Days 38 &39: Miserly

Day 38 was a very busy day. I barely remember it….oh yes!  Ely and I got to go to Lakeshore for educational toy shopping! We were there for hours. The teacher inside of me wished for a million dollars to buy everything but the mom in me realized that would never buy me the time to teach Ely everything I want to teach her. So we came home with magnetic letters & numbers and Unifix cubes!!!  After Christmas and her birthday bonanza it is time to settle down once again and resume our Alphabet Lessons. All this to explain why I am very pressed for time this week and why I have been cleaning like a miser. Day 38 I cleaned the stovetop. It had not been cleaned since JW caramelized 8 whole onions for the party! I don’t have a picture because my camera was being snotty but today it finally took pictures for me. Here is what I cleaned today (Day 39). The top shelf of my fridge. Yup, just the top shelf.

Because I am nerdy, I looked in my Idiot book to see how the author recommends cleaning the fridge. She said to use soapy warm water so I took the shelf out and awkwardly washed it in the sink.

Here is the new and improved top shelf.  Maybe tomorrow I will get to shelf #2. I have much lesson planning to do!

Day 37: the Princess's Quarters

I had a wild morning of productivity since Ely slept in and I did not. During the party planning period I enjoyed many late nights, but now that the party has come and gone I am loving myself by going to bed earlier.  Monday keeps turning into laundry day so today I washed our sheets (Ely's sheets got washed Saturday), towels, cleaning rags (yay!), kitchen towels and my dainties. Then when Ely woke up I stormed her bedroom with her morning mango juice and all purpose cleaner. Her room was a bit dusty, though not the blinds or windows since they were recently cleaned, and messy. Here is her nightstand/dresser…a bit disorderly.

Mirroring is not always a bad thing. Here is Ely cleaning her piano while I clean her bookshelf.

Here she is cleaning her dresser fervently while I continue to clean her bookshelf. I keep telling her that princesses have clean homes. LOL! So what if they also have paid cleaning ladies and I am neither?

This is a before shot of her dirty and disorganized bookshelf.

I emptied all her storage boxes because somehow they get hair and random lint in them. Here is one sparkly clean. I dusted the lamp, IPOD player, Bibles, etc. and reorganized it a bit.

Here is the bookshelf clean and organized. The Teacher Bug inside me is screaming for me to make some cute picture labels for those storage boxes.  Save me Rational Thought!

I know this is weird, but I take great joy in cleaning Ely's things and rearranging her furniture and toys. Can anyone in the world explain to me what that is about??

And here is her dresser clean and rearranged. Joy!

I also swept the floors a few times until I realized that the mud I was sweeping up was under Ely's new glass slippers!  At least the mud was dry.

I am not sure what I will clean tomorrow but it is nice to start the week with clean laundry. I have been pretending the refrigerator doesn’t need to be cleaned for….all this year. Sigh. I may get motivated enough this week….I do not enjoy cleaning the refrigerator.

Day 36: Purpose Driven Cleaning

Today is not Super Bowl Sunday for me. It is the day after Ely turned 3.  We went to church groggy and late.  Afterwards Ely and I had a frozen picnic at our favorite park. I had promised her Friday I would take her after church but unfortunately it was 30 degrees colder than Friday!  At least she ate her lunch cuddled up in my lap.  One of her favorite birthday presents was a tiny Ariel doll that likes to swim in water (Thanks Kelsie & Kevin).  Last night Ely's sink was Ariel's ocean and today she wanted the guest bath sink to be Ariel's ocean so of course it was time to clean it!  Here is the Big 3 year old waiting patiently.

 

I sprayed my bath tub solution (mild laundry detergent and water) in the sink, then sprinkled Borax.

Here is a very happy Ely.

Ariel was pleased too.

And while I was in there I went ahead and cleaned the top of the toilet, the trash can, swept the floor, wiped down the baseboards and cleaned behind and inside the toilet bowl!

Here is the fizzy action caused by the baking soda and vinegar in the toilet bow. Doesn’t get old.

When I went to make Ely her dinner I noticed for the 435th time that the bottom of the fridge interior was super nasty.

I sprayed it down with all purpose cleaner and voila!

Then I put the drawer back in and here is the yummy inhabitants of the drawer.

How could I not clean the space below leftover birthday rainbow cake?!?!?!?

I also swept the living room and cleaned Eliana's brand new (from a garage sale, thanks Bulala!) red Ikea table.  I am excited for her to have her very own dining table in our dining room. Now that she's 3, it's time for her to learn to eat at her own table without getting up 10 times. Not easy to do. 

I'm pretty sure this is my first post before 10pm, yay!

Days 34 & 35: Party Time!

Day 34 was an insane day of errands and last minute party preparations. I DID NOT CLEAN A SINGLE THING! Until 12:50am that is. At 12:50am, I cleaned a kitchen counter so I could put party stuff on it! By then, it was no longer technically Day 34 but I will give myself grace for the day!

Day 35 was like a race. A race against time to get as much accomplished before 11am. I needed to dust the living room but I only got to the tables and neglected the bookshelf. Then I noticed the floor below our little accent table, aka, Dust Bunny Colony, was once again littered with filth! So I ran for the Dust Buster and sucked up as many as I could before guests arrived.  By 11am I was sweating profusely (thanks a lot sweat glands) and trying to get some make up on my face as well as tease my hair.

Here is a great shot of us right before we (sadly) cut the gorgeous cake my friend Gina made.

And since I mentioned the gorgeous cake, I suppose I should show it! Isn't it great?

My mom & sister in law were very to sweet to host a cleaning after party for us! My mom was doing a great job of helping until she started to take decorations down!! I nearly cried! When I spend this much time and energy making and hanging decorations….they are going to stay up until JW gets sick of them.  My mom and sis in law did so much putting away of things while I took a break, yay!  But I had to draw the line at sweeping. My mom was sweet to offer but I insisted she let me and I had to be honest. I love to sweep.  I made my sister my photojournalist.

Lots of sweating. Lots of partying. Lots of cleaning. Great day!

Day 33: Surprisingly clean day

 

I should go ahead and say that there will be no pictures today. Boo hoo!!! My camera has been charging ever since it wouldn’t take pictures for me. It does that when the battery is low.  Baby Zachary came to play today and he was most helpful in pointing out the dustiest areas!  He is a great crawler and was very drawn to our internet router below the TV and the oven drawer in the kitchen. I immediately ran for the all purpose cleaner and towel.  Of course he wanted the cleaner!

In preparation for Saturdays big party, I also swept and mopped the kitchen and dining room.  I also asked JW to vacuum, apparently I was being bossy about it. Nevertheless, our party cleaning is coming along.  Tomorrow is the last day for planning and preparing. Yikes.  I hope to sweep and mop the living room and prune the playroom of toys. I also need to hide the multitude of clutter on our kitchen counter. In addition to finishing the goody bags, making rainbow Jell-O, blowing up balloons, putting finishing touches on unfinished decoration projects and finally determining which projects I can finish and which I have to give up on. Please pray the LORD gives me a supernatural concept of time for the next 48 hours! Not. Joking.

I do have one picture to show from my phone. Eliana took this while I gave her a Birthday Princess Rainbow Pedicure. Don’t her toes look yummy? There I said it. I have a baby toe fetish.

Day 32: Finish, my mantra for the week.

After I laid Ely down for her nap, I made myself dizzy cleaning, decluttering and tidying as much as I could possibly do before she woke up. Here is a before picture of Party Central. It is now back to regular old Dining Room. But soon will become Party Room for one day.

Here is my workspace.  I just remembered I forgot to take an after picture!!! Grrrr!  Please close your eyes and imagine this table empty and clean with placemats on it!  I sorted all my materials and took 95% of my party planning things upstairs to the sewing room.

Then I gave some much needed love to the front door, interior..and sideboards.

I get a very strange pleasure out of cleaning sideboards!!

Here is the nastiness I freed the entryway from.

Finally the door was ready for Muno.

One good door cleaning deserves another. I had never, ever cleaned the exterior of a front door. YUCK! I cant believe I never noticed how filthy it was. Notice my Christmas sign…

Here is a close up of the filth.

And a clean after shot.

And once clean, it too was ready for adornment.

And here is a gratuitous picture of my best beater cleaner.

Day 31: Sewing Room

My favorite cleaning projects are the ones where I am cleaning something I am about to use. My friend Gina inspired me to make a party dress for Ely earlier this week. I didn’t take a before picture of the sewing room but if you see these after pictures you can just use your imagination.  I promise this is organized for my sewing room.  After decluttering, I cleaned the table and the desk because they had gotten so dusty!  BUT I have yet to dust the blinds (last blinds in the house….) and vacuum.

Making the dress was a 3 part process. Step 1: Go to JoAnn and buy orange fabric. Step 2: Clean the sewing room and finally Step 3: Make the dress!  On the left of my desk is evidence of Ely's shenanigans.

While I decluttered feverishly, Miss Ely enjoyed all the free space to play in. Since before there was nowhere to walk! Here is Baby Boy getting his breakfast.

Here is my lovely assistant.

Here was the end of Step 1. All my materials in place!

 

I stayed up until 5:30am finishing the dress because I knew if I left any of it for Day 32, it would either not get done or get in the way of my other hundred things to do. I am quite pleased with results! And considering that Ely just had to wear it for her nap, I have to say she's happy with it too.