Final cleaning frenzy of the year

I'm not quite sure what got into me today, but after I took the older 3 back to their father's house this morning, I came back here and I started cleaning.

I mean, really cleaning.

It started out innocently enough. I was putting the rest of the Christmas stuff away, kicking random piles of crap into a bigger pile of crap in the middle of the room and putting other stuff away.

I had decided a few days ago that I was going to do some white trash decorating and put one string of white Christmas lights up in the doorway between the two front rooms. Why? Because I hate it being dark in here at night - I'm blind as it is, so a little bit of light is nice. Nightlights don't work because of where the electrical outlets are placed. So as I was climbing up to put the lights up where I wanted them, I noticed (again) that there were random staples sticking out of the molding around the ceiling - apparently left there by past tenants. And there were cobwebs. And dust.

Oh boy.

Next thing I knew, I was standing on anything that I could find, moving around the perimeter of the room, yanking staples out of the woodwork. Then I was vacuuming the ceiling to get rid of the cobwebs.

Well, after I was done doing that, I couldn't leave the ceiling fan blades covered in dust, could I? You guessed it....me, standing on a bar stool in the middle of the room, with a rag and a bottle of Orange-Glo. Fan blades are shiny now. I even moved the furniture and mopped the floor.

This is just an idea of what the house started out looking like today....

Of course, what you can't see is the massive pile of clean laundry that was covering my futon - it was so bad that I slept on the couch last night rather than dealing with it. But I got all of that (plus more) folded and put away while I was doing everything else.

By the time I was done, it looked a little more like this...

Of course, I didn't really touch the kitchen, so it's still pretty scuzzy in there, but I'll work on that tomorrow after the 5K, maybe. Maybe I'll just sleep.

Oh, and the white trash decorating? Yep, here it is.

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Now to address this whole New Years thing...

I don't really make resolutions, because I can never keep them. So these are just some ideas of things that I would like to accomplish in the coming year.

~~ Starting tomorrow with the 5K, I want to try to do a race a month. I don't know if that's realistic, because they do get expensive, and I do have the kids' schedules to work around, but I am going to start looking at calendars of events around here and see if I can do it. I already know that I have the half marathon and another 5K in April so I have quite a few more months to fill.

~~ Along with that, I intend to start eating better in general. I've cut way back on the fast food, but I still eat crap most of the time. I got a couple of cookbooks from the library and I'm going to start looking up some information on some things that I've been curious about for a while and see if I can start implementing some diet changes in this house - and still keep the kids happy.

~~ And along with that one (this one hurts).... I've got to cut down on the caffeine. Notice, I said "cut down" and not "eliminate" - big difference. I can go through a 2L of Diet Pepsi in a matter of hours, and that's just not good for me (and yes, I know the artificial sweetener isn't good for me either, so it's a double whammy). I am not even going to attempt to eliminate it completely, because I know that it's not realistic - not if I want to keep anyone around me happy.

~~ Of course, the usual keep-the-house-more-organized stuff that I've been working on for a while. Honestly, it has gotten way better, especially since my massive Pre-Vacation Cleaning Binge that I went on this summer. But there's still a lot of stuff in this house that needs to go away, and it's going to go. Starting with the big pile o'crap on my porch that is ready to be put in the van and donated somewhere - that's going to happen on Monday.

~~ Along with that one, the kids ARE going to take more responsibility around this house. I admit that I have slacked in this area, and it's going to be hell to get them on the right track. But I'm going to do it, somehow, some way.

~~ Financially, I just need to budget better. Only having money coming in once a month is fine, but we tend to spend too much at the beginning of the month and then are stretched pretty tightly at the end. I need to focus on this more, as well as get a savings built up. We have another road trip to PA tentatively scheduled for the end of June (class/family reunions) so we need to start saving money for that. Plus, I am about 6 months into my "2 year plan" of getting out of this ghetto house and getting something better and if it's going to happen, I'm going to need a chunk of money set aside so that when we do move again, I'm not flying by the tattered seat of my pants like I did the last time.

I think that's a good enough start...I'm sure that the list will be tweaked as time goes on.

As far as our actual New Years plans...The Dude is coming over, and we're going to hang out here together and not go anywhere. Neither one of us drinks a lot, and we're just going to relax. He's going to the 5K with me tomorrow to keep an eye on Daniel while I run jog/walk and then we'll head back here.

And now I need to go find a pair of socks. My toes are cold.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!


Hi, Ya'll "The Dude" here... Just wishing everyone a happy new year... I know Amy and I get to have one!