in the process.

The kids and I are working on "cleaning as you go", and I'm hoping that this will help cut down on my weekend cleaning. So far, it hasn't. But I have hope. 

I Need My Carpets Cleaned

Brandi has been home sick for the past couple of days.  I'm not exactly sure what is wrong with her, but she has been complaining about stomach pain, but she is not throwing up or anything.  I told her that no matter what, she needs to go to school tomorrow.

Since I can not stay home from work, Ryan and Kasi usually take turns staying home with her.  I can not wait until she is old enough to stay alone, because it's hard to convince one of the other two to stay home.  Weird, I know, because most teenagers do not want to go to school.

Kasi stayed with Brandi today, and when I came home from lunch I was a little annoyed about the condition of my house.  It wasn't dirty, but they had stuff thrown all over the floors in the living room and dining room. I asked Kasi to please clean up while I was doing my afternoon mail, and when I came home for the day, my house was clean.  Or as clean as it can be.  My carpet is in desperate need of cleaning, and while it might be cheaper to do it myself, I would rather leave it to the professionals.  In fact, I think the apartment manager may have to have it done once a year.  I'll have to check my lease.  They could hire a denver colorado carpet cleaning company to come in or something.  I don't know.  All I do know is that my carpet is stained and gross looking, which makes my house look dirty when it's really not.

My Carpet Is Gross!

 A few weeks ago, Ryan got into a little argument with the apartment handyman.  It seems that someone stole Ryan's bike one night and left it by the dumpster.  The handyman found it, but instead of trying to find out whose bike it was he threw it in the compactor and crushed it.  Ryan found ti and jumped in after it, which caused the handyman to yell at him.  Ryan yelled back.  This all happened while I was at work, so when I got home I had to go find out what was going on from the apartment manager.

Let's just say I left there bewildered, because I got in trouble for my kids bikes being outside, which is exactly where the former apartment manager told me they could be.  The new lady told me their bikes need to be kept inside.  So now, the kids drag their bikes outside everyday.  When they bring them back in, the tires are covered in dirt and mud and they roll them across my carpet.  Needless to say, my carpet is now a mess.  I am thinking about contacting someone like http://www.thesteamteam.com/austin-carpet-cleaning to come clean my carpets and sending the bill to the apartment manager.  Or maybe I'll just ask carpet cleaning Jollyville to contact my apartment complex and offer to clean the carpets.  Something needs to be done.  It would be easier if I had an outside storage unit, but I don't.  They don't offer that here.

I guess I might just have to get the kids to wipe their tires clean before bringing their bikes back into the house.

Junk

 One of the best things about my separation from my husband is the lack of junk around my house.  It didn't matter where we lives, my husband would always bring home junk that would end up in my yard, in my house, and anywhere else he could find a place for it.  He would always say that he would need it someday, and honestly, I could see his point.  I have the same tendency to hold on to thinks I might use someday, though I was never as bad as him.  The funny thing is, Ryan is turning out to be the same way.  The other day, we were at my mom's house, and he wanted to go for a walk.  Down the road from my mom's house is one of those do it yourself car washes, and as we were walking by, Ryan spotted something by one of the trash cans.  He ran over and discovered that it was one of those little hand weights, and he had to have it.

Before we moved to this apartment, I had to clean up our last place.  Since my husband had moved out, I was stuck cleaning the yard of all the "junk" he left behind.  I was seriously considering hiring an Appliance Removal Chicago person to come get the crap out of my yard.  There have been times when we have had a collection of stoves and refrigerators which my husband was saving to take off as scrap metal.  Thankfully, between Ryan and one of his friends, my yard was (mostly) cleaned up, and we were able to start anew here at the apartment.  Now that we no longer have a yard, I don't have to worry about it becoming a junk yard.

Oh, the benefits of apartment living.

There Are More Than 55 Communities In Florida

I packed my first box the other day.  I was going through my photo albums the other day, taking out all of the pictures that had any of Bob's family in them, and I decided to go ahead and pack each album after I went through it.  I see it as a step in the right direction.  I have resigned myself to the fact that I am going to have to move, though it isn't going to be where I had originally thought.  I am in the process of renting an apartment for the kids in I, and I am pretty excited about it.  It's in a better school district than the one they would be in if I moved in with my mom, and I have really been stressing about that. It is also closer to my best friend, who has been my rock this past month.  I know I will be able to count on her to help me with child care in the afternoons if I need her.  I have been applying for jobs in that area, and am hoping I will have better luck this time.  I had one interview, which never led to anything, from all the places I applied to by my mom's house.

The only issue I will have is coming up with the deposit, which means I may need to stay with my mom for a little while so I can save up some money.  My goal is to be in the apartment before school starts in the fall.  I can't help but think about how older people must feel like when they have to pack up the home they have lived in forever and move to something smaller.  We all know older folks who have moved to Florida to retire - I know my grandparents did.  I probably will one day, too.  I know there are more than 55 communities in florida for older people to live in.  There are probably hundreds.   Anyway, packing up my house this time feels different than all the times before.  I think it's because I am getting rid of all of the reminders of my husband, and starting over.  Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying the purging and looking forward to starting a new life with the kids, but it is still a little sad.

For now, I am going to continue with the packing, and hopefully I will have two boxes packed by the end of the week.

Before And After Cabinet Pictures

These are the main cabinets in my kitchen.  As you can see, the maintenance guy did a horrible job painting right before we moved in last year.  He used a cheap paint that was not washable at all.  In fact, whenever I tried to wipe them down, the paint would come right off.

Before

After

These are the cabinets under the sink and the only drawers in the entire kitchen.  They look horrible, don't they?

Before

After

It took me all day, but I am thrilled with how great the cabinets look now. 

Go, Go, Go. All Day Long.

It's almost 9:30pm, and this is the first chance I have had to sit down all day.  I woke up and started painting, which took me all day.  Hopefully I can get some pictures up soon.  I actually remembered to take before shots so you will be able to see how much better it looks now.  I still have so much to do before the BOA people come on Sunday to check out the house.

Tomorrow, I will only have the morning to clean because we have therapy in the afternoon and I want to try and do some clothes shopping after that.  I still haven't found anything I like in the stores, and I am getting discouraged.  So before therapy, I have to get the living room finished.  The new furniture is together, but I still have to get the rest of the room cleaned.  I checked online for some furniture cleaning tips so I can get the couch looking fresh.  Bob sleeps on it every night, so it's a little flat.  I need to find a way to fluff it up a bit.  I don't have to worry about round rock carpet cleaning because all the floors in my house are the fake hardwoods.   I do have to dust all the elephants, which takes forever.  I also have to clean the hamster cages.  If I get to feeling really ambitious, I might even look into air duct cleaning do it yourself .  Or maybe not.  I think that would be the maintenance guy's responsibility. 


For now, I am going to relax before I hop in the shower.  I have so much paint in my hair, it's going to take me a while to get it all out.

Room By Room

I have been so busy cleaning!  I want my house perfect (or as perfect as I can make a rental house where I am not allowed to paint) so I am going room by room, organizing and making things nice.  Yesterday, Kasi and I put together my new desk and bookcase.  I really like it better than the old hand me down desk, mostly because it doesn't have the hutch top.  I no longer feel like I am being punished and sitting in the corner whenever I am online.  What do you think?

I also got a new flat screen computer monitor, and that takes up a whole lot less room than the old one did.  I am happy with how the living room looks, aside from wanting new curtains.  The ones hanging were made by my mom the first year I got married, so 16 years ago.  Wow.  I do think it's time for something new.

Tomorrow, I am going to concentrate on the bathroom.  I asked the maintenance man if I could have some of the paint they use to re-paint when a tenant moves out so that I can at least refresh the walls in there, and he said he would get me some.  I just hope it is before this weekend.  Until then, I have other things I can do in there.

It's a small bathroom, but the lighting is a little weird.  There is one contemporary lighting fixture in there, and it is right above the sink.  I like having that light there when I am doing my hair and brushing my teeth, but that one light doesn't exactly light up the entire room.  Taking a shower can be a kind of dark experience, especially with the curtain closed.  I would love to convince the maintenance man to put up some flush mount ceiling lights in there closer to the tub, but he will probably tell me I'm crazy.  He probably wouldn't be opposed to us buying some Lampclick Lighting with our own money and installing it ourselves.  Heck, we put up a ceiling fan in the living room ourselves. Aside from the lighting issue, I have no complaints about the bathroom.  I found one of those metal racks that goes over the toilet, and I am excited to see how that is going to look in there. 

After the bathroom is done, I have to tackle the kitchen.  I am going to repaint the cabinets with a better paint so that I can actually wipe off spills.  Right now, if I wipe the cabinets, the paints comes right off.  They used a pretty cheap paint when they painted them the first time.  They are white, too, so every spill stands out.  I bought a kitchen/bath paint yesterday that the sales person promised could be scrubbed without coming off the cabinet.

I guess we'll see if that's true!

FINISH Review And Giveaway

I have been married for over fifteen years.  In those fifteen years, we have lived in several different homes.  The one we live in now is the first to have a working dishwasher, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't excited the first time I used it.  It was so nice not to have to wash every single dish by hand.  I still had to rinse them all before putting them into the dishwasher, but that wasn't bad.

I tried several different dish washing liquids in the dishwasher, and they all seemed to do an okay job.  My dishes got clean.  Ryan was tasked with having to put the clean dishes away, and his biggest complaint was having to dry all the dishes before putting them into the cabinets.

I was recently asked to review FINISH Quantum and JET-DRY Turbo.  I had never tried those particular products, so I was interested to see how they would work.  The first time I used the FINISH, I put the little cup into my dispenser as instructed, and it never dissolved.  I found it intact when the cycle was over.  The packaging suggested putting the cup on the bottom of the dishwasher if that happened, so that is what I did the second time, and it worked perfectly.  I didn't rinse the dishes at all.  I just scrapped the big stuff off and put the dishes into the dishwasher.  I was really surprised to find clean dishes at the end of the cycle.  I was sure there would be bits of food everywhere, but there wasn't.  These little cups make dish washing so much easier!  They were even featured on an episode of Designing Spaces.  You can click here to watch the segment that focuses on the dos and don’ts of dish washing.

I also tried out the JET-DRY, and Ryan will tell you that it worked great.  I filled the rinse agent dispenser with the JET-DRY, and the dishes were spot free and completely dry when the cycle was over.   There was no need to dry the dishes before putting them away, which cut Ryan's chore time in half.  I will definitely be buying both of these products in the future.

I am going to give five of you, my loyal readers, the chance to win a sample of both the FINISH Quantum and the JET-DRY Turbo for yourselves.  All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment, telling me about your worst dish washing story.  US bloogers can enter until 11:59pm on Wednesday, December 8, 2010.  Good Luck!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of FINISH and received a sample of FINISH Quantum and JET-DRY Turbo Dry. Mom Central Consulting also sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Carpet Cleaning

 One of the best things about this house we are renting is that there is no carpet.  In fact, I think I have only used my vacuum a couple of times since we've moved in.  I realized that it is easier to sweep the one area rug we have in the living room than it is to drag out the vacuum for just that. 

When we moved out of our last apartment, I really wanted to clean the rugs because they were horrible.  Actually, they were horrible when we moved in, too.  It was easy to look into cheap carpet cleaning austin and read some carpet cleaners reviews austin to find the best carpet steam cleaner austin, but I live in South Carolina, so that didn't help me.   I had to find a local carpet cleaning company, and they came out and cleaned the carpets when we moved in.  Junior was so dissatisfied with out property manager when we left that he refused to have the carpet cleaners come back out before we moved.  I did, however, look online for carpet cleaning tips to do it myself, but Junior put a stop to that, too.  Looking back, I'm glad we didn't clean them because the management company kept our deposit, even though we moved out because the ceiling in the kitchen was falling in.


That is why we refuse to rent from another management agency.

It's Cleaning Time!

I have gotten so much done this week around my house.  For some reason, I have been in cleaning mode, and with cleaning comes organizing!  I think it has something to do with the changing of the seasons, although our weather hasn't changed at all.  We are still going to be in the low 90's today.  The weather man says we might be in the high 70's by Sunday, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Anyway, with my house being so small, everything has it's place, and when things aren't out away, it can get pretty cluttered.  We have a storage building in the yard, but it's not big enough to hold everything I need it to.  Junior is trying to talk me into renting a storage building from Storage Milton Keynes, but I am determined to organize things around here better so that we don't have to.   My biggest problem is my kitchen. 

As you can see, this little corner of my kitchen has become a storage area.  These totes are filled with toys from the girls room.  On of them has Barbie dolls in it, and one of the others has Little People.  I am not sure what the on on the bottom has in it (probably junk!), and then the little one in front is filled with Brandi's snacks that she takes to school.  That was the best idea I ever had, too.  Whenever I food shop, I just empty all of the snacks I buy for her to take to school into that tote, so she knows exactly what she has without rummaging through the pantry.  It also saves a lot of room in my pantry.

I am hoping that I can get these totes back into the girls room (except the snack one) by this weekend.  Of course, that means cleaning their room, which I am making them do.  I don't understand how two girls can be so messy.  My mom would probably argue that I was the same way as a kid, which is true, so I guess it's just a girl thing.  I keep threatening to go in there myself with a couple of trash bags, hoping that will motivate them to clean.

I'll let you know how that works out.

Two Closets Down...One More To Go

I don't know what got into me this morning, but I have been cleaning like a madwoman. I put on some music...Def Lepard, baby...and sang while I scrubbed. My kitchen is sparkly, at least it was before I cooked supper. My shower curtain is mildew free...I don't know why, but for the past month or so, this curtain gets mildewy overnight. I threw it in the washer with detergent and bleach, and let it soak for a while. A run through the wash cycle, and it is white again.

I also went through closets and packed a few boxes. I threw out so much junk, and it felt so good. I am glad I am making progress on the packing. The one closet left is in Ryan's room, and it has all my Christmas decorations in it. Once I pull all of that out, I can put the boxes I have already packed in that closet so they are out of the way.

On deck for tomorrow...Lady Antebellum and cleaning the living room!

What To Do Today?

I still have the cleaning bug this morning, I am just not sure what I want to tackle. I need to go through Ryan's closet with him, but he's leaving to go do a side job with Junior this afternoon, and he is still sleeping right now. This kid has been staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning, and then sleeping all day. He is going to be in for a shock when school starts back.

Maybe I should clean out the fridge, because it really needs it. I cleaned out my desk the other night, and that took me an hour or so. It's nice to not be surrounded by mountains of papers and useless crap. I can actually see the surface of my desk. I know this won't last long, though. This is where everyone drops the mail, their drawings, and anything else they don't feel like putting away properly.

Maybe I will spend today making "do not dump your crap here" signs. Think that would work?

A Productive Day

There is a good side and a bad side to everything. The bad side of my life right now is that I no longer have a PR3 on my craft bag, so the opps aren't there anymore. Sure, I still get some over here, but I find that I am no longer a slave to the computer.

The good side of this is that I am spending more time doing other things, like making those signs for my nephew to be, and swimming with the kids.

Today, I decided it was time to clean out the girls closet. I took every single piece of clothing out, and they tried on all of it to see what still fit, and what didn't anymore. I had put up a lot of clothes for Brandi that Kasi wore at that age, and most of it fit her now, so she is set for school, except for maybe some shoes. She likes to wear dresses, and her little black shoes are too small, so she needs a new pair of those. I'm not sure about her sneakers...I'll have to find those and see what kind of condition they are in. We only wear flip flops during the summer, so I have no idea where her sneakers are.

Kasi still fits in most of her clothes. I think at her age she doesn't grow as fast anymore. She probably needs shoes, too, and maybe a couple of pairs of shorts. She has a gift card to JCPenny's that she got for her birthday that she never spent, so maybe we'll check there for shorts.

I also helped Kasi get all the laundry done today, which hasn't happened since they were in school. I have been behind all summer, but now we are caught up.

At least for now!

On A Roll

I have been cleaning all day. It is now 5pm, and I am finally sitting down at this computer. I have moved furniture, vacuumed everything, and got rid of tons of stuff. One of the biggest things that went into the trash trailer was my love seat. When we moved a year ago, our new living room wasn't big enough for the couch, the recliner, and the love seat, so we stuck the love seat in the kitchen. That is where it has been since.

Yesterday I got sick of looking at it, and decided we needed to get rid of it. So this afternoon, Ryan and I threw it outside into the trailer, and rearranged the kitchen. I moved the table to where the love seat was, and now there is so much more room to walk around in there. It freed up an entire wall. If we owned this place, I would put up some Austin Cabinets so I could have more storage. I have a lot of cabinet space now, but there never seems to be enough room for all my small kitchen appliances and gadgets.

Tomorrow I am going to try and get the bedrooms cleaned out. We still have boxes that need to be unpacked, and that is going to take me all day. At least the kids are home to help me.

Busy Day Ahead

Tomorrow is Junior's birthday.

The kids have a lot of baking and cake decorating to do tomorrow while he is at work.

I also have to get this house spotless, because we are having a "March Birthday" family party here on Sunday.

Not only is Junior's birthday in March, but my sister, brother, brother-in-law, niece, and two nephews also have birthday's in March.

It's a busy month for us, so we celebrate them all at once.

But being sick this week, I have a lot of cleaning to catch up on.

I'm gonna be a busy girl...

Family Day

This morning we did a few things with the kids. I was supposed to go to church with my mom, and was disappointed when she called and said she was sick. So Junior, the kids and I each picked one thing to do, and we went and did it.First up....my choice. We went to see Carson. I got him to take a couple of steps for me. Ryan was able to get him to take about 8 steps across the kitchen. For some reason, Carson LOVES Ryan. He laughs and smile every time he sees him. So cute.Second....Brandi's choice, feeding the ducks. We all had fun doing this. It's been a while since we've been to the pond, and there were a ton of ducks. We were able to coax a few into eating right out of our hands!Third....Ryan's choice, shooting off his rocket. We did it 3 times, and each time it went higher than the time before. The kids were running across the field to find it. They had no problem falling asleep tonight.Last....Kasi's choice, the park. Swings, slide, all the fun stuff. Brandi finally got up the nerve to go down the big slide. Kasi climbs and swings really high. Scared me a little. It's a good thing I don't see them on the playground at school. I'd probably have a stroke!We finally got home around 2, and did a bunch of yard work. We still have a lot to do before we're ready for Ryan's party in 3 weeks. Junior started a fire, and we burned a ton of wood from around the yard. Tomorrow he is making a few trips to the landfill. Yeah! Get a bunch of crap out of my way! My house is still clean. Yes, miracles do happen sometimes. It might have something to do with the fact that we weren't home today. I just need it to stay super clean until Tuesday when my mom comes to babysit. I hate it when she sees my house messy.I guess you've read enough about my day, and I'm tired of typing. It is actually difficult to type and talk on the phone, and Nicole is yapping in my ear, so I will be back tomorrow....

What Pool Table?

I finally have my living room back! I took advantage of the fact that Hubby wasn't home today, and took the pool table apart, with the help of my son. It is now stored in our bedroom until he finds a nice place for it in the basement. It used to be directly in front of the front door, totally in the way. I was able to put the love seat back where it is supposed to be, instead of stuck against the wall. (although it did hide the hole in the wall. Spider murder gone bad, long story) Unfortunately, the pool table was the holding place for all the Halloween party supplies. Now they are covering my dining room table. I guess I know what I'll be doing Monday, finding a new storage spot. I also need to find my desk. I know it's somewhere under this pile of crap, holding up the computer. I don't know about you, but my desk, which is in my dining room, becomes the dumping ground for school papers, mail, unfinished craft projects, and all kinds of other junk. When I actually need to find something important, it's impossible. I need to get organized.
I ended up playing LIFE with the kids. I cheated. Not so that I would win, but so that my 5 year old could win. She complains about never winning, so today I helped her a little. Paying her too much on payday, sneaking $50,000 bills into her pile. I was pretty good cause neither her nor my son caught me. It was a fun way to pass some time.I guess now I need to go figure out something for supper. I'm trying to convince them to wait til hubby gets home and we'll go out, but they're hungry NOW. You know how it is, they say they will DIE if they don't put something in their tummys. Bunch of little buggers! Oh weel, I'll still probably make hubby get some take0out. I am in the mood for Chinese. YUMMY!!

I'm Sleeping WHERE????

It has been decided. We are going to Lake Hartwell this weekend and camping out. Yup, me sleeping in a tent. Not really looking forward to it. I'm excited about the fishing, and swimming, and spending time away as a family, but sleeping on the ground in a tent does nothing for me. I'm gonna be a good sport though. Not so sure about Brandi. She has flat out refused to sleep outside, so it should be interesting. I will make sure I take a ton of pictures.Last night Ryan had a new friend sleep over. His name is Brandon and he is the son of one of the guys Junior works with. Him and his wife are both super nice. I haven't spoken to Ryan yet, he left early this morning with Junior, but from the looks of my living room, it looks like they had a good time. Ryan goes in the morning to have his stiches removed. He hasn't complained about his foot in a few days. I'm glad it is healing well.I guess I should start my day. I cleaned Brandi's room yesterday. I still have an ant problem. When I get rid of them in one room, they go another. Yesterday it was Brandi's. While cleaning her room, I found fruit snacks in her closet. Wonder how they got there? (Brandi and Faith?) Anyway, I cleaned her room and hopefully the ants will stay gone. Then last night when we got home, they were all over my bathroom. I can't take it anymore!!!!!! We even put ant killer all around the outside of the house. I don't know what else to do.Anyway, I'm really getting up now. I have lots to do before we leave Saturday morning. If I don't write tomorrow, I'll be back Monday! Have a great weekend and think about my big butt in a tent!