SHEs Organized

Today is the last day of March, unbelievably. Tomorrow is April!

I've washed the back hall and the bathroom.

Dishes are soaking in the sink, waiting to go into the dishwasher. There is dried on meat sauce on the plates and forks.

It seems to me that I have a serious problem with keeping up with dishes. I really would love to finally have a routine where they just get done. I was hoping that some of you could share your routine with me. Maybe I can finally get to a point in my life where I don't dislike this job so much.

I have a load in the dryer that needs to be put away and a load in the washer that needs to get dried.

Dh will be having sausages with onions and peppers for supper. Possibly potatoes as well. I haven't looked to see if there are any that dh won't be planting in the garden. I have no Idea what I will be having.

It's an overcast day here. I know it rained overnight because the patio was wet when I got up.

Good Morning!

I'm in hour #3 of my day and am enjoying the change of not having school responsibilities.

When i am in charge of washing dishes, the first thing I do when I enter the kitchen is prepare a few inches of soapy water. Almost every part of washing/drying/putting away dishes takes less than a minute at a time when I do it consistently. I'm not a fan of standing at the kitchen sink for long periods of time.

I've moved the spearmint plant outside and repotted it into one of the earthboxes. I carried the spreading thyme outdoors but I am undecided where I am going to put it. I have a thyme plant about 2' wide and a foot tall that stayed outside all winter but i don't know if it survived. The branches are not brittle so I am hoping it will start showing signs of being alive.

Another day, familiar feeling because I don't even know where to start. Dcleaning lady will be here soon so usual stuff will get done unless she can't get to it (DR table, and breakfast table, kitchen island piled high with things to put away.) I'll ask her to wipe out laundry room too and I can start loading things back up in there later. Dh and I will rehang art and pictures over the weekend - it's really a job for two people.

I just mailed a card to our friends who went to the beach with us last week - he had his knee fixed on Tuesday already. And I wrote checks and mailed to an IL historical society for obits for someone I'm looking for. This person owned a family bible in 1986 and I'm trying to find it.

Dcleaning lady stripped upstairs bed and I brought down towels to wash. The painter called and asked if he could do that upstairs bedroom today and I told him to come on over so I'll have painters today, but then done. I have our sheets in the washer.

I think the focused five worked except I never finished the last round yesterday so I'll go with that again. I had to pay the painter yesterday (upstairs bedroom is additional) and then dh got home and we went out to eat and I collapsed on the couch after that. I think I slept well last night. Ddog was snuggling up against me and I find that comforting.

Five:
-clear kitchen counters as much as possible
-wash china dinner plates (10)
-use museum wax to adhere mezuzah to acrylic stand to display
-scan BCG judges comments (four pages for each of three judges) to save electronically
-in the garage, try to put away folding chairs that were in DR

It's hard for me to figure out five things because I feel so overwhelmed.

Twins - I think you are doing AMAZING at juggling all the events in your life. Just having painters in the house for days would completely throw me off my game.

We are going to restart a weekly family fun activity. I have put Family Fishing Fun back on the weekly calendar. I want to keep it super simple so it can be done without prep. I have a rolling ice chest for picnic foods, and it also holds folding chairs. DH oversees the fishing poles and tackle boxes. In theory it should take just a couple minutes to put everything into the back of the pickup and take off. We plan to visit a different fishing place every week.

DD46 has requested we start weekly family hiking also. I don't want to go fishing & hiking on the same day, so I need a different day for that activity. I'm leaning toward scheduling hiking on Sunday after church. But that puts multiple activities on Sunday with nothing on Saturday so there is a good case for scheduling hiking on Saturday. hum...

LadyM, P & P had a family fun day and a family work day. The two wouldn't have to be the same day every week. Thank you for the juggling compliment, LadyM. I'm trying to keep it together. Will have to go for more paint too. They do two coats.

Painters are here again. I'm in dcleaning lady's way so it's not the time to start washing china. I'm going to try to get the scanning done, and then that's four of the five.

Dh went to get his hair cut. While he was gone, I played "race the dryer". There was 11 minutes left on the wrinkle-free setting, so I went and got "most" of the dishes done. When the dryer buzzed, I went and dealt with the clean, dry clothes and got them all put away. Moved the damp clothes out of the washer, put the dryer on again and came back to the sink. Got more done. Now there are 2 racks soaking and 1 cookie tray that got some burned marks that I am trying to get rid of. Other than that sink full, all of the dishes are clean and drip drying.

I did stat bike 1st today.
Then later got the mower started and mowed out front.
There is a yd. or estate sale up the street on the corner, they were lined up for two blocks a couple rigs parked out front of
the house here. I will go check it out later.
Waving to everyone!

Dcleaning lady is finished and gone. House looks great, all things considered. I went and got more paint, and had my late brunch, leftovers from last night's dinner out. I would love a nap right now but that's not to be with painters here.

I took out steak to grill for our supper and I have a green veggie or two for it. I'm making a list for Passover next week too. I'm supposed to provide the boiled eggs, parsley (to dip in salt water and eat, symbolizing tears), horseradish (bitter herbs) and charoset, an apple, fruit, nuts, honey and cinnamon mixture eaten with the horseradish and matzah. I need to make the charoset without nuts, because ds is allergic, or split the recipe and leave nuts out of his. I'm also providing matzah and bought a pack of five boxes, I'll leave most with dfriends, they have a second seder and do keep Passover. Honestly, we don't. I was a CPA in busy season for quite a few years before I was Jewish, so we've never "kept Passover."


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Update: they are done painting and gone. I am going to nap.

HRH and I had a cheerful morning.

At 11:00 I had another of the sort-of-business conference-call meetings and had to hold my own during some contention again. Yuck, but I can do it.

Dishes - when I had a dishwasher, my goal every night was to start the dishwasher as the last step before I turned out the lights. To get to that point once every 24 hours kept me on track. As ya'll probably remember, this pattern was born out of a nighttime problem with mice many decades ago, and determination that wasn't happening again.

Dishes - now, once again without a dishwasher, I am glad to have the alternate technology of a cat.

More about Dishes - Seriously, it IS harder but once a day the drainer is completely full in an attempt. IF the second filling of the drainer happens, I can almost always leave the kitchen clear and clean in the evening, but if it doesn't, we have problems. HRH has been more regularly doing dishes when I didn't feel chipper. He has a different set of priorities and I do have to bite my tongue, but it gets done.

Even more about Dishes - Worst offender practice for me : allowing dishes to wait in the sink, especially if any water is becoming food-debris-soup. HRH thinks this is no big deal, possibly because once upon a time he (not me) lived in a home with a garbage disposal. Also, he never enjoyed watching "How Clean Is Your House" and seeing the scientific tests of submerged items! I just love that show. But what it does is to postpone the interest in dishwashing, IMO. I think you can overcome disinterest in doing a chore if it seems reasonably possible without a hassle, and dishes allowed to wait in sink instead of counter screams "hassle".

One more thought (sorry)
Consider a dishcloth in a personal favorite look, dish drying towel chosen in the same way. Hang them neatly, showing the pattern and drying fast. My wet dishcloth has a pleasant place to hang near the sink after I use it and it looks cute (red checks). Normally, I don't confuse utility with prettiness, but I think this is an exception, because seeing welcoming textiles will help me with mental hurdles.