Inspiration

As many of you might know, I'm a big fan of the Style Network's Clean House show. I also liked the old show Clean Sweep that is no longer on the air. I especially like to watch these shows on Saturday morning which then inspires me to get off my butt and clean something. Usually just to prove to myself that I am nothing like the people on those shows. NOTHING! Nothing I tell you!!! The much more severe show Hoarders usually gives me a facial tick and sends me into an adrenaline fueled panic cleaning spree where I might throw out perfectly good items.

On my birthday this past year, I got a snow day. One of the things I didn't blog about was our Clean House marathon topped by an episode of Hoarders and what that did to us mentally. All three of us were home, and I had been cleaning while listening to the show all day. Hubby could hear the show too, even though it's not his favorite show - by a long shot. At about 2pm, we watched a few minutes of Hoarders and then quickly turned it off. A few minutes later, while Hubby was on the phone (big surprise!) I started cleaning out our entryway closet with something close to panic. I needed to prove that I could clean out a closet without a team of psychologists present! Hubby walked by. With sign language, I told him where the keep and trash piles were on the floor, and without a word between us, we sorted through the entire closet. In like 15 minutes. I was so proud.

Wednesday night, Clean House showed it's 2 hour show with this year's Messiest Home in the Country. This one involved HAZMAT suits. Seriously. Really good episode. The only down side was that it ended at 10pm when I should have already been in bed. And now I'm all inspired to clean up the rest of my vacation unpacking mess. In that episode, and in many episodes, all the walkways had junk closing in both sides so that there was a 4-6 inch wide path where you might be able to see the carpet.

Because our baby boy has started speed crawling, we've put up baby gates in several strategic places in the last week. As a result, everything that he shouldn't eat was moved to just behind a baby gate. This meant that the top of our stairs and our entryway hallway had a very narrow space where you could walk.

OH NO!!!! MY HOUSE RESEMBLES A CLEAN HOUSE HOUSE!!!

Small panic attack.

So before I went to bed that night, I cleaned up at least one small pile that was in a walkway. Thursday, I realized that this was a 3 day weekend, and I was so relieved that I would have time to clean up the house!!

So here's my super-duper list of what all we got done this weekend:
Finished unpacking both suitcases from our vacation. Washed, dried, folded, and put away all the laundry, ran the dishwasher 2 or 3 times, bought groceries, made 2 weeks worth of baby food, emptied the cardboard box of useful things we took on Vacation, emptied the wicker basket of useful things we took on vacation, threw away the latest baby-gate box and stored the extra parts together in the "unused parts of baby equipment" closet (AKA the entryway closet), threw away the DVD player that hasn't worked in years, emptied 3 overflowing trash cans upstairs, threw away some empty shipping boxes, neatened all toy/play areas at least 3 times each (large expanses of empty carpet make my heart happy), vacuumed, swept, cleaned out my trunk and put my standard stuff in it again, cleaned out the interior of my car of vacation ruble, cleaned off the kitchen table (this was huge!), organized and stored the project supplies that have been living on our dining room table, sorted all the mail we received during vacation (did not get it filed though), relocated all the pots, pans, and casserole dishes that we never use to the space in the kitchen cabinets that we never use! Now we have room in the cabinets for the stuff we DO use! This feels wonderful! Gathered and packed away all the burp cloths, small blankets, and other tiny baby stuff that we've just stopped using. Gathered things for the attic and actually got them into the attic. Emptied/consolidated one box of stuff from the loft. Improved the labels on the plastic bins with various sizes of baby clothes. Cut all of Quint's nails. Washed and replaced both changing table covers so that we can use the safety strap. Made a list of bills to pay online (left it at home, though). I threw away many things that if I had patience and time I could still use the last little bit but that hasn't happened in 3 months so screw it. Threw away a bunch of empty water bottles that FACE IT we are never going to reuse. I drank plenty of water yesterday for the first time in several days.

Other things I did NOT do that made me feel virtuous:

Resisted the urge to stock up on clothes detergent just because our cool dispenser was empty. We had plenty for probably a month.

Resisted the urge to buy (literally) 416 diapers just because I had a great coupon. That's about 11 week's worth of diapers. We are not low on diapers. At all.

Resisted the urge to shop for anything because my allowance has been running in the negative.

I let Hubby talk me out of buying redundant groceries, that could really wait a week or two.

Also, this weekend, I held and cuddled my whimpering son while he clearly didn't feel good and occasionally would just hold his ears and cry. He's near the end of his second round of antibiotics for ear infections and I feel sorry for the little guy. Lots of Ibuprofen this weekend and lots of reading the bottle to make sure we didn't OD on it. Last night at 4am, I felt a few stabs of ear pain myself and remembered just exactly how bad those suckers could hurt! I don't think I have an ear infection at all, but it was a good reminder for me and gave me more patience.