Whirlwind

What a whirlwind of a month!  It was so much fun!  I got to see so many friends and relatives that I don't get to see that often: David's cousin from Tennessee, my grad school friend from Chicago, my high school friend from DC, my sister and her boyfriend, my entire family at my little sister's bridal shower in Brownsville.  I love it!

In preparation for our company, I kept trying to clean our guest bathroom.  I tried everything on the shower curtain - bleach, tylex mold and mildew remover, soft scrub and still the thing would not get completely clean.  I finally gave up with our last guest and went out and bought a new shower curtain.  In the process of cleaning the shower curtain, however, I discovered the best way to clean my tub.  I had also tried all of the chemicals mentioned above, plus I tried toilet bowl cleaner and the soap scum stayed there.  The day before our last guest arrived, I sprayed the curtain with Tylex Soap Scum remover and accidentally spilled the bottle into the tub.  The solution splattered all  over the tub and then Ta Da!  The soap scum started coming off.  Hallellujah!  Surely, I have cleaned that tub before, but for the life of me, I could not recall what I had used to remove the soap scum (probably because the thing only gets cleaned when we have guests coming to see us).  Anyway, it was a good discovery.  

Yes, I can't believe it either -- I am wasting a post to talk about Tylex!  :)  TTYL.  

Domestic Goddess

Today feels like a sad New England early fall morning -- cloudy and cool.  My morning walk was fun but felt shorter than usual.  Maybe that's because we took a different route through the neighborhood and a new friend came along with us.   This weather always reminds me of my days in New England when DK was a baby.  It makes me feel like baking cookies or bread. I know for sure it makes me want to cook stews and pot roasts.  Maybe I'll go with that feeling.

I should really feel like a million dollars this morning because I went to bed with IK at 8pm last night and slept until 6am this morning.  Wow.  Haven't gotten that much sleep in a few months.  Which is why I don't understand why I am still tired????

I'm looking at the title I chose for this entry and wondering why I've written so much already and haven't gotten to the point.  This week I've been feeling more domestic than I have in a long time.  I cooked up a storm. Last night we had Brunswick Stew which is a 19th-century recipe from Virginia that I found in Cooking Light.  It actually calls for squirrel, but they opt for chicken.  It was so GOOD!  

I've been home for four years now and I finally feel like I know how to do the housework in a way that doesn't feel like I'm always doing housework.  It requires doing a little bit every day before going out and doing errands.  I have a few things that must get done in order for the house to feel like it's tidy:  1)  I have to make my bed every day.  2)  I have to do the dishes every day 3) I have to do at least one load of laundry every day.   We have four bathrooms to clean so I clean them in pairs (2 upstairs on Monday, 2 downstairs on Thursday).  I think our grandmothers had it right when they said, "Monday is for cleaning.  Tuesday is for washing..." 

For me, having a cleaning schedule is really working.  There are still busy days when I don't get everything done around the house and it drives me nuts but for the most part, I feel like we are not living in constant chaos.   The weekends, when we are all home together, we have to make a special effort to put things back; otherwise, the house looks like a wreck.  I don't normally schedule outings on Monday so I can put the house back together.  

I guess this whole thing started working for me when I realized that cleaning is never-ending.  It's maintenance.  You're probably saying "duh" but for some reason, I always felt cleaning was something you did once a week and the rest of the week you undid the cleaning.  This epiphany has really done wonders for our house.  I'm not saying it's spic and span, but I don't feel like I have to rush around putting stuff under the bed and in closets, when an unexpected guest rings the door bell.  Of course, as I'm writing that, I'm looking around and there are toys strewn on the floor our family room.  Halloween costumes that we used for our Halloween dress rehearsal last night are lying on the couch and a mattress pad is dangling over three chairs so it could air dry.  Would I really want an unexpected guest to see my house like this?  

I am a little sad to say that my domestic goddess days are coming to an end as this is my last year at home.  When we first decided that it would be good for me to try to stay home with the kids, I thought I'd do it for a year and I'd go nuts.  But I didn't.  I loved it.  By the time I go back to work it will have been five years since I've worked.  That is a long time to be out of the work force.  I feel if I stay out any longer, I will have a hard time getting back in.  Also, it will be very nice to have the extra income.   

We were talking about this at dinner the other night.  David thinks I would make a great teacher.  I'm not so sure.  I was telling David that I don't really know if I know how to teach. My eight-year-old chimed right in, "Mom, teaching is easy.  All you have to do is talk, talk, talk."

Great.  I wonder why he thinks I would be good at that???   More on that later.  Have to go "tidy."  TTYL.