Doing Better

I'm getting much better at keeping up with my housework these days. I suppose because I know nobody else is going to do it. Mum is always working, she doesn't have time to do dishes when she's home. And I can't stand not to vacuum every day now. My laundry is done up completely once a week, too. Now, I can't say I dust faithfully, or that the windows are clean, or the walls are spotless. Certainly not. In fact, Idk if I even believe in washing down walls--if it were me, I might just re-paint them. Lol. Nothin' like a fresh coat of paint to cover up the grime. ;)

I started vacuuming every day when the baby started wanting to be on the floor all the time. That's been over 7 months ago, so it's become a habit now. I don't scrub the floors as often as I should, but they do at least get done once a month now on average.

When we lived at home, I can't tell you how often I vacuumed or swept. I bet weeks went by. See, my floors were brown, so it really wasn't very noticeable. And as for scrubbing the floors...I bet it only happened about twice a year. Yep, seriously. Twice a year or so, I would dust all through, and scrub floors. Ick!! :S We just wore sandals, shoes and slippers around the house all the time so we wouldn't have to feel the dirt under our feet.

And the DISHES--I used to leave them for...much longer than I care to say! The dishwasher always got loaded, every couple days. It was usually Geoff who did it, though. But the dishes that had to be washed by hand--pots, pans, the slow cooker, things like that--they just sat, and sat, and SAT. Oh wait, they were "soaking". ;) Riiiight. And of course, we put our dishes in the sink, like I was taught to do. So they just piled up in the sink til I got sick of not being able to fill the Brita pitcher, or brush my teeth, or wash my hands, and eventually buckled down and made myself tackle them (Wait, that makes it sound like I didn't brush my teeth or wash my hands, lol. We DID have a bathroom sink, just to clarify!). It could be a week, it could be a couple weeks. Yep...dishes sat in the sink for a couple weeks sometimes. I did at least change the water on them. But I had some dishes get ruined that way more than once. I have some melamine baby dishes that were mine that got stained from sitting in the sink "soaking" for too long in grimy water. :(

Thought I'd include this pic, just to illustrate how little I cared. It's a "before" shot of the kitchen, and when I posted it on Fb I commented and said something like, "I hate doing dishes, as you can see."

My laundry was out of sight, out of mind, more or less. We have a big canvas hamper with 2 sides, which was in our bedroom, and a smaller hamper for Geoff's work clothes in the bathroom, and a little basket behind the bathroom door for cuptowels and dishcloths. There were times that I kept up with the laundry fine, but it didn't last long. It was like a phase where I did really good. Other times, it would become mountainous. In 2010, when I finally got caught up for the last time and stayed that way, when I got to the bottom of the hamper, there were shirts I forgot I even had, they'd been there so long. I'd do a couple loads, but there would still be stuff in the bottom, and there it would stay.

Well, that was then, and this is now. :)

These days, I actually enjoy doing up the laundry and dishes! Yep, I truly do. And I have a LOT more laundry than I used to, too. There's dark, light, baby, diapers, work, and occasionally bedding. That's about 2 loads of each per week. o.O That's alotta laundry for 3 people!! Oh that reminds me, I gotta wash diapers today. :)

As I said, I vacuum EVERY day now. Very rarely, I skip a day and just sweep the kitchen instead, usually because the dogs are inside all day, so it's kinda pointless to try to keep up with them. :P (I swear, next time, we're getting a LITTLE dog. Not one that's part-Newfoundlander.)

And lately, I've started getting accustomed to doing the dishes every day, too. This is very recent. Like, 2 weeks. Yesterday, I whipped through and got the dishes done up in the afternoon, and the dishwasher loaded (thank GOD for dishwashers!!). Then in the evening after the baby was asleep, I got them all done again! It was SO nice to get up to a CLEAN KITCHEN this morning!!

Sheena's been telling me for years that that's how she always tries to do it (getting them all done in the evenings). She puts in her iPod, and listens to Joyce Meyer podcasts, and before she knows it, she's all done. I did that a week or so ago (only it was a cd cuz I don't have an iPod yet), and I swear, I could've done dishes for hours listening to her and not even minded! Such a great idea! Another trick of Sheena's is talking on the phone while she does housework. Makes it fly by.

Of course, when the dishes are done and the kitchen is clean, it makes it much easier to make decent meals, too. That was always a problem at home. When the sinks and cupboards are piled with dishes, and the countertops & stove are filthy, it makes it kinda hard to cook! Now that the kitchen's cleaner, I can throw together a meal in no time. I also find that I tend to think ahead more, because having a clean kitchen inspires me to cook. Yesterday, after I did up the dishes & got the baby up, it was no problem to throw supper together: baked salmon with a lemon herb spice blend, rice, and caesar salad. :) (I need to find more quick, easy meals like that so I can always have something healthy, even when I don't take something out of the freezer.)

I've also started getting out more. I don't mean visiting more, that still takes a fair bit of effort, and besides, the baby gets really overtired if we go out TOO often. A couple times a week is plenty. But I've started getting outdoors more. Today's gonna be a perfect day for it! :D Nice and sunny, temp's over 40 degrees, and rising!

Anyway, all in all, this year at Mum & Dad's has taught me how to better take care of my home. Their house is like 8 times the size of ours (if you include the basement bedroom), so when we move home, keeping up with our little place oughta be a breeze! The only problem I foresee is that because it's so small, there's not as much storage space, so we'll have to keep junk to a minimum. Although, in a way, there's more room, because right now, we're living in one bedroom. Our stuff is in the attic, the closet, the downstairs bedroom, and the hallway. At least at our house, all the storage space will be for OUR stuff only, and there'll be a place for everything. So if I can organize things before we move, pack things away, throw things away, etc., and only take the absolute necessities with us, it should be fine.

I'm hoping that within the next year or two, we'll be building a big porch on (at our house), for laundry, the deep freeze, and storage. Shoes, boots, work clothes, jackets, all the outdoor clothing, as well as overhead shelving, vertical shelving, hooks, boot racks. Storage for appliances/cookware I don't use much like the breadmaker & mixer, cast iron dutch oven, and the roaster. Oh and also the garbage can and recyclables. Oh, and, the best part: dog beds! I figure they can have beds out there under the stairs/shelves/boot racks. Yay! No more doggies sleeping on my couches, EVER! When we move back, they'll have beds in the basement, til the porch is built.

SO! I can ramble a LOT. Lol. Kudos to you if you made it this far! Hope I didn't bore you too much. ;) Hope I didn't sound like I was bragging, either! I'm just happy that I'm learning to take care of things better finally. Cuz it would be a shame to have our house fixed up all brand new inside, and ruin it by not taking care of it.