Hi Ho. Hi Ho.

It was a bit too cold to work outside on the painting today. The weather wasn't too cold to actually paint. It was too cold for me to be out there. The cold makes my back spasm. So I decided to work inside today.

I got a couple loads of laundry done and got caught up on the dishes. Well, almost. There are a few dishes that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher, so I'll stick them in tomorrow. Or I'll just handwash them. I'm not sure. The only thing I am sure of is that I'll be doing them tomorrow and not bothering with them tonight. I've been busy with other things.

Several days ago, I decided I was going to rearrange the furniture in the living room, but then things came up, so I put it off. I've been working on it for the last several hours. I've been cleaning and dusting along the way, so what I have gotten done looks nice. I even took the Swiffer to the top edge of the wall and the ceiling to take care of any cobwebs that were haning around, and it looks so much better. However, the couch and loveseat still have stuff piled on them that I need to go through. A lot of it is just Scooter's stuff that she tends to pile, and there's some of Hopper's stuff, too, but some of it just stuff I need to go through. DVDs that are out of place. Little bits of Christmas stuff that never actually found their way to the rightful box when the decorations were put away. Just. You know. Stuff.

I moved the fireplace to the wall perpendicular to where it had been and moved the couch to where the fireplace had been, and I switched the lamps around, so now there's light in ever corner of the living room, instead of having one dark corner. It's much easier on these old, tired eyes. It looks good. I like that there will be plenty of room for the Christmas tree on either side of the fireplace. We'll have to move a lamp and a plant out of the way, but we should be able to get it up without much of a problem.

I'm just glad I'm getting a good start on the holiday cleaning now. It will make it so much easier to not have to rush around and do deep cleaning right before Thanksgiving or Christmas or even right before the surgery. I hate waiting until the last minute to do the cleaning, and yet it seems as though that's what I've done ever year in recent memory. It makes the holidays exhausting and not as fun as they should be. I'm looking forward this year being different.

I will likely try to get the curtains washed before my surgery, if I can. I hate dusty curtains, and I try to wash them at least twice a year, but sometimes I'm lucky, if I can get it done once a year. I did at least get them vacuumed off, but they're still pretty dusty. Eventually, I'd love to get new curtains or drapes for the living room, but for now these are okay. At least I can toss them in the washer and dryer when they need cleaned.

I'll do what I can to go through some of it tonight and finish up what I can, but I'm okay, if I have to wait until tomorrow. My back is spasming again, and I don't want to push it tonight and cause even more problems, so I'm not able to function tomorrow, so I may just be done for the night. I'm okay with that, too.

I give up.

Feeling a bit better today. I didn't have to be on two different kinds of pain medicine to keep things under control. This is a huge improvement over the last few days. I'll gladly take it. I hate when things are out of my control. Especially when I've been making so much progress and then ... nothing.

I've always had control issues. For as long as I can remember.

*I alphabetize my spices - it makes it easier to find them when I need them.
*I sort my canned goods according to size and content - makes it easier to see at a glance what I have.
*I have a compulsion to sort hangers. That's why I now have nothing but white ones.
*I have found that I can't help but sort our new dishes as I take them out of the dishwasher to put them away. The stacks from bottom to top: stripes, purple or purple w/polka dots, flowers, topped off with green or green w/polka dots and repeat. The only ones I don't worry about are the dessert plates. They're tiny. Only about the size of a saucer. Maybe even smaller. But we don't have an even number of them, so I can't sort them evenly, so I don't even bother. But we have 12 of each of the other pieces, and I can't help it. I tell myself I do it, because I want them to wear evenly and not have one pattern wear out more quickly than any of the others, but I think it's just that I have to control over them. It doesn't take a ton of time like the hangers did. I have a routine, and I follow it, and I can do it rather quickly, so it's really not a big deal.

However, for years we went without a dishwasher. So when we bought our house, I was so thrilled to get a dishwasher. I'd wanted one for years to help lighten the load. However, the load never seemed lightened. The dishwasher never seemed to get the dishes clean. So I would spend hours each week making sure there wasn't a speck of dust on them before loading them in the dishwasher. There could be grease. Just not specks of food, because they'd end up in the bottom of the glasses, and I'd have to rewash them. It drove me nuts. I also noticed that there were always soap bubbles in the bottom of the dishwasher when I opened it up which always surprised me, because I only used about 1/4 the amount recommended.

It dawned on me that maybe I wasn't giving the soap enough to work on. I mean, our dishwasher was expensive. It was a good machine when we bought it. The best in our price point, at least. But we never had clean dishes. I often used the dishwasher for a dish drain. I mean, if I was going to spend almost as much time rinsing and soaking all the food off the dishes before sticking them in the dishwasher, I may as well just wash them by hand. Right?

Like I said. Hours. Each. Week.

I told you I have control issues.

:::sigh:::

The next step was hard for me to take.

I stopped rinsing everything off the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Granted, I put them on a longer wash, but I'd done that before, and the dishes hadn't come out clean. I expected no less this time. To my utter amazement, the dishes came out clean.

It took awhile for me to give up control over the dishes completely. Even though I'd seen the results, I still couldn't quite believe it. For a few more weeks, I'd rinse the dishes sometimes or do them by hand. Other times, I'd throw them in the dishwasher on an extended wash and still not quite believe that they were actually clean.

A few weeks into my experimenting, a friend sent me the following article. It talks about how using too much soap in your dishwasher or washing machine lessens the life of the machines considerable. I've always used less soap than called for, because we have a water softener, and you don't need to use as much when you have softened water. However, the article also addresses the very thing I'd discovered on my own. That dishes get cleaner in the dishwasher, if you can allow yourself to give up control and just let the dishwasher do it's job.

I'm still a control freak. I probably always will be. But I am so glad i gave up control over this particular thing in my life. It has saved me countless hours. Hours I can use to dehoard the house.

So glad I gave up.

And so it begins...again.

Our youngest missed school today, because she was up and down all night with a stomach bug. I've got it now. It appears as though the middle daughter is getting it, too. As a result..not a lot happened around here today.

I called my friend and canceled on getting to meet her newborn twins until we're past this. I was so frustrated about having to cancel but knowing I must, that I actually dreamed about it last night. In my dream, she said she wasn't worried about it and to please come in and see the babes. Yeah. That didn't really happen. Instead, I got a "Right before Easter? Yeah. No thanks. Please keep it there. And thanks for letting me know." I appreciate a bit of sarcasm from time to time, so all was well. :)

When the time is right, I'll get to hold her little bundles of joy and breathe them in.

I did get rid of all of the old dishes and glasses today. That was nice. It's amazing how much space I freed up in the cupboards. I also went through the mugs again and got rid of 3 more. One had my name on it along with it's definition, but it also had a chip, so I chucked it. One had my husband's name and it's definition, but there's really no sense in keeping one without the other, so it went into the donation box. The last one I liked, because it had one of my favorite Bible verses on it, but I realized it (the mug, not the Bible verse) no longer made me happy, and I only want to keep things that make me happy. So it's gone, too.

I still have some arranging to do in the cupboards, but it's a start.

Not sure how much of anything I'll get done over the next few days. It will depend upon how I feel.

I won't go into detail.

Promise.

The sun *did* come out today!

And it shone. And it was warm. And it was soothing. And it was good.

And it made me sleepy. So I got caught up on some much needed sleep after the girls went off to school. I didn't want to get up when I finally dragged myself out of bed, but I did get up.

Didn't do nearly as much as I wanted to get done today, but I did some, and somedays that's going to have to be enough.

We found some cute melamine dishes at Target for our replacement dishes. It will be nice knowing that our middle daughter can't accidentally break them very easily, and that our youngest daughter won't be as able to break them purposefully, if she's throwing a fit. They're cute. They look sort of like linen. Some have polka dots. Some have flowers. And the main colors are sage green and a dark lavender. They're very fun and whimsical. Just what the doctor ordered. :)

And just in time, too. The youngest was beating one of the older dishes on the table tonight trying to break it, because she was in one of her moods. We are ever so thankful her moods aren't that often, because she can really wreak havoc. It takes a bit of an emotional and physical toll.

I'm very excited for tomorrow. Not only will I be dropping off all my old stoneware and Tupperware, but I get to meet my friend's new babies and give her a big hug! I look forward to that 'new baby smell' and getting to drink it in! It's been entirely too long since I've had a little one in my arms! Holding a newborn trumps emptied out cupboards any day. Still. It will be nice to be rid of the dishes and have a little extra cabinet space for what I do want to keep.

I'll be taking the time to enjoy tomorrow for sure. We're possibly going to get snow again on Friday. I'm going to soak up the sun while I can! :)

I guess I needed the sleep?

I slept for 12 hours last night. Woke up with a sore throat, but the knots in my neck had loosened some. Middle daughter coughed most of the day, too. I'm glad the girls don't have school next week due to Spring Break. I'm afraid that there's a good chance they'd miss school from illness anyway. At least this way it doesn't count against them.

I've been mildly productive today working in the kitchen. Went through the one cupboard we have canned goods in and organized it all. Washed the cereal keepers and threw out stuff I didn't figure anyone would eat. Cleaned the old stuff out of the refrigerator, but I didn't get to the point of wiping it out just yet. And tossed even more plastic stuff.

All things considered, I'm happy I got a little bit done today. I'm hoping that I don't sleep for a full 12 hours tonight, but I figure my body is trying to tell me I need it, if I do.

Right now, it's telling me I need my heating pad turned on high...

I'm a daydream believer and a ... Ok. Scratch that. I'm just a daydream believer.

I was inspired and even excited when Ami suggested Corelle for the dishes situation. I went to Amazon to look around and even picked out my 3 favorite patterns. I figured I'd get some to mix and match, and they'd be so much fun to use.

Unfortunately, the entire time I was looking around, an uneasiness crept in, and I couldn't shake it. My husband had told me to order it, if I wanted, but I never got that far. The uneasiness just kept growing.

I realized I need to stop looking at dishes and try to figure out why I was feeling this way. Pushing it's way from a distant memory to the front of my mind was an image from when I was in junior high. I was in the kitchen. I'd just turned away from the sink, and I had a Corelle cereal bowl with little green flowers encircling it in my hand.

I lost my grip on the bowl, and it fell. It didn't just break. It exploded. It shattered into what looked like a million shards. Sharp. Pointy. Shards. We were finding pieces of it for weeks - often with our bare feet. The pieces couldn't be picked up without a little nick in the end of the fingertips. It wasn't a fun thing.

Over the years, very few pieces were broken. In fact, they're still in use at my parents' house. But every single time a piece broke, it exploded. Every. Single. Time.

And all I can think of is a piece exploding in front of one of the girls. They lack defensive reflexes, so they couldn't even turn away to protect themselves, if they saw it coming. It has the potential of seriously hurting them. Of propelling itself like shrapnel. And it would kill me, if either of them got hurt, lost an eye, had to have pieces of glass removed with slivers, when I could have prevented it.

Since I can prevent it, I will. We will not be getting Corelle. I'll be looking around for some fun Melamine to take the place of the heavier stoneware. There is such a wide variety available. It amazes me that some of it costs more than fine china. Then again, it looks like fine china! It does not look like plastic at all. My favorite pattern is entirely out of my budget.

We'll be going with something much more affordable than that.

Still..it's fun to dream. :)

Footprints in the sink.

Well, that's what it looked like to me. I found evidence of a herd of trolls in my sink when I was doing dishes today. Yes. Trolls roam in herds. At least at my house. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Ok. No I'm not. We had just used most of the dishes, and I hadn't gotten to them for a couple of days. Ok. For 3 days. So I filled the dishwasher. Twice. Plus I still have a few kettles, knives, etc. that have to be hand washed. I don't like what happens to them in the dishwasher.

I don't have an over abundance of kettles or knives, but I am thinking I might have a few too many dishes, glasses and mugs. It's not like they're not all used, but that's the problem. When we run out of dishes, when everyone is sick, it takes forever to wash everything! It's handy that we rarely run out of dishes, but they can really pile up quickly. So I'm thinking it might be a good idea to purge some of the dishes. If we don't have as many, we'll have to wash the ones we have more often, and things won't pile up as easily.

I'm not sure exactly which ones I'm going to get rid of, though. We use the stoneware in the microwave, but it's so heavy! It really does a number on my neck to unload them from the dishwasher and put them away. Plus, they're heavy enough that our youngest has a really hard time walking from the kitchen to the dining room with even one plate, if she's helping to set the table. Not that we've set the table for awhile. But we will be again soon, and she needs to be able to help.

The Tupperware plates that we use the most can't go in the microwave. But they're so handy! Both girls can carry a stack of them, and they're not too heavy. They don't break, if they're chucked across the floor. Have I mentioned that our youngest has a bit of a temper? We've lost more than a few glasses, mugs, or dishes that way. She'd grab them from the table and fling them several years ago, if she was in the right mood.

I do pare down the number of mugs and glasses we have from time to time. I go through the mugs at least once a year and get rid of some. It's amazing how they multiply, though, isn't it? The glasses, though...that's a different story.

I have no idea why I like so many glasses, but I do! We probably have 24 glasses. For 4 of us, that doesn't necessarily sound like too many. However, the girls use water bottles almost exclusively. And since the hubby is at work most of the time, 24 glasses for my use seems like a bit of overkill. It's just so handy to not run out.

Still.

I must purge. It will make my life simpler.