The pitfalls of being a neat freak

Being a neat freak isn't the easiest thing to be.  Couple that with perfectionism and you have one lethal combination.

Today I decided that I was going to straighten up the kitchen, finish the remaining laundry and then spend the day playing with Ellie.  I can say I played with Ellie a little bit if you count me walking around the block while she rode her bike as playing.  Now that it's quarter to four I think I had yet another day that was a flaming failure.  I accomplished a lot, it just wasn't what I had planned.

After Ellie and I circled the block on her bike she decided she wanted to play with her jump rope.  I tried to show her how it was done, but there are just some things that kids don't catch on to until they're developmentally ready to grasp the concept.  Ellie wants to jump rope but she's just not there, and I realized that at 33 32 (I keep forgetting my age and have thought I was a year older than I actually am for the past month, this has happened in the past as well.) I'm just not the jump roper that I used to be.

I'm not sure how it happened, but after I looked back into the garage I was suddenly inspired to sweep it and in true If You Give a Mouse a Cookie form, I wound up spending my day cleaning the garage.  It's almost entirely swept out and it's been reorganized in many areas.  Cobwebs have been vacuumed off of toys, rubbermaid totes and various items that have been in the garage.  I gathered all of the recycle paper and filled our can.  I sorted stuff for Good Will and set other things aside for the trash.  I have determined that I will scream the next time a grandparent or great aunt decides to give my kids more bubbles.  I have at least a gallon of bubble soap which my kids almost never touch.  I have seen more termite swarmer wings that I care to recall and I have determined that my lovely family needs to stop leaving their boots, soccer cleats and sneakers in the garage.

If I wasn't a neat freak, I think my day would have been much different.  My perfectionistic tendencies didn't help either.  I probably could have walked away from the garage after a few minutes of sweeping if I wasn't determined to try for a perfectly organized garage.  The garage isn't done and I still have work to do in the house.  Poor Ellie didn't get the one on one time with me that I had planned on either.

Maybe someday I'll learn to take it easy.  God only knows when or if that day will come.

Small Successes-June 10th

Celebrating the little things in life that add up.

I've been hitting the crafts a little hard this past week. So bear with the pictures of my latest endeavors.

1.  Inspired by our decision to visit Williamsburg in the fall, I decided to see if I could make each of the girls a dress for their Colonial American Girl dolls.  Ellie's dress was the first attempt and it took me three days to complete.  I spent a lot of time freaking out about how much I despise my uncooperative swewing maching trying to get the sewing machine to work properly and then a little more time trying to figure out just how the oddly shaped pieces would actually form a dress.  The poor assembly instructions didn't help my frustration level.  In the end, I learned that being patient and taking things slowly helped the job to move along quickly.  When I got guilted into making a second dress for Madeline around to making Madeline's doll dress it took me only 6 hours from start to finish.  Madeline's dress is made better, too.

2. Since I had the sewing machine out already, I decided to make little bands to convert the short sleeved soccer jerseys for Madeline's team into tanks.  I had seen these simple looking velcro bands in a sporting goods store last fall, but I didn't want to pay $5 for something that looked incredibly simple to make.  I was talking to some of my fellow soccer moms about them at the girls' scrimmage last week and they thought it would be great if the whole team had them for their tournament this weekend.  So I grabbed some soccer ball ribbon and velcro from the local craft store and whipped up 12 pairs of sleeve holders.

3. Ellie graduated from pre-K on Tuesday morning and I can now say that I officially never forgot anything school related for Ellie this year, unless we count those few times where I forgot to bring her book bag to school, but I'm not counting those since it wasn't something big like cupcakes for the class.  I can't believe my baby is going to be in kindergarten in three months.  In the picture to the right of this you can see Ellie running to accept her diploma.


Bonus 1: I survived hosting Madeline's team party at our house. The house stayed surprisingly clean despite having about 50 people over.  I still need to mop my kitchen floor but I won't say anything about it if you don't.  I think everyone had a great time and I'm glad we offered to have the party.

Bonus 2: I'm almost on top of my laundry backlog.  I have three loads to go and I'm done.  I had quite the mountain of laundry to be folded on my living room floor yesterday. I suspect it was about 8 loads worth of clothing and towels.

Bonus 3: My final craft project of the week was making Ellie a rosary.  She loves her one decade good deed beads, but it doesn't cut it for praying the entire rosary.  She's now thrilled to have her own five decade rosary that's every bit as colorful and fun as her good deed beads.  This morning she insisted that Madeline pray with her.

Vanquishing Termites

I wrote last week about the termites that Bryan discovered in our yard over Memorial Day weekend.  Since Bryan discovered them they have been the source of unnecessary stress. (Is any stress necessary?).  I've been trying to take them in stride, but it's not easy when you have someone by your side who is very disturbed by them.  I've been trying not to let it get to me.  I can't put out a sign that says "No bugs allowed" and so I simply try to go with the flow and hope for the best.

Today the Monster Stompers, (Isn't that the best name for an exterminating company?) came out to finish the termite job they started on Memorial Day.  I listened to over two hours of drilling into concrete.  I think I can still hear it now.  A total of 55 holes were drilled into my porch and garage and into those holes liquid death to termites was poured.

I'm happy that the termite job is done.  It appears that the house has little or no damage from the wood chewing pests.

To add some humor to a less than desirable situation, I noticed that the holes that had to be drilled were plugged with wooden dowels before the concrete was used to fill in the remainder of the hole.  It seems like a final dare to the termites.

The termites may not have eaten my house, but they ate our Disney vacation.  Of course I can't blame them entirely.  Disney's unwillingness to honor their own promotional deals was also partly to blame for the death of our Disney vacation dreams.

Tonight I will sleep soundly knowing that the termites are brining poison bait back to their colony.  I hope to never see them again.  You can bet I'll be watching to see if the swarmers show up in my garage next Spring.  If this termite treatment is as good as their overall bug protection is, I shouldn't be seeing anything.    Now if I can just get them to come out and eliminate all the bugs in the back yard I'd be thrilled.

Book Review Small Steps for Catholic Moms

I recently had the pleasure of reviewing Elizabeth Foss and Danielle Bean's Small Steps for Catholic Moms. The book is a daily devotional tool written by moms for moms that is comprised of three components for each day.  First, there is a section entitled "Think" that contains some food for thought either from a saint or Scripture.  The next section, entitled "Pray" which consists of a short prayer that is related to the wisdom found under the "Think" portion.  Lastly, the section entitled "Act" offers ways in which you can act on the devotional theme du jour.  Each month has it's own special theme which is expounded on in the daily devotional pages for that month.

I like the overall simplicity of the book.  It's a book that you can sit down with early in the morning, or really anytime when you have a few spare minutes and read the page for the day.  Because it takes only a few minutes of your time each day to read this book, it's perfect for busy mothers.

This review was written as part of the Catholic books reviewer program from The Catholic Company.   To find more information on Small Steps for Catholic Moms, visit The Catholic Company.  I was provided with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Pickles and Ice Cream....

Most afternoons Madeline comes home from school wanting ice cream.  Up until a few months ago the small human who believes her sole purpose in life is to look cute and annoy the medium sized person in the house (Madeline) has been anti-ice cream.  Now that both girls have turned after school snack time into ice cream time, I get to use those professional ice cream scooper skills that I developed the summer when I was 17.

 In the many days of after school ice cream scooping that I have seen, I've born witness to some very odd snack combinations.  Mint chocolate chip ice cream with gold fish crackers as a chaser, chocolate ice cream and a follow up snack of sour cream and onion Pringles and the list goes on.  I see these snack combos and I feel sick to my stomach most of the time.  Today had to be the worst combination yet.  After a nice bowl of Reese Cup ice cream Madeline immediately decided that two Vlasic dill pickle spears would round out her after school snack perfectly.  Let me just say that I'm thoroughly disgusted.  The sweet smell of peanut butter and chocolate still hung in the air as I opened the smelly pickle jar.

How about no?

I came across a comment on another blog that made me laugh and forced the sarcastic personality in me to think some things that my mom would say aren't nice.  The comment went like this "You are welcome to follow my blog."  Maybe I'm not good at self promotion, but I can't imagine commenting that on other people's blogs.

Small Successes-June 3rd

Celebrating the little things in life that add up.

1. At long last, all of my vegetable plants are planted.  Because of last year's tomato blight I was forced to think outside the garden for my tomato plants.  So I caved and brought one topsy turvy (For the record, it goes against every cell in my body to purchase an "As Seen on TV" item.) and two decorative patio pots for my tomato plants.  The plants look much happier now.  I also picked up a basil plant for my garden only to discover while I was pruning it that it was actually three plants.  I managed to salvage one of the lesser plants and now I have two basil plants for the price of one.  Yay! (It's the little almost insignificant things in life that make me happy.)

2. I butchered trimmed all of the hedges in our front yard.  Let me just say that I like the previous owners of my house less and less every time I have to do this task.  In an attempt to find some peace and quiet I went out there and did some trimming by hand in 90 degree heat on Sunday.  Not my brightest idea.  Then I decided to go out on Monday morning in you guessed it, 90 degree heat to trim again, only this time I had the cordless hedge trimmer in my hands.  The hedges no longer look shaggy and I discovered a bird's nest in the tree that is likely abandoned. Both my husband and I marveled at how well it is put together.

3. The smelly dog and the dirty table on my deck both got cleaned on Monday.  The have absolutely nothing to do with one another except that they were done concurrently. The table is still clean three days later, but the smelly dog is once again smelly. Sigh.

Bonus: We found termites! (Ok, that's not really a bonus.) And our bug guy was kind enough to come out on Memorial Day to do the first step of the treatment.  Want to guess where we're not going on vacation this year?  If you said Disney World you would be right.  Last week we had a little issue with Disney not wanting to honor the deal they sent me in an email and were given a code for 40% off our stay (including our meal plan and tickets).  When my husband called back the next morning (per the reservationist's instructions) we were told they wouldn't honor it. (Grr....)  Our Disney prospects weren't looking too good, but I was holding out hope that we could still go.  The discovery of termites and their subsequent cost to eliminate them was enough to kill our hopes of a trip to Disney World.  We're all disappointed, but we've decided to take a trip to Williamsburg, VA for a few days instead.  Bryan has enough Mariott Rewards points from his business travel to cover our hotel stay thereby making a trip to Williamsburg very inexpensive.  The girls and I all have a thing for period clothing so I'm confident they'll have a good time there.  To ensure that they will, I'm going to make them each a colonial dress that they can wear.  Time for me to break out the sewing machine and go insane!

Bonus #2: My pool water has been above 78 since last Thursday night.  I'm shocked that we have been able to go swimming every day since Last Thursday, and I've even managed to keep up with the extra laundry that swimming has thrown my way.