Office and life update

Hi y'all!

I seem to just be writing updates on here anymore. Sorry about that (again).

So, in my last blog post like FIVE MONTHS AGO  Sheesh! I had moved into my new office and was looking to get a new arm chair to go in the spot under the loft. Well, I did get one.  It's a green recliner, a Lazy Boy I think.  Nice one, that hugs the wall. Well, it was in my office for about a month maybe less before I had to move it to put the twin mattresses back under the loft for Ducky to sleep on during Thanksgiving break. Not long after, we had Christmas break, and he was home all during that.  The chair was a pain in the behind since it took up the whole room basically. I really began to hate that chair, and I know Ducky wasn't really thrilled about it.  It made it basically impossible to get int there and take care of the animal cages, so they went a lot longer between cleanings than they should have. All in all, not a good time.  But THEN the Christmas tree was taken down, and I realized the open space where we'd put the tree in the living room was the perfect place for that green recliner right next to our other brown one.  So I had Christopher move it there, and it's perfect! Kind of like Archie and Edith Bunker with our own chairs to watch TV. Fortunately, if someone is on the couch across the room, they can still see the TV over our heads. And it's easy enough to turn both recliners to face the living room if we have company.

I took this to show that the room is clean yay!  But you can see the green recliner behind the dining table.

So, what about my cozy nook under the loft?  Well, in the end I decided to leave the mattresses there.  We have two twin mattresses stacked there.  The bottom one is an old ratty one, but it works great as a sort of box springs for the good mattress on top. Now, I have a true guest bed, and I keep it made with fresh sheets and pretty blankets and tons of pillows... well the spare pillows I can find around the house.  We're pinching our pennies this year to get out of debt so we can buy some land next year, so no more running out to Big Lots or Wal Mart to buy non-essentials.  but I found some cute pillow cases and things, that even though they're mismatched, they still make it comfy and cozy.

It's cuter than this now, but I don't have a more recent pic right now.

I actually don't use it myself as often as I thought I would, mainly because with just 3 of us living here now, and everyone with their own space, the living room is usually empty. My recliner out there is really comfy, and now Xfinity has Netflix included, so I'm usually out there after work or on my days off.

Oh, another thing about my office... it now houses TWO rabbits and a guinea pig.  The farm where we got Carmel had to get rid of their breeding rabbits, and Carmel's dad was actually one of the last ones they couldn't find a home for, so I agreed to foster him.  We were foster failures by that night when Ren had fallen in love with him.  She named him Hercules. He was super skittish since he'd never been a pet before, so after lots of petting and food and full water bottles and letting him out to run around the room, he learned to relax and now is known to binky high into the air and flop over flat on his side to sleep.  He's a friendly, happy bunny now.

I know he looks dead, but actually he's just totally relaxed.

Of course with them both being male and unaltered, they can't be out at the same time or they'll attack each other.  But Carmel will get fixed as soon as we can afford it.  Basil, the guinea pig was in Ren's room, but she doesn't really spend a lot of time in there, so Basil was alone and in the dark quite often and she was depressed.  So we moved her in here, so she sits right next to my desk, so she seems me when I'm at work 4 nights a week, and she gets quite a bit more attention now. She also gets to run around the office now and then.

So, what else is new?  Well, let's see...  Rhiannon has managed to make it so that she can graduate a semester early from college! I'm not sure if that saves her any money, but it gives her a lot more work to do in less time. Her college requires a senior thesis, so she's been working on that.  She's an English major and will get her masters in Library science. Pretty much an awesome career, really. Her husband is being deployed soon, so she'll be with us all of this coming summer again. It'll be the last summer we have with her.  He's planning on not staying in the Army, and will be going to college while she gets her masters.  But it looks like they'll be staying here in this town, so yay!

Faelyn is in her second semester in college as a Biology major. She's been getting through her core classes which can be rough.  She hates chemistry, but thrives in biology classes.  I don't understand why those two sciences are so different to her, but they are. She's got a sweet room mate from Vietnam who came home with her on fall break and made home made pho for us.  OMG it was so good!

Ducky is into his Sophomore year now, having started in the spring last year. He's president of 2 or 3 clubs and even started his own LGBTQ club. He works with the SGA and plans on running for student government in the Fall. He's really passionate about the causes he's involved in and politics.

Ren is doing well.  Pretty typical middle school drama almost every day.  They can't wait til they're in high school. Everyone tells them that the city high school is so much more open and accepting. It better be.  The number of non-straight and non-cisgender kids in their grade is really high. So, at least they're not alone, really.

Christopher is still doing alright.  Doctors continue to give a good bill of health though they fuss at him for his weight. He told me he wants to look for land out near his store, so I guess he doesn't plan on transferring to a closer store. I actually don't mind.  It's beautiful out there and a lot closer to the lake! That's a couple of years (or more) off though.  We're not sure if we want to wait until Ren graduates highschool, and just save more money for the perfect piece of land, or maybe go ahead and get land and move and let her drive to school.  Depending on where we live, it could be a 40+ minute drive though, and with Chorus stuff also going on.  It might be best to just wait.  No sense in rushing it.  We'll find our little piece of the country eventually.

As for me, I'm feeling pretty great really. I've found Planner Peace finally, which at one time I thought was never possible. I use one of the Recollections EC knockoff vertical planners and print off free printables people post for personal use, and it just costs me some ink and sticker paper. Then for my daily stuff, I use my new official Bullet Journal Leuchtturm1917 . I've been pretty good about getting stuff on my to-do list done, and a lot of it has just become habit.  I've started keeping a sink full of hot soapy water and set dishes to soak as soon as they are done being used. Several times through the evening (since I work from home, I do this on my breaks and lunch), I'll take the scrub brush that came with my dishdrainer kit and wipe off or lightly scrub off anything that didn't come right off with running under water, then put it into the dishwasher.  Since I've been doing this, my dishes all come out sparkling clean, and there's no more disgusting stuff stuck in my dishwasher sprayers.  OMG this past Christmas vacation, it was so SO gross. Since there's just 3 of us, it can usually sit there getting a few dishes at a time and then run it every couple of days.  When we have family dinner night, I'll run it after dinner and put it all away later that night. It's funny that that one thing has made such a change in my daily life! I no longer get upset about the kids not putting the dishes away or finding dirty dishes in the cabinet. I don't have to rewash something 3 or 4 times before finally washing it by hand.  It doesn't stick when you open the dishwasher anymore.  Dishes don't pile up in the kitchen at all anymore.  They do go into the soapy water, but that's okay, that makes me happy, it doesn't upset me to see it, as opposed to stacks of dirty dishes full of food sitting around the counters.

Due to all this happiness about the dishes, it's spread to the rest of the kitchen.  I'm keeping it clean!

Don't mind the green bowl and bag of brown sugar next to my bulldog cookie jar. That's the stuff that'll go back in my canisters. I decided to wash my canisters since I was gonna run the dishwasher and it wasn't full.

I got that great new spinner mop bucket by O Cedar.  OMG that thing is AHHMAZING! I got myself a nice straw broom at a local store and it's great too. I also use the Flylady dustmop.  I got the regular mophead attachments too, but since I got the spin mop, I just use the Flylady mophandle with the dustmop attachment and I run that over the living room floors once a night since we have a long haired dog and 2 long haired cats. It picks up so much stuff each night! And to think not long ago,.. I'd go weeks without even sweeping my floor.  I refused to walk on my floors barefoot! It was bad y'all.  It was a dark time, and I am SO glad to be out of it.  I have 2 cats that are not very good at keeping their butts in the litter box, and it's been an ongoing issue. One of them just prefers going next to it.  I know, gross. But nowadays, I'll clean it up immediately and then when I get off work, I'll mop the whole floor while everyone is asleep so I don't have to worry about people walking on it. I really do love my mop. I am praying these new tools and habits I'm working on allow me to stay like this.  I've prayed and prayed about it, and I think these tools and the habits are seriously the answer I've looked for.

But not only them, but also motivation!  Is it weird to think God led me to a YouTube channel?  Y'all probably think I'm nuts, and that's okay  (long time readers are already convinced, amirite?), but the thing that's helped me so so much has been watching "She's in Her Apron" on YouTube.  Especially her Motivational Mondays, but really any of them are inspiring. Kimmy is so real and funny.  I've started watching others too, like Clutterbug and Do it On a Dime, etc. They're so great. Kimmy especially makes me want to just get up and go do something. I'll just pause the video and go do something for a while and come back and watch more.   Y'all, my laundry is all caught up!  I only have to do it twice a week.  I even have been washing my bathroom rugs weekly (mainly so I'd have some laundry to do, CRAZY right?)  The other night, it was slow at work, so I brought all the mismatched socks into my office in a basket and matched them up and purged a ton of ones I swear are 20+ years old. I've even moved furniture in order to sweep and mop under it and wash down the walls behind it!  WHAT? Y'all there is no dust on my ceiling fan!  It's usually scary to look at when it's not moving. I'm not joking. But I've been dusting it like once a week, not just when dust bunnies start flying out from it. These are all things I've been inspired to do from watching these videos. What's even cooler is a lot of these things have turned into habits and weekly routine things I just find myself doing. If they aren't a daily habit, I usually just do them because I don't have all of the other stuff to do anymore .. like I do longer have to constantly be rebooting laundry.  Seriously it's down to maybe 2 or 3 nights a week, and I just fold and hang stuff as I take it out of the dryer and just go put it away.  I was sick of not being able to easily get to my closet so I purged a ton of clutter out of there.  There used to be a path to the bathroom!  Now it's wide open and you can actually use the recumbent bike! So, now it's easy to put my clothes away, so I just do it.

I know it needs to be vacuumed, that's on my list.  I can't just vacuum when I get off work since everyone's asleep, so it's not done as often as everything else. (This is just half the room, Christopher was in bed so I didn't show that half.)

I think the biggest change in myself is I am no longer doing all of these things with a sense or martyrdom.  Boy, I was the queen of that for YEEEAARRRSSSS! Now, I do it all because I love making our home nice and keeping it in good condition for my family and myself. I had been worried a couple of weeks ago when all my kids come in for the weekend to attend a memorial service for a friend.  They had stuff EVERYWHERE.  (They're still living like we all used to.  Their dorm rooms are scary.)  So, that chaos coming back into my house, it worried me that it would undo everything I'd done and make me back into the monstermom I used to be about stuff like that...  but it didn't.  I let them keep their stuff where it was easiest for them to access it for the few days they were here, even if it meant giving up a recliner.  But they were good about putting it in their room when company came over. The night before they went back to their colleges, the living room was a disaster.  We'd had an early birthday party for one of them and bags and boxes and wrapping paper was everywhere.  Dishes, cups, luggage, candy wrappers, all sorts of stuff, everywhere.  In the past, this would have triggered a melt down, or turned me back into the "don't see the mess, don't care" side of me (the side I never want to see again)... but instead, I put on my apron, got a trash bag and tackled it.  I got rid of the trash, took care of the dishes, went through the gift bags and boxes and sorted each kid's stuff into separate areas. So in the morning, when they got up and I was still sleeping, they came out to a clean living room and all of their things stacked neatly and ready to be packed up and taken to the car. They never mentioned it to me, but I know it was a blessing to them, and it makes me happy.

I've been tracking my mood in my bullet journal and I've had a really long run of good, productive and satisfying days.  I have a few lazy or lethargic days now and then, but they're okay.  The house is clean and the other 2 folks here seem to know what needs to be done now.  They put their dishes in the soapy water.  They don't leave things sitting around. Laundry can wait a whole week if it has to. No stress.  I can take a day or two off from all of it, and it'll be okay. That is a beautiful feeling.


Hope y'all are doing well! I don't get to as many blogs as I used to anymore, but with work being slower these days, hopefully I'll get back to them. I decided vlogging wasn't for me, so I'm just gonna do the blog. Less stress anyway.


Have a great one!
Patty