Attempting to be a Super Mom

As I sit here typing this at the kitchen table, the kids are in the living room watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates and playing something with babies and bad guys.  Potatoes are boiling on the stove, the rest of dinner is ready to go in the oven, the table is set, and the dishwasher is ready to run after we eat.  I'm exhausted, like most days, and have my class this evening.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy going, but this evening, I'm so ready for pajamas and bed. I have not had the best run lately.  I've been suffering from withdrawals from a medication that I stupidly quit taking for a couple of days, only because I was to lazy to drive across town.  That has been no picnic, but today was the first day that I woke up, not feeling like my heart was going to pound out of my chest and like something was crawling underneath my skin.  Yes, not fun!  Moral of the story.  Take your meds as prescribed!  The consequences of being lazy can be...

This week has been awful for housework.  We were pretty much only at the house to sleep, in between trips to Kansas City and a trip to Topeka from Friday through Monday.  We would drop our stuff at the door and never pick it up again.  The dishes (mostly cups) piled up, occasional laundry was done (but not folded), a layer of dust covered everything, and the house was pretty much an all around mess.  I don't function well in a mess and have been working away little bit by little bit to get everything back in order, but it wasn't going fast enough.  Today I decided that I had to get the house completely clean, because I couldn't live with the mess anymore. I am proud to say that I am done.  The house is clean. Scotts Lawn Care even came out this morning so in no time I suppose our lawn will be looking even better than before.  Truth be told, I didn't have a problem with our lawn.  I was happy with it, and thought it already looked great but ...

We've been busy little bees in our not new, but improved hive. Over the last week, we have cleaned our office and our garage.  We spent the weekend with family, and even went to the KU game on Wednesday night.  I'm telling ya.  There has been no time for blogging.  Last night and this morning I've been playing catch up with the internet world. So, the work on our house has been our big achievement of the past month.  I've showed you the kids bedroom and our bedroom, while there is still work to be done on both (things for the walls) they are mostly done.  This last week, we did the office, bathroom and garage. The bathroom was quick and easy since it's already pretty organized.  I added some art work and we put in a rug and it looks like a huge transformation. The office was a junk room.  It was the room that if you had something you didn't know what to do with, you threw it in there.  Well, not anymore!  It's a nice, functio...

The past couple of weeks have been a whirl wind!  We've been working on the house and looking for a new place to live.  We've been battling illnesses of both the stomach and head variety, and my brother stayed with us for a weekend. The house hunt The reason we were looking to move was due to the fact that the slab our house is on has a huge crack down the middle.  This causes major cracks in the walls when the house moves or settles.  It also allows for the massive spider problems we had last spring, summer, and fall.  The latest problem is that the man who lived here before us, didn't do a very good job of cleaning the gutters causing rot and drainage issues and with all the snow we had gotten, it was causing the overhang to almost fall completely off the house. We've looked at 3 different places.  Maybe I'm too picky, but I don't think any of them fit our family. The first was an apartment type place in an old, renovated grocery store from the ...

My friend Meagan posted on her blog showing her "messy" kitchen.  She wants to see everybody else's messy kitchen.  Well, here goes nothing. My kitchen isn't too bad.  I just need to put away the clean dishes.  The real problem is my dining room! My skin is crawling knowing that people will be seeing this.  I've got a lot to do today so we can decorate our Christmas tree tonight.   This makes me curious too.  I want to see your kitchen, and if you have a different "messy" area in your house that you'd be rushing to clean if you had company on their way over, show me that too.  Put the link in the comments section of this post.

Last night, Shawn and I were sitting on the couch after dinner thinking about our day.  We were talking and trying to figure out why we are so much more active now than we ever were in our old house.  We play out in the yard here.  We had a yard at the last house.  Not a big yard, but a yard, and we never went out to play in it.  We used the deck but that was it.  We've been walking, decent, lengthy walks.  We've also lived in Lawrence 5 years and just this last weekend went to the Lawrence Farmer's Market for the first time.  Why haven't we gone until now?  The best I can think is that with Sydney's birth, my being unemployed, and now the new house, we're kind of getting a fresh start as a family. Last night, we were going to walk to the park, but Ben decided he wanted to play in the backyard too.  We played catch with Ben, fetch with the dog, and Ben and Shawn wrestled around for awhile. Finally we went on a wa...

This weekend we had our big move.  We moved all of our major things and things we need to get by.  We still have quite a bit to move, but there is still tons to go through first.  We don't want to move junk or trash and I will not allow the clutter here.  I'm working on a daily, weekly, semi weekly schedule for the house work.  It will be more like a checklist.  I know that sounds pretty sad, but I find myself becoming a bit of a clean freak and if things don't get done then I can't function and this will hopefully help me to relax a bit.  I am also hoping that it will help put Ben at ease a little bit about his latest fears. He is terrified of bugs and spiders and even though we have none, if there is fuzz, dirt, hair, or anything on the floor he freaks out and thinks it's a bug.  On the occasion that a bug gets inside or a spider is on the wall, we have to slowly and calmly distract Ben preferably by taking him out of the room and the collect ...