Day 63 through 65: Ketchup cleaning

Day 63 I relied on my Sunday school clean up duty, yet again. But I hit a personal record in running! The last 5K I ran was before Ely was born and I ran in about 31 minutes. My goal for Sunday was to be in the 29 minute range and I came in at around 28:55! Yay me, Glory to God, whose Spirit is one of strength and ability! (2 Timothy 1:7)

So Day 64 I started to catch up a little on my housework. I blessed the name of JW since he finally got me a razor to scrape the stovetop with. It was so rewarding to remove old food stains! I'm not done cleaning the burners but I made ok progress.

I also washed Ely's tub.  We like to color with bath crayons and it was definitely time to wash it all off.

Ta daaa!

Today was Day 65 and after a torturous dental cleaning I managed to at least clean Ely's toilet bowl. I don’t have pictures but once again I love, love, love my BioKleen toilet bowl cleaner!!!!!

Day 62: Laundry room love

Saturday I spent considerable time wiping down the washer and dryer because somehow they were covered with laundry soap, lint and weird litter.  Then I decided to clean the flimsy and filthy mini blinds. Yucky!

You may not know it, but this here is my laundry room organized!! Yay!

Days 57 through 61: Week in a flash

Day 57 is so hard to remember that far back. I think JW put Ely down to bed so I cleaned up after dinner. 

Day 58 I swept the back door entry.

Day 59 was my most ambitious cleaning day. JW put Ely down to bed so it was my turn to do the dishes and boy, were there dishes!  After I left the kitchen sparkling I got my week long wish to mop my floors!  I had swept the kitchen almost daily hoping to find the time and strength to mop but kept getting sidetracked. With the kitchen all to myself I finally found the time.  I swept and mopped the kitchen, the living room and a sticky patch in Ely's playroom.  Once JW got downstairs and saw me he asked if I wanted him to move the couch so I could sweep behind it. I was not even offended.  I swept up a big pile of dust and even mopped off some sticky spots. Why in the world would there be sticky spots back there??

Day 60 was another cleaning up the kitchen after dinner day because JW was out, not very interesting…

Today was Day 61 and my cleaning motivation was really suffering. I think I miss my Idiot Cleaning book. I had to return it to the library and my life just hasn’t been the same since. I literally had to ask God for the motivation and energy because I just didn’t have it. This was 4 o clock in the afternoon people! Finally around 6p I got dinner ready for Ely and JW then isolated myself in the playroom. Also know as the bane of my existence. This is why. There are too many toys out of place and no designated place for nearly all the toys.  Again I prayed because I am not good at organizing chaos. I can handle putting things back where they go but NOT deciding where they should go.

Notice the baby dolls being put to bed on the floor. How sad!

I got this great toy storage shelf thing a long time ago but as you can I have never figured out how to store toys in it!  It is a disaster.

Here is what I came up with.  I took out a laundry basket full of toys out of the playroom to store away. Then I put 4 of Ely's many baby dolls and gave them all their own little bed and blanket. Next, I made a Yo Gabba Gabba box, a Unifix cube box, a mini Disney Princess box, a purse accessory box, a musical instrument box, a purses box and a crown and dress up box. I am missing a box so I need to clean it and put it back. It is an act of the Holy Spirit for me to have accomplished this level of organization. Thank you Holy Spirit! Afterwards Ely and I played with the Princesses and practiced putting them back in their place.

Look at the table!!  So free of clutter! I even wiped down the slide because it was a bit smudgy.  Tomorrow I am going to spot sweep the room.

Day 54, 55 & 56: Blah, boring, blah

Unfortunately another boring post. I have had hurried and uneventful cleaning, waaaa!  Day 54 I washed our kitchen seat cushions and cleaned up after dinner because JW was out.   Day 55 I wiped some counters down and today Day 56 is not over but I woke up very early and swept the kitchen, cleaned our dining tables, rearranged Ely's red dining table, unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned up after making waffles….all before 8am.  And now I am on my way to strip our beds to wash the sheets! Oh and I cleaned the potty in Sunday school about 5 times.  Whew!  I hope this coming week I will finally make time to mop my kitchen floors!!! And do some thrilling cleaning for a change

Day 53: Kitchen sweep

I know this is totally boring but perseverance often is super extremely boring and annoying.  I had  a full day that began at exactly 5 am, praise God for that! Wouldn’t you think that waking up at 5am would give me lots of cleaning time?? Nope. I worked out early, got Ely ready for Bible study then JW and I had a date to go to Winter Jam. When we got home (way after my new bedtime) I swept the kitchen. Isn't that so faithful?  I have wanted to mop my floors since Monday but have been prevented…so I swept again in hopes of mopping on Day 54. I will just have to wait and see.

Day 52: Patio, part 2 and then some

So this  morning when I stepped outside to see our patio, it was littered in leaves again! Ha! Oh well, but look how clean our bubble bucket is.

The stroller is totally baby doll worthy now. (Though not a great picture)

I had some help with the picnic table from Ely and her girlfriend Coco. Little girls cannot resist cleaning!

I also gave some considerable TLC to our window seats. My window seats were previously extremely cluttered with all my teaching materials for Ely's alphabet lessons. I sorted, chunked and organized it all.  What you see here are highly organized and streamlined window seats. Really. Seriously. This is neat. It's my downstairs home office  

Count the bags on this seat…yeah baby, just one!!

And perhaps my proudest DEcluttering today, I got a 3 drawer mobile organizer for the crazy overflow from Ely's educational materials. Maybe I can find things easier now.

Day 51: Patio cleaning, part 1

It was nearly 80 degrees in Cedar Park today. Praise the Lord!  With weather like this, it is a sin to stay indoors. Ely and I were playing when I noticed how gross all her outdoor toys are. The patio was  also in poor shape, littered with leaves and sand. And the furniture arrangement…a tragedy.  The weather motivated me to clean but also the fact that we have 2 gorgeous girlies coming over tomorrow and they happen to love playing with Ely outside!!  Who can play in such filth? Well actually they totally can but I need to clean!!

Ely was trying to blow bubbles with her non spill bubble bucket we bought last summer but it wasn’t working. I was disgusted when I opened it and found a mysterious mixture of brown rain water and bubble solution. Eeeeeww!  Tomorrow it will be as clean as new. I immediately dumped out the brown water but you can see a little grime on the blue bucket base.

The concrete pad I call a patio was covered in leaves and sand. I swept it all onto the grass. Don’t tell JW. I'm not sure if that’s good for the grass.

Ely's little picnic table is also filthy and will be cleaned tomorrow.

This poor little baby stroller…probably should have never been let outdoors but tomorrow it will once again be clean enough for a baby doll.  Can you tell I'm a sucker for extreme makeovers?

And here is my gorgeous girl delighting herself in beating Foofa as hard as she can.

And here is the after shot of the patio. Although I moved the slide OFF the concrete after I noticed a warning on it saying: Never place on hard surfaces. Oops. After a fun and soapy cleaning session tomorrow morning, we will be ready for our playdate!