Martha and her bathrooms....

             As I sat down this morning to look at my cleaning lists...yes, lists...I was slightly overwhelmed! Like I said yesterday, there is a list for everything. Daily, weekly, monthly. There is even a list for a cleaning kit! And on her list for a cleaning kit was a bucket. I don't have bucket, so I went to the store and bought a purple bucket this morning. Just because I thought purple would be more fun. I was right. Anyway... So I decided to do this, of course everything on the daily list, then one thing from the weekly list and then on thing from the monthly list a day.

            The weekly list is not to different from my normal weekly list, just way more in-depth! Today from the weekly list I choose bathrooms, because I haven't cleaning the bathrooms since Saturday morning because we had company that afternoon. And I'l be honest, by cleaning I really mean a fast wipe down with cleaning wipes. But seriously, I have three full baths and one half bath in this house. Sometimes a cleaning wipe is all there is time for. But alas, there is no use of cleaning wipes in the "how to" of cleaning bathrooms by Martha. So I will not sure cleaning wipes.


        A few things I have noticed today...

1-I'm sure that Martha doesn't have a little boy go number two in the a freshly cleaned toilet.

2-Martha doesn't have five kids and two adults to do laundry for as well as everything on her daily and weekly and monthly list.

         So I completed all my tasks today in a Marthaesc way. I cleaned all the bathrooms in my house exactly like she said. That's three and half bathrooms people, three.and.a.half.bathrooms. I did things I have never done before. Like she has you clean the inside and the outside of every bathroom trash can. What??? I have to stick my hand inside my kids bathroom trash cans and clean them?? Yes, yes I do. To be honest I actually thought about skipping this step when I got to the boys bathroom trash can. First, what the heck do boys put in their trash cans that stick to the bottom and won't come off and second, it seems there may be some aiming problems when they are using the restroom. All things leading to gross in that trash can. But I am sticking to my word and sticking my hand it that nasty trash can once a week for a month. I might have a big heart to heart with the three boys that use that bathroom before i have to clean it again next week though!

      Not only did I do the bathrooms, which is a task on her weekly list, I also did her daily list. That list consists of things like make beds, which I do anyway because I hate, HATE and unmade bed and manage clutter and sort mail and sweep kitchen floor. Check, check and check, that list was easy to do.

     Then it was the end of the day and I remembered about her stupid monthly list. I double checked it to see what I could do real fast and here are a few things....scrub grout, vacuum window treatments, wipe inside and outside of trash and recycling bins...ok, that one is never, NEVER going to happen. I just described the kids trash cans, like I am going to be cleaning our gigantic trash and recycling bins so if you want to call me a failure and stop reading now, be my guest. Seriously, because I'm not doing it. But I did have to pick one thing to do and on the list I found this little gem...wipe off phones. Done. My phone is officially wiped off.


      Day one is done and I even found time to fix dinner for my family....tuna cakes. Thats a fancy word for canned tuna mixed with other things formed into patties and cooked. But no one starved and I don't have to clean bathrooms for another week....

       

Martha and Me...

           So I have this book, its a Martha Stewart homemaking book.

Here is the book on Amazon

            I have had it for several years, and I have used it. I can fold a fitted sheet like no ones business. But my use of that book ends about right there. Would you be shocked to know that that book was given to me as a gift? And would you be shocked if I told you my sweet husband was the gift giver of that book?

          So there it sat, collecting dust which I'm convinced is a sin if you are a Martha Stewart book. Anyway...Ray asked me about the book. And he sweetly reminded me that it had all these great cleaning list...daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally....you name it and there is a list for the how and the why and the whatever of cleaning.

          So let me say this,  its my job to clean my house, its not Rays job. It's really my job. Ray leaves the house to do his job, my job just happens to be in the same place that I live. So because this is true, it can sometimes be boring, or sometimes I don't want to do because lets be honest, who enjoys cleaning toilets, especially ones that little boys use. So because I wanted to mix things up a bit and make my real job more interesting, I now introduce you to the Martha Stewart challenge.

         I will spend the entire month of July...minus the first few days of the month because come on people I just thought of this....cleaning and doing things the way Martha Stewart does from the book mentioned above. Everything, really I mean everything! And I will tell you all about it because yay, I'm going to blog my whole experience of being Martha for a month...minus the jail time and gardening clogs. Really, who wants to wear gardening clogs when you can just stick your feet in the dirt.

       So now you know and now its real and now I will be held accountable because I might be slightly notorious for starting something and not finishing it.

It was like this today...

              Today was one of those days. One of those homeschool days that I start to wonder what time the bus comes in the morning and how long it would take to enroll them. We haven't had one of these kinda days for a long time, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining about it, but it's my blog, and I'm gonna. I will say that I am to blame for said bad day. I let one of mine stay up way to late last night, and this particular child needs a full 8-9 hours of sleep to be ready to go for school the next day. So I kinda feel like I set them up for destruction, not my intention, but the outcome of me not paying attention bedtime!

              Now just to clarify, I don't homeschool everyone. I do send two off to school every morning and I love it. No complaining there. I get time with just my older kids, and school goes much smoother with just two to teach...just not today. Today everything was a fight, everything was an eye roll, or  they wished their Dad was home teaching them not me...whatever! Me too kids, me too.

              It wasn't all bad. We turned a corner later in the day and all the bad attitudes and eye rolls were forgotten and they liked me again. We finished all our school work. It may have taken us longer, but it got done just in time to for me to go pick up the little boys from school.

               So speaking of picking the boys up, while standing outside the school waiting to go in Molly had an explosive poopy diaper. Poop all over her clothes, and all over my hands...yes. All over my hands. I know that is gross, but like I said, it has been one of those days. We went to the car to change her diaper and clothes and guess what, no wipes. Whats a mom to do in that situation...use a Walmart receipt I found in the bottom of my diaper bag. I know, I know. So about changing her clothes...I didn't have wipes, do you really think I had a change of clothes in that stupid and totally useless bag? No, I did not.

             Yes, she stayed in her dirty clothes until we got home. I just stayed away from people when I went into the gym to get the boys, at this point both Molly and I smelled like baby poop.

          In the car on the way home from school the little boys get into a fight and it was not pretty. I just turned the radio up as loud as I could and sang along with it. What was I gonna do?  I had to choose between singing the song "Tootsee Roll" and yelling at my kids in the car. And I picked Tootsee Roll...to the left, to the left, to the right, to right, to the front...you get my point. I did deal with the situation once I got home.

           So, Rays not going to be home tonight, Molly is way cranky, Lizzie has a fever and I forgot to put potatoes in the potato soup I made for dinner. The End.

Schools in session....

       Well this school year is going to be different. Really every homeschool school year is different. But this year instead of me teaching all our kids at home, I'm only teaching some of them! Today was the start of the second week of public school for Benjamin and Timothy and the first day of our homeschool year for Parker and Lizzie.

          When it comes to school we have literally done it all.  Homeschool, private school, public school,  Christian school in another country. You name it, we have done it.  But my little ones have never gone to school and I didn't want to teach Benjamin to read. Don't judge me, I have taught all my other kids to read, I think I deserve a break!

          I have to say that I started our second week of public school with a fail....I sent one of my boys to school without underwear on.  This is just what happens when you have five kids, someone is always gonna forget something, and in this case it was underwear.  I can promise you it will happen again.  Whatever.

           We have changed homeschool curriculum this year too.  And by change I mean I have gone back to a curriculum I originally abandoned  for something more care free and fun only to realize I can't do care free and fun. I'm back to a more structured curriculum this year and its working better for me. But it's only been one day.  I'm sure that by day 101 I will be sick of my curriculum and sick of the kids and I will consider sending them all to public school next year...these thoughts cross my mind every year towards the end of our homeschool year. It's just the truth.

The weekend is already gone....

        I had suregry on my nose on Friday morning. And now I feel like my nose is completely full of boogers and they won't come out. They won't come out because I can't blow my nose. For real, I'm not supposed to. It's kinda making me crazy. Let me back up and explain.

         I get sinus infections a lot and antibotics don't take the infection away. So I have a build up of infection stuff in my sinuses. That's gross. Then I found out my septum is in the shape of an S so it's blocking the breathing on both sides of my nose. Then there was a couple of other things the doctor was going to do, but I don't remember what they were called because they are fancy doctor words! So that was Friday morning.

          When I came out of surgery the doctor told me that I had to "rest and take it easy", I'm pretty sure my doctor doesn't have five kids. My list of things not to do are cooking, cleaning, laundry, and picking up kids, including Molly. So far I have done everything on my list of not to do.

         I had to cook because Benjamin turned five on Saturday and I needed to make his cake! Not just any cake, he wanted a fire truck cake. So that's what he got. A pink fire truck cake. Yes, I had trouble with the food coloring. I also tricked him into a birthday dinner that I knew was easy to make since I wasn't feeling super great. We had mini bagel pizzas. He wanted barbecue food for dinner, so I put bbq sauce on his and called it good.

        We all went to church this morning, and my nose started to bleed during Sunday school. Fun. But it was promotion Sunday and  Benjamin who starts kindergarten this year got to go on stage and get a bible with the rest of his class this morning.  He was very excited.

         Speaking of kids changing grades, I need to order homeschool stuff for some kids and get some other kids enrolled in school and buy school supplies, well everything but crayons. And then I think I have million other things to do. Man where did the weekend go. See, take it easy and rest is never gonna happen. Not in this house.

        So now I'm sitting here with crusty junk up my nose and I can't do a darn thing about it. At least for a couple of days and then they take the splint things out of my nose. Ray wants me to bring them home. Weird.

Success....

        Well we did it, and by we I really mean me. I did it. I grocery shopped for my family for a month for $300. I didn't go over. I think keeping a blog kept me accountable and I would have felt like a liar if I went over. Or a failure. I'm critical of myself I guess! So we did it and here is what I learned...

      1) We would normally throw away a lot of food every month. Seriously. Before this we weren't really leftover eating people and every few weeks I would pull stuff out and wonder what on earth it once was. But not now, now we eat all the leftovers, or I will freeze them and use them later.

    2) There is so much I can live without. Yes, I like would a bag of cherry sours everyday but I have learned that I don't need it. Unless it has been a bad day then you bet your booty I need it.

     3) Meal planning works. At least for me. I think this has been the biggest thing I will take away from this. It has helped to save me money. I can shop more effectively when I know what meals we will be having. Smart huh.

    4) I am a terrible speller. I really already knew this. But most of you reading this might not know. I can't spell at all. If that red line didn't show up under my words telling me I was spelling things wrong then you people reading this would never have any idea what I was talking about.

    So there you go. There are just a few of the  things I have learned in my month of eating on the cheap and blogging about it. I went shopping for my groceries for the next two weeks already and I took out my regular amount of cash. I didn't spend all of it. I'm going to try to keep our budget less then our normal $500 because I know its possible. I'm not gonna be as strict about it as I was last month, but I'm gonna try. I did buy a huge thing of ice cream. And I am eating it.

     

oh my day...yesterday.

     We had leftover birthday cake for breakfast yesterday. You would think a day that starts with cake would turn out to be a pretty great day right? Wrong. It is true, I gave my kids cake for breakfast yesterday. The day after someones birthday we always have their leftover cake for breakfast. I think this was started more for myself then anyone else. I think I probably wanted cake one year and felt guilty so now its become a thing and we all eat cake. So anyway, like I said you think that would be the start of a good day.

       I had several errands to run yesterday. Our first stop was the library so the kids could turn in their summer reading stuff. They were excited about this because they got a certificate and this little gold medallion thing.  Then it was on to Toy's R Us. Parker had some money to spend and a video game he wanted was on sale there so we went to go get it. Coincidentally they also have their crayons on sale for four boxes for a $1.00. (I may or may not have 16 boxes of crayons.)  Everyone wanted everything when we got there, and I was starting to get a little flustered. This was the second stop we had made and I knew we still had more to do.

        Our next stop was Target. Or so I thought. I was sitting at the a stop light waiting to turn when WHAM, out of no where we were rear ended. Yep. Just me and the kids and I was kinda freaking out. I'm happy to report that no one was hurt. The people who hit me where upset with me. Makes sense right? They hit me and then they were mad at me because they hit me. So then I called the police. I wanted to file a report. So, all the kids, a hot car, angry strangers, a police officer and me. By this time it was past lunch.

        Now, I figured we would still go to Target since all I had to do was seriously run in and grab something and I was going to let Lizzie look at something because she had birthday money to spend. We finished up inside and went out to the car. I got all the kids in and buckled and I went to start the car and of course it didn't start. Of course. I called Ray and he asked me if I was sure I was in the right car. Yeah. I'm pretty sure.

        I'm sweating at this point because we are all sitting in a hot car while I am trying to start it and it is showing no signs of starting. So I start making phone calls to get help. Lucky for me we have great families and I had offers to help from both my family and Rays. My mom came and got me and we left the car there for Ray to mess with later. I'm tired, the kids are cranky, the baby is hungry, I want a nap. I bought the kids pizza from the Target snack bar for lunch because by this time it was way past lunch and I was over it.

         I should mention that when I called Ray he said it sounded like the battery was dead, but I had just had my oil changed and they checked that and it was fine. So he wanted me to open the hood and jiggle the wires connecting the battery. I didn't do it. Like I said, I was over it. Well Ray came down from  work, he works in North Oklahoma City and he jiggled the wires and my car started. He could have been upset about that, but he knew what my day had been like and he just took one for the team. Love him.

        I am thankful that the day before I had made chicken pot pie and stuck it in the fridge for dinner that day. So all I had to do that night was bake it. I'm pretty sure that's all I could have done. So there ya go. That was yesterday. I'll tell you about today, tomorrow. It was payday today which means it was grocery shopping day and technically my grocery challenge as ended....