Weekly Home Blessing...with Robots

Now that there is less stuff up in this place, I can focus keeping it clean and tidy.  In November I restarted my attempts at using the FlyLady system of home organization/cleaning.  However, in retrospect instead of reading all the words and following the advice that was being offered I wound up trying to do it MY way.   This turned into basically an iteration of what I had been doing that WASN'T work-ugh.

So this time I downloaded the app and am trying it just the way it is written-what a novel concept!

Already I am feeling better.  Time wise I feel like it is a wash, but productivity wise and sense of accomplishment wise (which is surprisingly important) is infinitely improved.

Instead of doing a thorough cleaning of a room each day, I am now doing a "one hour" home blessing one day a week:

The robots help keep the actual work to under an hour.  Robots you say?  Yes, robots.  When we were both working J.T. was responsible for the floors.  This led to him ordering a Roomba and Braava.  

For some reason, I was hesitant to use them.  I guess I felt like if I didn't do the floors "the old-fashioned way",  I wasn't doing them right.  However, that led to my not doing them sooo... robots it is!

Then for 15 minutes a day I do deeper cleaning in the assigned "zone".  There a list of chores and I just set a timer and get done what I can in that 15 minutes.  I may have to do 3 five minute spurts depending on the babies, but only time will tell!

I think the problem with the one room a day thing was that the house never FELT clean.  By the time I got to the last room, it was time to clean the first one again.  There is a lot of be said for the feeling of accomplishment along with the contentment a basically clean house can bring.

Life Savers

There are two carryovers from 2017 that I will be bringing into my new streamlined 2018: 

Alexa and Amazon Prime.

I have always been a fan of two-day delivery Amazon Prime provides, but over the last 9 months it has been essential.  I may not always get the best deals, but on the days when I have kids all day and class at night and the chances of getting to the store in the near future is nil all I have to do is place an order with prime and I have it in 2 days.  It was particularly helpful during my recent organizational frenzy. 

For instance I have been moving around a stack of race bibs and medals for going on two years now because I envisioned making a DIY display.  Well clearly that wasn't EVER going to happen, so when I was cleaning out my desk a searched amazon and found a cute binder designed to display them.  Bam, ordered it.  I also have some memorabilia such as ultrasound pics, our hospital bracelets, baby shower invite, baby hat, etc. that I had been meaning to frame or put into a shadow box.  Bam, ordered one.

I heart Amazon Prime.  Along, the same vein I heart Alexa.

I ordered Alexa somewhat on a whim last summer during their Amazon Prime Day in July.  It was half off and I figured "What the heck.  It may be useful since my hands will be full a lot.".  It has been more than useful, it has been amazing!

The love affair began with the music.  From anywhere in our downstairs and even from the top of the stairs I can play any song I want.  When the babies were tiny it allowed my to play white noise, ocean waves or other calming tunes without moving from my spot.  It also allowed me to hold "circle time" by just calling out the names of songs I thought the kids would like.  If it wasn't for "Alexa, what's the news?", I would have spent most of last fall in the dark regarding current events.  She has also saved my sanity by allowing me to randomly call out things for our shopping list as the need arises "Alexa, add diapers to the shopping list!" as I am changing Isabella or "Alexa, add cooking spray to shopping list," as I am making dinner.

Over time I realized she would give me reminders if I set them and gives me notification so I know whether to go to the door when someone knocks or if it's just a package being delivered.

I use Alexa with such frequency that when I say "Alexa", Isabella immediately looks over the counter where she is kept.  Actually, that may be a sign I need to use Alexa a bit less.  But I don't see that happening anytime soon...

OneWord365 2018 Edition

Last year's word was health and there was definitely a lot of time and energy put into physical health...mental health...spiritual health for myself, J.T. and Isabella.

Given my focus over the last few weeks in preparing for a better sense of internal calm in 2018, this year's word of the year is:

Goals within this word include phrases like:

8 Month Sleep Regression

On the downside, Isabella can't seem to stay away from a good sleep regression.  On the upside, she at least waits until I'm on breaks from school for the really bad ones and let me tell you this 8 month one has been a doozy!

It started the night after my final assignment for the semester was submitted.  She woke up crying.  I let her cry for awhile but it wasn't stopping so I went in.  Thus begins our journey through nighttime wakeups, falling asleep if held and only staying asleep if held (her crib is clearly filled with burning lava that only she can see and therefore cannot enter safely), early wakeups (I am ok with wakeups after 5, so that tells you how ridiculously early these early wakeups are), and the occasional napping revolt.

It appears we have a hybrid leap, compounded by some good old -fashioned separation anxiety.  Since she was experiencing separation anxiety during the day, I didn't want to make things worse by doing CIO at night.  This led to some crappy and uncomfortable nights for me either sleeping in the glider or (once I got smarter) sleeping with her in the bed in the office (so J.T. could sleep for work the next day).  She does not believe in personal space so when we sleep in the bed it is with me holding her in the crook of my arm...tots comfortable;).

The separation anxiety seems to be easing up some, so we may revert back to CIO in the coming days.  All I know is that I resume classes on the 8th so we need to have this thing figured out.  Until then I remain jacked up on caffeine, have resumed my 7-8pm bedtime, and on occasion walk though life in a fog. 

Mothers who work outside of the home, you are my heroes.  I can function taking care of tiny people in my home with this amount of sleep, I could not function with the professional world effectively on this level of sleep.  God bless you!

Operation Organization

My attempt at doing a better job of "keeping house" has gone less than swimmingly.  I think one reason for this is the amount of STUFF we have around this place.  Usually each summer I do a major deep cleaning and purging session.  This summer it did NOT happen.  In fact, thinking back to last summer with all we had going on on the IVF front I think I only half a$$ed it last year too.  That means that in addition to a whole new person and a new home "business" and all of the stuff that comes with it, we also had two years of clutter that had been just kinda tidied and shuffled around to various nooks and corners of the house.

There are several what I will call bottlenecks which then slow down the whole getting the house straightened up process.  There are also some what FlyLady would call "hot spots".  The two biggest offenders on these fronts are the desk we moved from the office into the bedroom when we made the nursery and the garage.

Took care of the desk by once and for all cleaning it up and then getting rid of it.  I never worked at it, rather it was a place for me to pile stuff.  If it's not there I can't pile stuff on it!  Posted it and the chair on my neighborhood Facebook page and they both disappeared quickly.

Reinforcements had to be called in for the garage and I had talked to my dad about helping me.  He ended up doing the whole thing almost all by himself.  It looks awesome.  I wish I had taken a before picture because the after is just incredible.  Before we could pull both our cars in the garage AND could get in and out of them, but that was about it.  Now you can move around the whole garage and it feels so much better!

I also took a load to Goodwill and the recycling center and have another load ready to go sitting on the sunporch.

I also have uncovered a love for things that fold up and can be put away and things that serve more than one purpose.  Some of my favorites include:

Dog crate for travel that can be folded flat.

Laundry baskets that can be folded flat and stored under our armoire.

An ottoman that stores toys AND can be folded flat if needed!

A Very Merry Christmas

 

                                  

Panic Mode

This is like my 8th year of college and for the first time was presented the unique opportunity of not holding a steady job (or two!) outside of my home.  For the first time ever I can focus on my schoolwork without other distractions...ha, ha, yeah right!  By about October though I did manage to find a groove where I could read and write while the babies played and got used to being interrupted whenevs and learned to jump back in when I could. 

Often times things looked like this:

Here I was watching a stats tutorial while the kids played.  

Yesterday, however, was a different story.  

Yesterday, my classmate dropped her daughter off and commented that she was so glad that our Globalization class was over and that her paper was finished.  I told her I envied her because I was going to get mine in under the wire at midnight tonight.  It was then that she informed me it was due at noon, not midnight.  Dam* you am/pm!!!!  

It was currently 9am and I only had 8 pages of this 15 page (minimum) monstrosity in ROUGH draft form.  I also had 4 kids who would need naps, diaper changes, and food during these next 3 hours.  Cue a panic I hadn't felt this semester and thank god wouldn't feel again since this was my final assignment.

The kids, unfortunately channeled my stress and the "big" kids squabbled over toys for literally the first time ever and the babies suddenly turned into needy little critters.  I didn't hit the noon deadline, but somehow managed to get the whole thing done and submitted by 2.  

I texted JT and he asked "Does this prof accept late work?".  Heck if I knew so I went back and re-read the syllabus and surely he very clearly stated he does not:(.

Fortunately, this man is my advisor and I have been a solid student all semester so when I sent an apology email requesting an exception it was accepted.  Phew!    

Thank goodness it is winer break!