Tackling the Washer Room

Why the washer room and not the laundry room?  Well, when you have an apartment that had laundry facilities added as an after-thought, you wind up with the washer in the back entry and the dryer in the bedroom closet.  It’s not as bad as it sounds, the bedroom is off the back entry, so it’s a quick trip from washer to dryer.

Why not tackle both at once?  Well, I don’t have that much ambition or time!  The back entry is only seen by us, so it has become a catch-all and the closet is even worse.  I figure I can reasonably tackle these in consecutive weeks and feel good about it!

Things I found:

• Brand new pack of HUNDREDS of hair accessories for Khaila.
• One of the kids’ Christmas stockings (must be RJ’s, tags are still on it)
• Denim capris with rip from waist to mid-thigh.  Why am I hanging on to those?
• BRAND NEW Tide To-Go pen (or whatever it’s called).  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said I *need* to get one for the diaper bag.  Who knew, it was here the whole time!
• Three Sharpies, probably put on the shelf for “safe keeping” from an artistic toddler.
• A pair of Nike tennis shoes that I gave up on months ago.  One was missing a shoelace!
• Babyfood jar filled with spare change saved from the washing machine.

And the end result?  It’s not totally done, but I need to get a new mop before I can do the floor!

I told the hubby that he’s cut off from buying compact flourescent bulbs for about a decade.  Each of the past two years, he’s “stocked up” during the big sales before our local energy fair.  I think I know what we’re giving everyone for Christmas this year!  Okay, not really, but we could and we’d still have plenty!

I moved the hamper so it’s out of sight a bit more.  I really don’t like having it exposed, but what can I do?  No, really, if you have any suggestions, please leave them!

I also put a small rug that I found against the wall.  My hope is that we can start putting our shoes on it.  It won’t be long before RJ is trying to crawl and in even less time, the snow will be falling.  Between nasty exhaust poluted snow melt and the crud hubby and I get on our shoes at work (we both work in kitchens), I’m really not comfortable with a baby crawling where we walk!

Thanks for stopping by for my weekly tackle!  Be sure to leave a comment so I can see yours!

If you’re a cloth diapering mama or have one in your life, be sure to check out this week’s diaper giveaway!

Tackling the Dresser

My son is only 3 months old, why should I have his room organized?? Yes, I know it’d look nicer, be easier to find things, and every other benefit to having it organized, but this is what his dresser has looked like since before he was born:

This week, I decided it was time to tackle the budding clutter before it got out of control.  Plus, I needed somewhere to put his stash of cloth.  We have been changing him in his crib with the diapers at the opposite end from where he sleeps, but he’s getting more mobile and I didn’t feel safe having a stack of cloth diapers in his crib.

And to make things more challenging, this was behind me when I was trying to clean:

The first thing I had to do was sort through everything.  I found bassinet sheets, we don’t have a bassinet.  There was a 12 month coat sitting up there, RJ’s nowhere near needing that.  Buried under the bag of clothes, there was a pack of construction paper.  Doubt he’s going to be doing any craft projects for a while.  It’s amazing what all I found!

At first, I was going to shove the bassinet sheets in the bottom drawer until I figured out what to do.  Then I remembered that my brother and his wife are having a baby in October and there’s a bassinet in their room.  I took the bag that had clothes in it and started packing it up for them.  There were some size one diapers from before I dove back into cloth, a few girl outfits, the sheets, and two pairs of shoes.  They can move on to bless their family rather than burdening ours.

Once I got everything cleared off, it was time to organize the stash.  This sounds like an easy task, but it really wasn’t.  I get compulsive about weird stuff, and this was one of those times.  Even though they’re just diapers, I want it to be as simple as possible for hubby to grab something easy for him to use so he doesn’t reach into the cubby for a disposable.

This is the end result:

The best part, it was all accomplished without waking the sleeping baby!

And as a bonus tackle-it, here’s how you do laundry when you have a fussy baby who doesn’t want you out of his sight:

Tackling It From a Different Angle

I went back to working fulltime when RJ was only 2.5 weeks old.  My job is stressful, I had double mommy guilt, we had taken Khaila out of daycare, the list of contributors to a downward spiral goes on and on.  Soon, every aspect of my life was suffering from my negativity.

For this week’s “Tackle It Tuesday”, I am not choosing a household project, although that’s part of what has happened.  I’ve decided my tackle for the week is my attitude.  Yesterday, I sat at work dreading what was to come.  It was the calm before the storm and I was sure something big was building up.  Then and there, I decided that I needed to change my outlook.  I decided I was going to have a good day no matter what came my way.

First, the ice maker at work broke, meaning I had to call the boss for authorization to fix it.  Next, I found out we had to order four times what I was authorized to order if we wanted the price break.  This meant another call to the boss to tell him I was spending money that doesn’t come in as quickly as we need or would like.  While this already sounds like a true Monday, it was only starting.

Next, I had two disgruntled employees working with me.  I hate when I’m trying to stay positive and I have so much negativity around, but I managed.  After that, I realized I might not have anyone coming in for the evening shift.  When I called the employee who was scheduled and had called off his previous two shifts, I was told he had car problems and that he could come in even though the wheels may fall off his car at any time.  Since driving IS his job, I told him we’d get by without him.

After all of that and a nasty bug landing on my head, I was still letting it all roll off my back.  Not only that, but I had more energy than I’ve had in a long time.  I came home, cranked up the music, and cleaned the living room.  This may not seem huge to many people, but I had a serious case of CHAOS going on in there.  For those who have never tried FLYLady, that’s “Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome”.  By the time I was done, I loved the room enough to post a picture on Facebook.  After that, I made dinner, loaded the dishwasher, and did two more loads of laundry.

This morning, I realized the power of yesterday’s day of positivity.  I woke up refreshed, ready to get to work, ready to enjoy the morning with my family.  Today was day two of my attitude makeover.  I may not be a changed person yet, but I’m definitely changing.  I will always be unperfect, but I’m hoping to face this phase of my journey head-on and come out a better person for it.

I dare anyone to tackle their attitude and try to get through a day or two refusing to let anything get them down!

Tackling It – Making It Permanent

In a past life, I took a heads on approach to just about everything.  The problem with this approach is that it never lasts.  Whether it was a diet, a hobby, a “life’s dream”, you name it, eventually the fire dwindled down to a smolder, and eventually went out.  With a second little one on the way, I’ve decided that while I can use Tuesdays as a motivating day to keep me going, I can’t rely on Tuesdays to get me started.  Tackling too much on Tuesday has led to needing to take it easy on Wednesday, feeling like I was in a rut on Thursday, and then I would pity party my way through the weekend.

Over the past couple of months, my step-mom has been coming over about once a week to help me get the apartment cleaned and organized.  Originally, the goal was to have the apartment ready for RJ by the time I hit 28 weeks pregnant.  Well, after someone having a death in the family followed by a co-worker going to Hawaii for almost two weeks, I had no energy for most of the month.  Last week, I was a week past the goal and nowhere near ready to bring a new little guy home!  With our session last Tuesday, we got the apartment within two rooms of being ready.

Since then, I’ve been working a little each night to see how close I can be when she comes over the next time.  By the time RJ is here, I want to be at a point where we can start the dishwasher on our way out the door and come home as a family of four into a peaceful home.  That won’t happen by trying to make huge gains one day and then sliding down the hill for the next six.

Tackle It Tuesday – Bedroom Shuffle

      Get your mind out of the gutter! With RJ’s arrival getting closer and closer, we really need to get working on moving bedrooms around. Khaila is moving into my former office and we’ll put RJ in what is currently Khaila’s room. There are multiple reasons for doing it this way.
       First, the office is purple, more of a girly color, so we won’t have to repaint. Next, Khaila’s room is closer. Sure, they’re next to each other, but those few steps add up in the middle of the night! The last reason (and the reason that made us think about moving rooms) there’s no closet for Khaila to hide in in the office. We had a bit of a scare one day when daddy couldn’t find her and she had hidden BEHIND some stuff in her closet! Yes, I think this’ll work out much better!
       I’ll post pictures tomorrow of the before and after of our work.