Early Bedtime

So, it's 7pm and I'm in bed for the night. At least, that's the theory. As soon as Bob runs to the store, I'll be up half a dozen times with kids. But it looked good on paper.

I should have stayed up to finish my last few chores - dishes, the last little bit of laundry, preparing lunches for the kids. I could have vacuumed the basement and dusted or something too. But Bob thought taking a shower and going to bed would be better for me. So that's what I'm doing. My legs and feet do hurt. Not just because I've been busting my butt to get things done around here this week, but because I fell over the weekend and busted up my knees. They're getting better, but they still hurt a lot.

We're still in good shape to get my 'To Do' list done tomorrow. Or at least the stuff that really matters to me. Probably at the very top of my list is the laundry, purging, closets (purging), garage (purging) and taking all the purged items to the Salvation Army. Cleaning the bathrooms and mopping the floors and wiping the stairs would be nice. Much beyond that I can take or leave, since I should be able to putz around and get it done without too much trouble on Friday.

I'm not particularly fond of who I am when I'm working hard to get (or keep) the house clean. I yell at the kids a lot more. I clench my jaw a lot more. I'm much more on edge. Part of why I purposefully tried to let my housecleaning standards go is because I wanted to be a better mom. For the most part, that experiment has succeeded. I'd rather my kids not be slobs. I want them to learn to take care of themselves and their things and not live in filth, but I want them to be able to be kids and play too. That being said, I'm not particularly fond of who I am or how I feel when my house is a mess either. It's true I can be more relaxed, but I also reach my tolerance and then the... mess... hits the fan. Personally I'm a neat, organized human. I like a clutter free, clean environment. It's where I feel the most at ease. When things start looking overwhelming, I can get pretty emotional. It's not pretty. So where is the happy medium?

I'm looking forward to the day all four of my children are in school full time. Not that I won't miss them. I really will. I like babies and young kids. I can honestly say I've enjoyed every age. (Not to say I've enjoyed every PHASE - that's something else entirely...) But there will be something extremely pleasant about getting caught up with housework and maybe, every once in a while, having a day 'off'.

So anyway, I'm spending the rest of the night in bed so I can work my butt off again tomorrow. :)

To Do List

Grr... Blogger deleted my epic day!!

Sunburn Remedy

While it's best to soak in a cool bath right away and then apply this compress first, the compress (and the cool bath) help anytime. As soon as you realize you've been sunburned:

Soak in a cool bath for at least 15 minutes.
Pour white vinegar over ice, soak washcloths in the vinegar and apply as a compress. Do this until skin no longer feels like it's radiating heat.
Apply gel with aloe vera and lidocaine.
Repeat as needed.

Tylenol and Ibuprofen help too. :)

Molly has really bad sunburn on her shoulders. I'm a horrible mother.

I work better when I have an audience. Not that anyone reads my household chore journal with any great enthusiasm, but I can pretend. :) I'm trying to get as much done BEFORE Thursday so that when Thursday comes and I have a five hour break from the kids I'll be able to work, but not have to go at breakneck speed. The hard part will be keeping my work from being destroyed between now and then. Two days might not seem like much, but, trust me, my kids can destroy a room in an hour.

Back from swimming, CVS and running the babysitters home. I have my first dose of Prednisone in me. Wonder if you'll be able to tell a difference?

I'm procrastinating cleaning up the basement. I should just go get it done. I'm also procrastinating taking laundry upstairs and putting it away. I should also just go ahead and get that done as well. I'm sleepy.

Got the family room cleaned up. Moved laundry along (though I still have yet to carry a load up). Got the kids in bed. I'm very happy with the state of the house at the moment.

The steroids are definitely kicking in. I feel like I could run a marathon. Parts of me aren't itching anymore. Other parts of me are still all welty and itchy.

I think I'm going to try to sleep. I hope I don't crash too hard. I have to take another Predisone around 4.

Random

I believe you will be my company today. So much for my plans. I got home, made a little pool area for the kiddos and have done nothing much since. I made tea. I hand washed the pots and pans. I've picked up the dining room and music room, though am still going through all the crap on the table. The bedrooms remain untouched...

There. For the first time in a long time the art table is all cleaned up. I can look around this area and not have my skin crawl from all the clutter. It's rather nice.

Break - brought the kids in - slathered them with blue gel - put them to bed. Off to Maggie's bedroom...

Maggie's room is no longer a trash heap... Huzzah! I know you can't tell time on here, but it's been about an hour and a half. To clean up ONE little girl's room! RIDICULOUS! But, at least it's done and I don't have to sigh every time I walk by.

Disaster area #2, aka Lorelei's room, has been straightened. Only another hour to do that one. I did also get the winter stuff put back in their bins and into Maggie's closet and pick up some misc. stuff in my room. I still need to deal with the laundry in my room and several other things, but at least you can walk in there without tripping over something again!!

Woot! My room kinda echos again! :) All the laundry that was up there is dealt with. My bed is stripped. Surfaces are cleared, except for B's dresser. He can take care of that later. Now all I have to do it bring down the bags and baskets of stuff that doesn't belong up there. It amazes me how things migrate. I'm going on about an hour a room. Good to know for future planning...

I'm running out of energy, but Liam just woke up, so I need to clean up his room. My knee hurts. My body feels heavy. Maggie is home now. Hopefully Bob will be home soon too.

Molly's room is cleaned up. We've all eaten and the kids are in bed. I bribed Molly and Maggie with ice cream sandwiches to clean up the living room. It's not totally done, but much better than it was. Two floors in a day isn't too bad. If I can focus on laundry and the basement tomorrow and then maintain the stuff I've already done today, I'll be good to go to actually clean on Wednesday and Thursday. Hopefully the kids won't make too much of a mess and I'll still be able to move.

Living room straight, floors swept. Off to sort laundry...

Got laundry sorted and, thanks to Bob, the MOUNTAIN of it got done pretty quickly.

I took a hot Epsom salt bath, hoping to dry up this poison ivy and other skin issues I seem to be having lately. It feels good on sore muscles too.

All I have to do tomorrow is straighten up the family room, do that mountain of laundry and maintain the neatness. It's the latter that will be the biggest challenge.

I'm at the pool for the older girls swimming lessons. I've decided to use the time to blog about the most boring of my thoughts: housework. Straightening, organizing, cleaning. It's all boring and mundane. The thing is, when I don't get it done on any sort of regular basis, it piles up pretty quickly and then one morning (like this morning) I walk downstairs and all the stress that's been building up slowly because of my environment just explodes. I was crying this morning because my house is a mess. Not just because my house is a mess, but because I'm so overwhelmed with having to take care of the kids AND keep the house cleaned up. It seems like these days are worse than ever. I hardly ever get downtime from them. The older girls don't nap and, though they'll usually let me sleep, it doesn't mean they're not wreaking havoc in the meantime. Liam and Lorelei have only been napping spottily lately. Not that it matter since whenever they're sleeping (or even quiet) I'm usually passed out too. The mornings are crazy. Especially lately with swimming smack in the middle of it, but even after that's over, it's still crazy. I guess the past week has been a little unusual. In addition to swimming lessons we had construction going on so the kids couldn't play outside. That's over with too, though, so I can send them out and hope they stay out for a while. They've been so whiny and needy lately. It's hard for me to tune them out and have energy left to work. Anyway, Thursday they are going away for most of the day. They're leaving between 9 and 9:30 and not coming back until around 2:30. That gives me five hours alone with my house. Bob is planning on taking off work, so maybe, between the two of us, we can get the house back to a nice resting order. I forgot - one of the older girls is going over to Bob's mom's this afternoon. Maybe I can bribe the other one to help me... Anyway (again) - the bedrooms are bothering me more than anything currently. Our bedroom is hard to walk around because there are so many clothes and baskets laying around. Lorelei refuses to leave anything in her room alone, so the winter clothes, the shoes, whatever else I've been storing in there has to come out. I hate putting things in the attic. It's a buzz in my head already. There's no room in our closet, which leaves Molly and Maggie's. I need to purge both Maggie and Lorelei's rooms. You can't even see Maggie's floor. Part of that is Lorelei because lately she's been going into other people's rooms and pulling all the clothes out of the closet and dumping them on the floor. Why? I'd really like to know what the thrill is. I got the kitchen mostly cleaned up before we left this morning. By the time I get back, the first load should be done and I can fill it with bottles and pots and pans and run it again. I should start laundry too. There's so much laundry to be done, in various stages. But then I have to do the bedrooms before naps. It'll make nap time late, but, oh well. If I do Lorelei's first, Liam's won't take that long and then I can work on Maggie's and then ours and then Molly's, cause her's really isn't that bad. Maybe getting the bedrooms cleaned up will give me sufficient motivation to clean up the rest of the house. If I can get all the clutter and toys and mess straightened and have it to that point before I go to bed tonight, I can start to actually clean tomorrow. Mopping floors it first priority. Then cleaning bathrooms. After than it's just putzing around dusting and misc organizing. *sigh* It sounds good on paper, but when it comes to implementation... add the four whiny kids and I'm tired already. I need to clean out 'my' portion of the garage as well. And make a large trip to Salvation Army. And deliver a toddler bed to a friend of mine. It's like the walls are closing in on me when there's clutter all around. I feel claustrophobic. It starts affecting my stress level and everything builds from there. I have much less patience with the kids when the house is a mess. Although, that can backlash too - when I've worked so hard to clean it up I can be pretty touchy about them messing it up right away. It's like, if I can just have A DAY of a clean, resting house, we can start the morning with it neat and it's ok if it gets used during the day. But by the end of they day when I've just finished and am exhausted, it'd be nice if they respected the work. It's so quiet and cool and peaceful here in the shade. The breeze is perfect. There's the background noise of the kids in the pool and the moms talking, but it's nothing obnoxious. I could easily fall asleep. I'm not looking forward to going back home. That's pretty bad, because in general I like our house and when it's open and CLEAN it feels like some sort of vacation. It can be a pretty restful place. Just not right now. I ran out of my pain med so I couldn't take an extra one this morning. I'm thinking I need to take both my Lyrica and Cymbalta twice a day instead of once. Taking it again in the morning seems to make a big difference. Swimming lessons are almost done. I hope my blog doesn't somehow get erased between here and posting it when I get home.