Spring Cleaning

I believe this is my third year during 40 bags in 40 days during Lent. This is by far the best year for actually getting rid of stuff. So many times throughout the year I think, "Oh, I'll totally get rid of this during Lent." Then I either forget or change my mind. Thankfully my motivation to get things out of the house has stayed strong this Lenten season. 

I've been doing so much purging I haven't really been counting but here is what I have done that I can recall. 

4 bags (my bag is a paper bag)  to charity

4 bags of garbage

1 box spring mattress

4 more bags for charity to be dropped off today

1 duvet to be sent to my friend

1 bag of clothes for my nephew

In the garage I have a number of items but we are waiting for warmer weather (if it ever blesses us). 

So in the garage I have, 

1 car seat

1 double sit/stand stroller

2 bikes

1 framed picture

3 Ikea mirrors

I know we have more in the garage as our third stall is full of nonsense we just need to get rid of once it's warmer outside.  But another exciting part of this adventure is the cleaning and organizing I've been doing. Purging is a gateway drug to organizing for me. Get read it's about to get awesome in here! 

While browsing on a few of my favorite organizing/cleaning blogs I became inspired to clean a few appliances around the house.  I have tried everything on our oven door. I can clean the oven no problem but nothing could clean the door. On a whim I mixed up my tried and true solution of baking soda, original Dawn, and enough vinegar to make a paste. Then I thought I would try a spinerette that Mr. Sloth ordered from Norwex. He uses it on his cast iron pans so I never really use it.  Oh. My. Goodness. I am in love.  I am head over heels in love with this spinerette. Look at the results ! 

Before 

After 

Mind. Blown. 

So then I thought what else can this do....hmmm. Turns out it's great amazing wonderful MIRACULOUS for hard water stains. We literally have the highest hard water that is allowed. For years I have felt like less of a homemaker because I just couldn't get rid of hard water stains no matter how hard I tried or what research I did. Vinegar. Nope. Lemon juice. Nope. Salt. Nope. Limeaway. Nope. But this spinerette. Be still my beating heart. 

I apologize. I didn't take any pictures because I was on a scrubbing bender. I did all the faucets in the house (five of them), all the drain plugs and then....and then I did the shower doors. My cleaning nemesis. I felt like David conquering Goliath with one small stone. "VICTORY IS MINE!!"

O.K. Enough of my cleaning love story. On to other projects. If you desire a front load washer and dryer I encourage you just do your research. I won't go into the details but the washer has some problems. If you recall we have really hard water, hence the stains below.  Iheartorganizing has instructions for cleaning appliances. This is also where I learned about "washing soda". Turns out,  little science lesson here,  when baking soda is heated it releases carbon dioxide. Which of course is what make cookies rise, ah-ha! It also changes the chemical make up of the baking soda. If you put baking soda in with your clothes it acts as a fabric softener, but if you add washing soda it acts as a WATER softener. Ah-ha!  You can follow her instructions if you want but basically it involves running the washer a few times with combinations of vinegar and washing soda then wiping it down. 

Before

After

Ta-da!

Next while I was purging through my kitchen, I decided to go through and reorganizing the spice drawer as I was throwing out old spices. 

Before

After

I even had a rare splash of creativity and decided to add a decrative bowl to hold our garlic. 

Here are two bonus pictures for you! I needed to take Demands picture for a First Communion project. For the first time EVER she looked at the camera!! Yeah!!

If I want Rooster to go down for a nap peacefully I usually lay down with him. I'm usually asleep first but I wake up and sneak out to get some afternoon school work done while he's still asleep. I woke up and found he had fallen asleep like this. Isn't he cute?  It's not the first time he's fallen asleep like this either, just like his grandpa. 

Next post I'll continue with our spring cleaning and fill you in on our Holy Week and Easter plans!

Mardi Gras & Ash Wednesday

Since we weren't doing a Mardi Gras party this year I thought I would surprise the kids with strawberry crepes for breakfast in honor of "Pancake Tuesday". My efforts were under-apprecitated. The boys turned their noses up. At one point Happy said, "I don't want to eat the tortilla". 

Sigh. 

Demand and Mr. Sloth enjoyed the crepes though.

The boys did enjoy the strawberries and whipped cream. 

I didn't realize how packed out day would be. After breakfast we dashed to get ready for Good Shepard. With the kids at class I had the perfect amount of time to head to our favorite religious goods store and look for some Lenten books. I found the Lenten equivalent of my favorite Fulton Sheen Advent book. I can't wait to read it. Plus I found two more I've been meaning to read.

In honor of Fat Tuesday I treated the kids to Panera for lunch. I can't remember the last time we had take out for lunch. 

This first picture is more for the background shot of Rooster. 

Ah. That's better. 

Happy always has a silly face to share. 

King thinks his siblings are silly. 

So he joins in on the fun. 

After lunch and nap time it was time to get ready for date night.  I had to pick up our babysitters on the other side of town before heading to fundraiser banquet with a number of friends.  After dinner we were able to head out on our own. I tried taking a picture of us but Mr. Sloth doesn't do pictures but here is his handsome shoulder. 

When the clock struck 10pm I remembered how sick I was. I kicked off my glass slippers and went to bed only to wake up feeling like this. 

Just kidding. That's King throwing a fit because I wont play "What does the fox say?" for the billionth time in a row.  I did wake up rather ill though. Two steps back from the previous days.  Today was all about getting to the end of the day. At one point in the morning I needed to sit on the couch for a while. I needed the kids to be highly entertained for at least a few minutes. 

Hotwheels + gravity= hours of fun

I called Mr. Sloth and canceled dinner. He's picking up frozen pizza for him and the kids and then I'll head to the 7pm Tridentine Mass for Ash Wednesday and then I have every intention of taking some Nyquil and heading to bed in hopes of having this illness over with tomorrow morning. 

I did have time to get one project done today. Our Lenten calendar. Thankfully my procrastination along with my cold paid off. As I was about to start working on the calendar Jessica at Shower of Roses posted hers with all the downloads she made to go with it. What a life saver! So much nicer than I would have done. Mine probably would have been blank with "Long time" scribbles in purple marker at the top. This is more on target I think. 

40 Bags

Mr. Sloth's Silent Retreat has taught us something. We function better without each other.  Mr. Sloth was perfectly content on his silent retreat. It was not a problem for him to be without company or distractions. In fact he opted out of all scheduled social time.

On my end. The house was perfectly clean, we were well scheduled and organized and for the most part the children were happy.

If we could only find a way to have him live as a hermit while earning an income we'd be all set. Until then we are stuck with each other.

I have a little bit of a cold still but I'm trying to stay focused. It's a big week with Lent starting! Today is Mardi Gras and while I have done a lot in the past it's going to be low key today. Maybe a few treats along the way. We are having strawberry crepes for breakfast to start. Kids can't be too disappointed, right?


Yesterday I started  40 bags for 40 days. I'd like to be done before Holy Week so we can spend time doing other activities/projects then.  I'm going to start with closets  but here's my list of places to purge.

Master closet
Boys closet
Demands Closet
Coat Closet
Fourth Bedroom closet
Master dressers
Boys dressers
Demands dresser
Kings clothes
Playroom toys
Bedroom toys
Pantry
Kitchen cupboards & drawers
Bathroom Cupboards & drawers
Fourth bedroom (that should take a week)
Homeschool Room
Last but not least the Garage. I'll do that last since it's so incredibly cold outside. But honestly I could easily find 40 items to get rid of in there.

I started with the boys closet.  It's long been on my list to organize this closet and add a few shelves. Plus I have a dresser in the garage that I started painting last spring! All of their shirts get hung up. That tupperware has their pants....until I repaint their dresser in the garage. Then in the white dresser, one drawer has their underwear and the other their jammies. Notice the missing drawer? Obscure is fixing it for me and had been for four years.

I pulled all the shirts out of the closet. Then began the great sort and purge. Three different sizes were to stay. 3T, 4T, and 5T. All 2T clothes got pulled for storage. Although I wouldn't be surprised if I'm digging them out soon for King.  Mr. Sloth helped me with the final purge after dinner. I told asked him to help me do the forty bag challenge this year.  He is more than happy to help get rid of things. 

He's a hermit remember. 

In the end I am only getting rid of one bag of boys shirts but its hard when I have three boys in a row. Probably another two bags were pulled for storage (I did their underwear drawer too)  so the closet should be thinner now. Today I'll do their pants and start in on our closet. That's where I will really need moral support.

Bonus pictures of King in the bathtub. He woke up literally soaking wet all the way to his socks so he took a quick dip when he woke up. 

He seemed to like taking a  bath by himself and not having to box out for play space. 

Today is Mardi Gras. I'm about to make some Strawberry Crepes for this "Pancake Tuesday" then take the kids to Good Shepard and maybe surprise them with take out for lunch for Fat Tuesday. We'll see how I'm feeling though. Hopefully we'll get some purging and school done, as well as some final Lenten preparations done before Mr. Sloth and I head to a banquet tonight. DATE NIGHT!!

Day 4

So after watching the kids for four days and having a fever, I get whatever I want, right?

Na. I can't do it. I can't play cards. Besides when Mr. Sloth came home the house was perfectly clean, the kids were bathed and I was wrestling the boys while we had a movie night.  Even though I had a fever clearly I wasn't that sick.

I do want take out though.

Here is how today played out.

I woke up this morning and realized whoops I put my earplugs in out of habit last night. Well I don't know about the kids but I had a great night sleep. I decided to "sleep in" until 6:30am. My cuddle bug Rooster joined me at 6am.  I turned on Disney Jr. for the older kids while I got ready for Mass. Then I ironed the kids clothes and brought them downstairs for them to dress. Their reward. A granola bar.  I eventually had to wake King up. He was tuckered out last night. Thankfully he wakes up happy all the time. I love that kid.

Things were good. I was patient. Kids were compliant. I thought this Mass thing might just happen.


Not so much.


Our routine is to get to Mass ten minutes early and while I hang coats up Mr. Sloth takes all the kids to bathroom to cut down on bathroom trips during Mass. Clearly I didn't have Mr. Sloth today. As I hung up coats King bolted. I asked Demand to trail him but she just stood there. Turns out he saw his Wednesday night care taker who also happened to be a reader today and therefore a part of the procession so Mr. L brought him back to me.

First embarrassing moment.


I attempted again to hang the coats up. Again King bolted. This time Rooster went after him and when Rooster goes after you, you stop. All I know is I came around the corner to find our pastor who is not so much kid friendly (God Bless him) stopping a fight between King and Rooster and trying to keep King from screaming.  Clearly he doesn't deal with one year olds very much.

Oh, brother this is going to be fun.

So at this point I assume that everyone has used the bathroom and is ready to head into Mass.

Nope.

I may never know what they were doing in the bathroom all that time but it wasn't using apparently using it.  So I spent the next 10 minutes supervising bathroom usage. (Have you done the math yet? Yes Mass has started.)

Finally we were on our way. I'm not ashamed to say that we have quite the relationship with our ushers. They know and expect our needs and we appreciate that.  They may no have known where Mr. Sloth was but when I motioned that we would just head to the cry room they told us they had a spot in back for us. Good call.

I should have taken the cry room.

I didn't realize it at the time but Rooster is having a hard time without Mr. Sloth. He was a naughty thing. Constantly sticking his tongue in peoples faces being squirrely. It was rough. Then there's King. I almost always spend the Mass in the lobby with that guy.  By the end of Mass I had taken away every right a mother could think of it was a rough go. Somehow though everyone got a doughnut however there were consequences when we got home.

Everyone was sent to their bed until breakfast was ready.

That was the only real low point of the weekend though.

Things looked up after that. We had a lovely breakfast and then we cleaned up a bit before nap time. Nap time was glorious. I laid down with Rooster. I realized he needed some parental cuddle time. I love my little cuddle bug.  I was out for two hours. King went to sleep just fine no fight or screaming today. And remember, I have a cold....did I tell you I woke up with a fever. Yeah.......

After naps it was a bit more cleaning up before dinner and then I told the kids they would take baths, get jammies on and we could watch a movie with popcorn.

Almost there!!! Mr. Sloth is almost home!!

Halfway through the movie I realized the boys needed a good old fashioned wrestling.  Then I realized I had missed a call from MR SLOTH! He was done and on his way home. Yippee!!

He came home and put the kids to bed...blah,blah,blah, I don't know I took a bath. Now he is out retrieving take out for me.

Feels good. :)

Day 3-Part 2

Day three is over. At least I think it was day three. I have a head cold remember.

Here was my list of activities I wanted to accomplish yesterday

Morning plan

-breakfast
-everyone dressed, etc
-start laundry (probably Happy's sheets)
-pick up babysitter for the morning.
-continue cleaning/organizing
-lunch
-return babysitter
-head to Sam's club
-home for quiet hour (I might do school with the kids or give the playroom a good cleaning and start in on the fourth bedroom)

Afternoon


-After naps I'm planning on taking the kids to the Science Museum as a treat.
-home for dinner. I'm not sure what we are having but I have a running list of all the items we have that the kids enjoy so we must have some food.
-baths
-lay out clothes for Church
-books
-prayers

Pretty good over all. A few hiccups along the way like the fact that going to Sam's Club at 1pm on a Saturday in -0 temperatures is an inner most ring of hell. Thank goodness I brought the babysitter with me and I'm glad I went but it was miserable. You have to park miles away. I'm actually convinced that they have fake cars just taking up spaces. An apparently retail stores are not allowed to plow their parking lots but instead leave inches of snow to turn to a bump ice obstacle course with a layer of slush for good fun. 

We survived though. After I dropped off the sitter it was time for naps. Or so I thought. King as I mentioned before has suddenly started rejecting his naps. He screamed for over an hour. An hour that was supposed to be my break but I also was trying to get Rooster to sleep as well. It's bad enough that King didn't nap but we were heading out for the Science Museum and pizza after naps. We survived though Obscure came over and helped me take the kids out for pizza and then to the museum. He even bought me fresh squeezed grapefruit juice for my throat. It was so yummy!

Here are some pictures from our evening. 

King enjoying some chocolate milk at our favorite pizza place, Cossetta's

Rooster trying to cut up his large slice of pizza.

Happy showing us how it's done. 

Here's a picture from the Science Museum. King is learning how to wash dishes. No water thankfully. 

Rooster learning about sound waves. 

Demand exploring with light and shadows. 

I'll save my Sunday morning adventure stories for my next post but today my only plans are to survive until 9pm. Keep the house as clean as it has been. Clean the homeschool room and playroom. Plus King dumped a whole bottle of milk on the carpet in the play room so I have to steam clean that up.  I over course plan to nap and if the kids let me I'll cuddle up with two books about keeping a home up and running. I'll start to re-read  "Large Family Logistics" which I own and then start "The Well Ordered Home" which I borrowed from the library.  

Eight and a half more hours to go! 

Day 3

This weekend is brought to you by bribery. Desperate times call for desperate measures and I knew I wouldn't survive the weekend if I was to battle the children.  First our "yes, mama" game is going well the older two are really getting the hang of, Rooster is sort of getting it, and King just says "Mama" and gets candy.

I had kids eat their pizza downstairs so I could keep the kitchen clean and they ate their pizza on the couch and didn't make any mess. Even King! I was impressed. I'm going to clean the couch today so didn't care if they smeared red sauce on it last night. I had discussed with them that since I was having friends over I couldn't do our usual bedtime books but I would give them dessert. They LOVED it!. Demand even said, "That was really delicious Mama. Thank you so much for letting us have dessert."

Wowza.

Then they got in the jammies and got to watch a show. King asked to go to bed just before my friends arrived but I let the others stay up for a bit longer. When their show was done they went up on their own and brushed their teeth. No nagging. Begging. Pleading. Demanding. They just did it. I encouraged them to be super quiet and not wake King and not to come out. I only had to go up once and tell Rooster to quiet down. I didn't expect it to go so smoothly.


I had two friends come over and we talked until midnight half way through the night I thought wow I haven't spoken with friends in a while my throat is starting to hurt.

Nope.

I'm sick.

By the time they left I couldn't wait to crawl into bed. My throat was so swollen I took some IBprofen before heading upstairs. Thank goodness it didn't take me long to fall asleep however I was woken up at 2:50am. First I heard a bang. Then the boys door open. Happy came staggering out on the verge of tears. He was so upset he couldn't even tell me what was wrong but finally he cried out that he was all wet. Something went wrong with his pull up and he was soaking wet.  Happy if very linear. He likes things one way. I said it was no problem that I could get him a new pull up and thankfully there was a load of clean clothes in my room I hadn't put away yet. He was fine with that but when I suggested he sleep in my bed he said no, he wanted to be in his bed which meant I had to stealthy fix his top bunk bedding without waking King or Rooster, in the dark, at 3am.  Deep breath. It worked out. I threw a blanket on top of his bed for him to lay on and found another blanket for him to have on top and he was happy and no one woke up. No one, except me. Once I'm up, I'm up.  It took me a long time to fall back asleep. So frustrating when one is sick.

I survived though. I'll be tired today but I'll get stuff done.

Morning plan

-breakfast
-everyone dressed, etc
-start laundry (probably Happy's sheets)
-pick up babysitter for the morning.
-continue cleaning/organizing
-lunch
-return babysitter
-head to Sam's club
-home for quiet hour (I might do school with the kids or give the playroom a good cleaning and start in on the fourth bedroom)

Afternoon


-After naps I'm planning on taking the kids to the Science Museum as a treat.
-home for dinner. I'm not sure what we are having but I have a running list of all the items we have that the kids enjoy so we must have some food.
-baths
-lay out clothes for Church
-books
-prayers

I'm not sure what I am doing after the kids are asleep. It will depend on how I am feeling I guess. If I'm up to it I may work on the fourth bedroom or any of the rooms downstairs. Again, it all depend on how I am feeling.

Day 2-Part 2

After a smooth morning of cleaning and such I dropped the babysitter off at her home and headed to the gym for my noon class.

It. Was. Interesting.

I usually like to be right up front next to the mirror. First so I can if I'm doing everything correctly, second so I can see the instructor, and third if I'm in front of everyone in the class I'm less likely to collapse in a heap mid circuit or switch to lighter weights. Pride has it's privileges. Well I arrived just before class and saw a big spot available near the back, there was a guy near by doing yoga but I assumed he would leave when class started. I assumed incorrectly.

I definitely wouldn't have picked a spot so close to him if I thought he was staying.  I don't know how to describe what he was doing but he was doing yoga and the class at the same time. I actually feel like he was watching what we were doing and then implying he could do it in a cooler yoga-y way.  It was uncomfortable for me. He would randomly do handstands against the mirror.  One time he fell. Completely. If you were watching the class in the mirror you would see everyone in sync and then one random set of legs flying in the air. I think he started dancing at one point.

He also wasn't the most modest of men. Occasionally we would have to twist to the back or something and there he would be. Doing something yoga-y with short, loose shorts on.  Argh.  Is this what men deal with on a daily basis with immodest women? Good grief.

After class the kids and I stopped at the store to pick up a few needed items like milk, coffee, bread, etc. I knew it would be tricky because it was after nap time but man-o-man Rooster let his true colors shine.  The best store to make a quick stop has those kiddie carts.  You know the ones meant to sanctify mothers and all customers who encounter these children in the store.  Sure enough tired Rooster wasn't listen at all. He wasn't watching where he was going, playing with cart, climbing on the cart and the last straw was when he ran into me. I took his sucker away (the store gives the kids suckers when they return the kiddie carts) . Well he immediately started fighting me. Then at check out when the kids all get their suckers he got one, and I wrestled it away from him. And it was ugly. He lost it. Screamed. Yelled. Punched. Kicked. He kept trying to push me in the parking lot but ended up falling on his face in the new fallen snow. (I laughed). You know what? He survived the whole experience. And I don't think we'll see that tantrum again anytime soon. It was embarrassing and hard to do but worth it in the end.

After losing his sucker Rooster was wise enough not to mess up nap time and although King fought it at first he napped splendidly. I was able to take a shower while Demand and Happy finished some chores for me. I had them spot clean and wipe down the living room furniture and clean the playroom.  They did a great job especially with the magic of the "yes, mama" game.  I never did do any school with Demand. Oh, well.

My house has gotten crazy clean today. It's almost uncomfortable how much more productive I am when Mr. Sloth is gone. Or maybe its endearing that we don't get anything done when we are around each other. Hard to tell.


Here's our "dining room". I'm surprised that the kids haven't questioned the title of this room before. Its more of a puzzle train room. I love having and empty room for the kids to get creative in. Plus its in the corner of the house and no one has to walk through it to get anywhere.

I got creative and added a pretty touch to the guest/main floor bathroom. At Trader Joes' this week I bought some flowers for myself because I needed some spring in my life and splurged on some lavender hand lotion. I decided to take a few of the flowers from the kitchen and put them in the bathroom. It looks so cute in there!

A clean kitchen all ready for my guests. I have white and red wine, plus blood orange soda in case anyone wasn't drinking. It's hard to see the treats but I have cherry cheesecake bites and lemon tart bites, a really yummy champagne cheese Mr. Sloth has me hooked on, rice crackers, and super light, crispy lemon cookies. I kept it simple and it paid off!

I moved the vase of flowers from the kitchen to the living room to make room for food and see while we talked. It looks so nice and inviting right now. I know, that blank wall is hard to look at isn't it? We know what picture we want to go there we just haven't the courage to fork over the money yet. Mr. Sloth wanted to hang a few pictures we already have there so I may do that this weekend and surprise him.

As a bonus since I was on an cleaning, organizing roll I redid the front closet. It dawned on me that my friends would need a place to hang their coats and our closet was embarrassing.  Coats hung in haste, piles of bags on the floor, dust bunnies, random items that had fallen out of bags, and I every baby carrier I owned in there and rarely use them anymore.

I cleared everything off the door so guests are welcome to hang their items. Feels good not to cross my fingers and "hope it closes" now.

Here's the top of the closet. My backpack diaper bag and two picnic baskets. The baskets might get donated when I start 40 bags in Forty days next week. (Can't wait!) I rehung all the coats that should be in this closet and relocated what didn't need to be there. The closet it really tall I want to figure out a way to utilize that empty space above the baskets.

This is what is really exciting. I looked up coat closets on pinterest and realized I could get a shelf or cube and have better use of space for bags. Hooks only broke off the wall so I needed a new solution. I had every intention of dragging the kids to target to find a solution when I remembered I had this cube in the homeschool room barely being used. Mr. Sloth's computer bag and my diaper bag (not pictured) go on top. Underneath we have my adoration bag, and Demands Little Flower bag and Religious Ed bag. I still may get baskets to make it look neater but it works for now.

 I'll update you on how Night two went and my plans for Saturday in the next post.