Earth Day and Plastic Anxiety: Bad News and Practical Baby Steps

22
Apr

As if we do not have enough to be concerned about right now in our collective Coronoavirus lives, I’m here to be your unhappy little elf who comes around at night dropping wet tissues and bad news under your pillow.

I missed the memo

Did you know that…

Only like 10% of the plastics we’ve sent to be recycled have even been recycled SINCE THE 1980’s!!?
Remember how recycling plastic started getting traction when there was more plastic starting to be used? Guess who started the campaign to get people to recycle their plastics? The plastic industry.
The Twist: The plastic industry started touting plastic recycling programs so that people would be willing to use more plastic, all the while knowing that plastic couldn’t succesfully be recycled in the quantities the industry would generate.

I am not playing around; this information stopped me in my tracks and hung over my head for the next few days. You can read the main face-slapping article here. The Environmental Protection Agency has a report that details the generation of plastics along with the recycling, combustion, and composting (haha) of plastics through 2017. [Don’t forget that the EPA director just prior to the current director Andrew Wheeler was Scott Pruitt, who Tr$mp appointed and who was a former coal lobbyist and had to resign due to questionable ethics. Dicey.] One of the charts shows that 75% of plastics go to landfills, and 8% go to recycling; however, if the stuff that goes to recycling doesn’t even get recycled, that means that 83% of all the plastics generated in 2017 went to landfills. The other 17% was BURNED (with energy caputured supposedly but still, it was burned, which emits toxic chemicals into the atmosphere).

The BBC did a report that detailed the benefits and detriments of burning plastics or putting them in landfills. No great options there. We’ve been able to turn a blind eye to this problem because we shipped our plastic recyclables to China for years until in 2018 they decided they were no longer going to take care of our problem for us. So finally it’s caught up to us and we have to actually address the problem of what to do with our plastics.

How did I miss this information? It wasn’t because I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve been a dilligent recycler for years. Maybe everyone else already knew the current situation with the amount of plastic that is not recycled even though we put it in the recycling bin and it gets picked up every other week?? I certainly didn’t know the depressing specifics, but maybe others did and that’s why there’s the proposed Green New Deal and (I’m not equating these two, just giving examples) folks who knit all their own clothes and live off-grid who are willing to go extremes to get in the way of industries who are hell-bent on ignoring the impact of their actions. It might be the only way to get the attention of the general public who, like me until recently, genuinely think they’re doing their part by washing their plastic yogurt containers and putting them in the recycling can.

What the heck can we do about it?

Becoming aware of our dependence on plastic is a really important first step. When we stop and pay attention we quickly realize so much stuff comes in plastic in one form or another, either the item itself or the packaging it’s sold inside, we will realize it’s ev-ery-where. So.much.plastic.

The step that follows soon after is to ask what to do if you want to not only recycle less plastic (since *gulp* it might not even be getting recycled anyway) but use less plastic.

For example, there’s been a movement lately to use fewer plastic straws. I’ve noticed some places do not offer a straw unless you request one. Some are moving to paper straws. There are now metal straws you can buy complete with it’s own tiny cleaning brush.

What else?

We are somewhat limited because with the COVID-19 crisis we aren’t allowed to bring reuable bags to any stores, and nobody wants to let us bring in refillable containers for fear of spreading the virus.

It’s great to make our own personal changes, such as moving towards using glass or metal containers, bypassing plastic utinsels, or trying to refill bottles of shampoo by purchasing it in bulk from community co-ops (you can click here to go to a directory of co-ops so you can find one near you). But if we really want to make change, we need to make sure companies and corporations know our consumer preferences/demands. They’ve got lobbyists who are working against legislative bills that would limit plastic packaging, so you know they’ve got a stake in keeping things status quo.

This article puts forth the idea that it’s time for a revolution of dedication to sustainability and social responsiblity — a pretty inspiring type of revolution!

I’m still very new to this so it’s easy for me to get disheartened by my own consumption and culpability. But I love the quote from Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” I think that’s a perfect motto for this new awareness of plastic usage. And on Earth Day, it seems like a perfect motto to help make a start.

[As I find resources I will pass them along. And if you have practical ways you’ve reduced your plastic consumption, please feel free to share your practices here.]

Grout, Panty lines, and Grace

6
Mar

My kitchen grout is disgusting.

When we lived in over seven years ago I knew it was a different color than the tile, and someone mentioned it might need cleaning. In the chaos of getting settled, the kids starting school, and general hubbub of life, I didn’t think about it again for years. YEARS.

My husband noticed it after a while and suggested we should find some cleaner and see what happened. But when we tried a couple cleaners specifically aimed at grout, it stayed the same. So I wrote it off again, deciding that it wasn’t bugging anyone and who cares about grout anyway?

Until now.

I can’t explain why, maybe because we noticed the contrast between the color of the grout in high traffic areas and low traffic areas, but I decided to give it another cursory go,

You guys.

Oh my.

I’ll let the photos explain.

Starting condition

Sprinkle copious amounts of baking soda

Dribble peroxide and let it sit for at least 10 min.

…waiting…

Time to scrub

End result (the shadow is from the phone)

Ok the photos don’t even do it justice. It’s many shades lighter [read: many shades cleaner].

And nobody told me how dirty it was!

How, HOW have people been in my home and allowed me to live this way?! How have you dealt with this blind spot and continued to love me and not make it a big deal? Has it been bothering you this entire time and you were just too gracious to say something?

[NOTE: spurred on by our homemade success, we ended up finding a “professional grade” grout cleaner and let me just say, it’s the only kind that got it cleaner than with the baking powder and vinegar. It worked much fast and with less scrubbing. If you’re in desperate need, you can find it here.]

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On a more personal note — related since I was unaware of this as I was unaware of my grout — last year I discovered that my preferred type of undies make very pronounced panty lines when wearing anything other than a flowy skirt…which I very rarely wear. Which means that’s how I’ve been walking around for a long time.

I mean seriously people, how long have I been an adult and how long has it taken me to notice this? Answer: many many years.

Maybe it’s unimportant, but it’s the principle of the thing. Let me decide that I don’t care, rather than it being decided by neglect.

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Lest you think this is all about simply oversharing or giving you too much information, let me tell you the thing I’ve rediscovered through this process:

We all have areas of our lives where we are unaware the grout is dirty or our pantylines are showing.

It is unavoidable. We are each going to have places where we overstep, where we don’t read the room, when we forget to consider our motivations. These things lead us into territory where we hurt feelings, overstep, and otherwise blunder around, often without knowing it. The people around us are probably offering us grace that we’re not even aware of.

If we’re lucky, we’ll have people in our lives who can gently point it out to us when our dress is hitched up into our pantyhose, we’ve got toilet paper stuck to our shoe, broccoli in our teeth, or when we’ve hurt someone’s feelings or communicated without considering the impact our own limited perspective is having on that point of view.

It’s something I want to pay more attention to. Maybe you do too?

In addition, I want to be more appreciative of those people who are the ones who are the truth-speakers in my life. Most of these folks are the ones I’ve known for a long time; they’re easier to allow access to the more tender parts of myself that I guard. Those longstanding stable relationships are really a gift, something that I don’t want to take for granted. They may not be the people I’d want to see my kitchen grout in its original state (because there’s virtually NOBODY I’d want to see that now that I know how bad it was), but I’d probably trust them if they told me I had broccoli in my teeth.

What areas of your life do you know you need to work to be sensitive to? Who do you have that you’ll allow to reflect back to you the progress (or needed growth) you’re making in those areas? When’s the last time you thanked them for their role in your life?

Parents who work away from home are tough as Nails (in case you’d forgotten)

18
May

The back door to somebody’s workplace.

For all the parents who made umpteen phone calls arranging childcare,

For all the hours spent searching online for reputable organizations and references,

For the extra batteries in the alarm clock, the lunches made the night before, the papers signed, the backpacks packed,

We salute you.

For all the pinch hitting,

For all the brief personal phone calls at work saved up and made in a flurry during a break,

For the favors called in when a child gets sick,

We humbly bow.

For every meeting missed,

For every boundary established,

For every “quick bite to eat with the team after work” sacrificed,

We hear your call.

For the way you prioritize projects at work,

For the art of delegation,

For every lunch taken at your desk,

For your ability to switch gears from employed person to parent of a young child,

We give you props.

We doff our caps to you, sir or ma’am, for you have earned this small gesture of respect.

You work hard at work and at home, and this is no simple task. It involves organization and planning, and

You go get ’em, ’cause you got this…
Like a boss.

There’s something stinky in my Fridge

12
Dec

http://mrg.bz/y096dh

Every time I open my refrigerator, a nasty smell wafts out.

No, this isn’t some strange weight-loss psychological trick. There’s something wrong in there.

Problem is, I thought I had thrown out any old leftovers: the bowl of leftover oatmeal I was sure someone would want to eat later, the steak that was so good I was sure I’d find a dish that would only need the one piece we didn’t use for supper, some random individual serving containers of dipping sauces that came inside the Styrofoam takeout container. All gone.

So why does my fridge still pollute the kitchen any time someone uses it?

I have to look further inside.

I forgot to check the deli drawer, where there was some old cheese and some questionable lunchmeat. (Do other people’s kids only want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their lunches? Do they not get sick of that? Why won’t my kids eat this lunchmeat? I’m not talking about sending them a cold hot dog or some bologna. I mean nicer lunchmeat, fewer preservatives, fresh. I can rarely get them to eat the stuff. I wonder what they’d do if I DID send them a cold hot dog. Probably eat it. Gross.)

This smell problem has gone on for about a week. Two nights ago my husband texted me from home: “This fridge smells nasty!!!” It’s gotten to the point where it’s made me wonder about a dead mouse underneath it, or under a nearby floorboard. We’ve discovered a few likely culprits but not the direct source…

…until today.

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The thing about a deep-rooted stink is that it can sneak up on you. It’s possible for a smell to develop in strength and pungency if left unattended. If you’re around it long enough you can acclimate to it until the only time you notice it is when you’ve been away from it (ever notice the scent of someone else’s home as you arrive and wonder if other people think YOUR house has a smell that you can’t smell?).

How similar this is to our spiritual and interpersonal health.

We can have certain habits or ingrained ways of thinking which can be less than aromatic. This ain’t no sweet scent of incense, people, no offering of praise here. Interact with other people long enough and you’ll discover that, in ourselves and in others, there are some messed up ways of dealing with life. These unhealthy strategies are built up over time, and as they come more solidified, it can be harder to recognize them in ourselves without doing the often hard work of introspection.

Along the same lines, many of us have some unhealthy ways of relating to God. Sometimes we put onto God some of our own junk, or we have decided that He demands certain things from us because we demand them from ourselves or others. Sometimes we assume that our own motivations are also God’s motivations, or we take things from our experience base and use these to inform and determine our view of God.

It can end up being as gross and stinky as what I found way at the back of my refrigerator.

Gross disgusting-ness hidden deep in my fridge

Be glad you can’t smell whatever is featured in the photo above.

All of this makes me wonder if I’ve been coming at many things all wrong.

Maybe I can sit in sadness without having to look for a silver lining or something positive to come out of it.

Maybe I need to take a look at my short attention span and evaluate what areas of my life might benefit from a longer amount of time given for those areas to develop.

Maybe I should think about the things I communicate to my family about my acceptance of their personalities regardless of how similar or dissimilar they are to my own personality and way of relating to the world around me.

Noticing and being mindful of the different way someone else relates can also be useful since it might not occur to me to relate any other way.

Ultimately, in order to know, I have to take a look — take out the deli drawer, the veggie drawer, the fruit drawer, the shelves, the glass out of the shelves — I have to take things apart and inspect them. I might have to take a look at the habits I’ve formed, the opinions I hold, the knee-jerk reactions I have. I might have to evaluate how well those are serving me, if they need tidying up, if they might (in some circumstances) need to be tossed out.

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In the end, it took warm water, soap, a washcloth, lots of scrubbing, and scraping with a butter knife to get rid of the stinky, sticky ooze in my refrigerator. I never did identify exactly what it was. But in the process of getting down to the source of the smell, I cleaned out many other areas of my fridge (no, I did NOT wipe down every single inch of the fridge. Another of my tragic personality flaws, I’m afraid). I learned things about my fridge that I never knew before. And I learned things I should be mindful of in the future.

As I apply these same strategies into the realm of personal and spiritual development, my hope is that it will strengthen my relationships and ability to interact with the world around me. Maybe then I’ll smell of more of a fragrant offering and less of bad habits or unhelpful ways of thinking.

How about you? How do you smell these days — er — in other words, do you have areas of your life that could use some attending to or tidying up? How do you address things in your life that may be less than beneficial to you or the people around you?

An Involuntary Slowdown

19
May

Night games at camp for at least ten years.

Daytime games at camp that they eventually banned because of the dangerous conditions which always led to injuries…of other people.

Season after season of gymnastics’ four events.

“Rambo runs” in the woods over uneven terrain.

Sledding, waterskiing, snowboarding, biking.

All these things and more I have lived through, and never once have I been injured.

Put me out in my yard this weekend, however, and let me drag a tarp filled with leaves from the oak tree. Let me have children to love to dig holes. Let one of these small holes be dug directly in my path, let the wind cover said hole with the leaves I’m trying to clean up, then let me walk right into this hole.

All of that adds up to this:

Instagram: tclmn

When it happened, just before I fell to the ground, I heard the “scritch” of something in my ankle bending a way the good Lord did not intend.

Get a load of this, though. As I lay there on the ground, I had a moment. It was one of those weird “moments in time” when all of a sudden you notice the sound of the wind in the tops of the trees, the sound of the leaves rustling, the number of birds flitting around in the swamp beyond the wire fence. And it made me wonder, how many of us chug along through life and never realize how much of it we’re missing?

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I’m not here to point fingers. I’m just as oblivious as the next guy. We walk around with miracles blooming around and in us, and barely register the wonder of it.

Think of the last time you had a terrible head cold. You were miserable, uncomfortable, couldn’t taste, couldn’t swallow, your head aching and your whole body one gigantic exposed nerve. Very soon after you were done feeling awful, you were appreciative of each breath you were able to take through your nostril, the way you could lay on a sheet and not feel every cottony fiber of it scrape against your skin.

If we stop to appreciate every single wonder we encounter in our day, we won’t be able to make it very far in our schedules. There’s definitely a limit for how micro and how macro we are able to focus. As an every day rule, there isn’t time allotted to “stop and smell the roses” of every single rose. In appreciating the warmth and wonder of a candle with its flickering light, we allow dinner to burn, kids to run amuck, bathtub to overflow. Reports will go unfiled, appointments will be missed. We can’t dance that close to the flame for long, or it will consume us.

We can all do a better job of noticing, though. As Gerald Manley Hopkins wrote in one of my most favorite poems of all time, that “the world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.” (This is from his poem, God’s Grandeur.) Sometimes it takes a sprained ankle to slow us down long enough to pay attention.

http://mrg.bz/tNCzHm

What things around you do you appreciate today? Even though it’s Monday, there are definitely things to be thankful for. Let’s remind one another by calling them out. Ready set go.

Decorating the table for Thanksgiving

14
Nov

Thanksgiving is the start of the “holiday season” and is a fun opportunity to embrace fall. It also is the last chance to live it up before winter and all things winter-wonderland start invading every orifice of your existence. Even your morning cornflakes become winterized after Thanksgiving, which is just silly because who wants to eat breakfast cereal that’s either glittery, icy or striped with green and red? Bleh!

What’s that you say? It’s almost time for Thanksgiving?

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, since the primary activity is eating we naturally began to think about setting the table. My sister and I wanted to set a table that was:

welcoming and practical
beautiful
wouldn’t require us to purchase a whole new set of anything.

We’re big on using what you already have. Many times if you combine things with something different or in new ways, that’s all it takes. It can be helpful to have someone else look at what you have, since you’re used to it and might have a hard time envisioning it being used any other way.

Here’s a colorful first attempt that obviously DOES NOT work at all:

In this photo, some things to avoid are:

Overfilling the table
Centerpiece that’s too tall
Table cloth that’s too small for the table – commit to a table runner, a full table cloth, or even both but a too small table cloth looks like you threw it on the table at the last minute.
Turkey hunting decoy

Other things to avoid:

Flowers or candles with a strong (or any) scent
Too many colors all at once or just random extra stuff that doesn’t serve a purpose

In the next photo we’re making some progress…

Because we used a mix of glassware and ceramics, the result is disjointed and haphazard. Even though the flowers are pretty, they don’t really make sense just plopped on the table, and would be better used on a sideboard or hearth.

Things to go for:

Fresh flowers, even just a few
Low centerpiece so people can see one another across the table
Handmade items or items with significance
Candles are an inexpensive way to create a warm and welcoming glow
Varying heights as long as they’re not too tall.
Taller items should be narrow so they don’t obstruct people sight line.
Unified color scheme

Here’s our final attempt:

Again, we tried to use what we had already. We also wanted to leave room for plates of food to rest on the table (who wants to have to get up every time someone wants another roll?). Even though we really wanted to use the flowers, we had to find a home for them somewhere else. By removing those along with some of the extras, the pretty table cloth becomes the focal point. There’s room for people to be able to navigate their plates without knocking over decorations. When the candles are lit and the lights dimmed, the result is warm and festive. Imagine a platter on the table, and the seats filled with family and friends, and you’ve got yourself a beautiful Thanksgiving experience.

We hearby announce the table is ready.

These are simple ideas we’ve figured out by trial and error. Do you have suggestions people should consider as they prepare to host a holiday event? Any real life lessons of what to avoid?

My Sister made me clean out my Makeup (and I didn’t like It)

21
Oct

Do you have a hobby? Maybe you like to scrapbook or maybe you’re a duck hunter? Maybe you collect vintage cigar boxes or propagate orchids.

I have varied interests but there is one thing that seems to have risen to the top of my list:

The quest for the perfect lipstick.

I realize that by admitting this I may have immediately lost some of the points on my feminist leaderboard,

And it gets worse.

What started off as a quest for the perfect lipstick has expanded.

It has grown in size and scope.

Now rather than simply looking for a nice, longwearing, subtle shade that compliments my skin tone,

I’ve started looking for other makeup products that can give me the same buzz as finding a candidate for the perfect lipstick.

This isn’t all of it.

I know. It’s a problem.

In my defense, the photo you’ll see below represents ALL the makeup I own. Can you wear the same stuff in the dead of a Minnesota winter that you wear in the middle of a humid, sunny summer? I think not. Therefore, in my defense, it looks worse than it really is. I think.

My sister was so flabbergasted to discover the depths of my storehouses that she insisted we go through it together and clean out what I didn’t use anymore.

“What?” I said.

“Let’s get rid of the stuff you don’t need,” she suggested.

“What?” I said.

“Come on, bring it out here,” she bullied.

And that’s when I discovered that perhaps I have a little more than is reasonable to hang on to. Observe:

She’s sad and amazed…so is my niece.

Yes, a couple of those bags are empty, but at least one of them is filled to the gills.

In sorting through it all, we discovered that I had 16 eyeliners. 16. Some were worn down to the nub and needed to go. A couple of them were extremely similar in color…like almost exactly alike. So she made me get rid of those.

She’s bossy like that.

While we went through it I came to the conclusion that I like concealer and blush, a lot. In my defense, I have chronic dark undereye circles (and apparently I have bags too although I did not know about this problem until a peppy, unrepentant girl at a sales counter informed me of this ailment. ‘Come out from behind the safety of that counter and tell me that,’ I thought.) that take some attention and sometimes multiple products are the only way to make a dent.

That still doesn’t justify how many concealers I had.

There was some negotiating, some finagling on my part to make my sister see the merits of certain products.

You see, Rae is a minimalist.

Seriously.

She hardly bothers with makeup at all, and when she does she’s got five things to choose from in her tiny makeup bag.

I think I gave her four of those five items.

Therefore, Rae cannot grasp the necessity of two different types of bronzers.

“All you need is one,” she claims, as if she’d know.

And when I explain what a primer is, she has a look on her face that is both confused and longsuffering.

“How many mascaras does one person need?” She shifts subjects to keep me off balance, thinking I won’t notice that she just threw away the primer we were discussing. I’m wise to her tactics and while she’s helping my niece put on a string of pop-beads I fish out the primer from her “throw away” bag.

In the end, we got rid of a lot. It may not look like it in the picture, but this is now my entire arsenal of makeup, all seasons of the year represented:

She got rid of a couple more things after we took this picture (but I snuck them back into my bag when she wasn’t looking).

Rae asked me how I felt once we had completed the job. And I have to admit, it did feel good to clear out all the broken, worn out, bad color pieces from the collection. I gave my niece a couple things to play with, thus securing my spot as Best Auntie for the day. I felt lighter, more in control of my stuff rather than the other way around.

In truth, it bothered me to see how much money I had invested over time.

Maybe that was what made it hard to get rid of any of it — I knew I had paid money for it so I needed to justify it by keeping it…

Kindof backwards logic when you spell it out, huh?

In the future, I plan to keep better track of what I have, in order to spare myself the trouble of storing things I hardly even use, along with freeing up space in my mind and budget. And if I need to get rid of a couple things, I’ll probably pass them on to Rae. Lawd knows she has room in her makeup bag.

Do you have a quest for a perfect item, be it jeans, jacket, haircut or lipstick? How do you keep it in check? What do you stockpile that you could do without (or do with less)?

Five Minute Friday: Laundry

18
Oct

How could I NOT do Five Minute Friday with a word prompt of “laundry”? I have deep and abiding opinions about laundry, about the amount of laundry, the merits of wrinkle-free materials and the smelly allergy-triggers of strongly scented detergent.

When I saw the prompt, I knew I’d be doing Five Minute Friday this week. In case you’re not familiar with it, Five Minute Friday is a fun linkup with Lisa-jo Baker. She puts up a word prompt each week and the instructions are to just go for it. Don’t edit. Don’t get locked up. Don’t over-think it, just have fun and write whatever comes to mind in five minutes. Then linkup your post with others on her site: http://lisajobaker.com It is open to anyone who wants to participate. Maybe you want to try it out?

Ready?

Set?

Go!

“A little lifting up of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, an interior act of adoration, even though made on the march and with sword in hand, are prayers which, short though they may be, are nevertheless very pleasing to God, and far from making a soldier lose his courage on the most dangerous occasions, bolster it. Let him then think of God as much as possible so that he will gradually become accustomed to this little but holy exercise; no one will notice it and nothing is easier than to repeat often during the day these little acts of interior adoration.”

― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

For many years now, laundry has been a frequent chore, a nearly every day occurance.

I don’t love laundry.

But I now longer hate it.

Many years ago I tried to shift my attitude about laundry.

My husband needed clean socks, and had none because I hadn’t done the laundry.

“Wash your own darn socks,” I thought.

We had already established a sharing of household chores and laundry fell to me. It wasn’t that he was incapable or unwilling to wash his own socks. We had agreed that I would do it.

In that period, I came to realize how nice it was for him to go to his drawer as he prepared for his day, and find clean socks.

Rainbow striped toe socks worn with thong sandals (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A little thing, really.

But the reason behind the socks changed,

because I changed.

I started viewing the laundry as an unspoken act of love.

I washed the socks, dried, folded and put away the socks because I love my husband.

Socks are my little love note left in his drawer every day.

The change came when I started to think of every little thing I did as being significant and tried “doing it all as unto the Lord” like the Bible suggests. Brother Lawrence also helped. Maybe worshipping God isn’t as hard as we try to make it.

“He does not ask much of us, merely a thought of Him from time to time, a little act of adoration, sometimes to ask for His grace, sometimes to offer Him your sufferings, at other times to thank Him for the graces, past and present, He has bestowed on you, in the midst of your troubles to take solace in Him as often as you can. Lift up your heart to Him during your meals and in company; the least little remembrance will always be the most pleasing to Him. One need not cry out very loudly; He is nearer to us than we think.”
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

STOP.

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome — I think that by sharing, we can help each other along in our journeys. How can you be aware of God’s presence as you go about the seemingly mundane things on your to-do list today? Is being aware of God’s presence something that comes naturally to you or does it take work? I hope you have an extra awareness of Him walking alongside you as you go about your day.

Getting Organized at Home, Final Part 3

16
Oct

We’ve talked about getting organized and tailoring your routines to match your needs. We’ve talked about tackling the things that bug you and working in small chunks of time. I’ve got one more realization to share with you, but before we get to that, I did a little investigative documentation yesterday.

After the kids got on the bus, I timed myself doing my normal routines. The one difference was that I stayed on task (not something I do easily) and did the chore uninterruptedly from start to finish. Here are my results:

Make bed and clean up bathroom (wiped down the sinks, mirrors and toilet, changed the hand towels) = 10 minutes

Empty the dishwasher = 5 minutes

Load the dishwasher = 5 minutes

Tidy up living room/dining room and vacuum both = 10 minutes

Putting away miscellaneous papers, clothes, books and stuff = 5 minutes

All these tasks added up to a total of 35 minutes.

35 minutes.

That’s it.

That’s when I force myself not to get distracted from one job by another job, when I force myself to not dwell on the old greeting card I just found in a stack of papers I was sorting (just as an example).

35 minutes, and my house is a place in which I can sit or invite someone over without being annoyed or embarrassed by the tasks that need doing.

When you break it down, it isn’t quite as daunting anymore.

Organizing Your Meals

I had another area that took me a long time to adjust: meal preparation. When you’re a couple, you have flexibility and the capability to fend for yourselves when necessary.

When you’ve got children, they depend on your to feed them.

It should be obvious, I know, but it took me a long time to catch on to.

For a long time, when dinner rolled around it caught me off guard. I mean, didn’t these children just have a snack an hour ago? How can they possibly be hungry? For them to expect dinner seemed so unreasonable. In reaction, we’d run out and get fast food, or we’d try and go to a “sit-down” restaurant (because at all the other restaurants you’re forced to stand??). We’d end up stressed out from trying to contain impatient, hungry toddlers, or we’d be stressed because we spent too much money on eating out.

Not a winning situation.

meal planning (Photo credit: LizMarie_AK)

When I finally realized that these people, however unreasonable, were going to want to eat EVERY DAY, we made a couple changes.

1. I joined a meal co-op.

The meal co-op was a fun idea that worked well for a while. I won’t go into great detail here, but it was a group of moms who delivered hot meals to one another.

2. I froze meals.

Freezing meals worked wonders for us. For example, we weren’t at a point where we could eat an entire 9×13 pan of lasagna. By preparing it in two smaller dishes and freezing one of them, we got two meals out of the deal. I found a fantastic book that had recipes that my family enjoyed and didn’t require a lot of exotic ingredients. It is still a go-to cookbook for me, and I recommend it to anyone, even just as a good general entrée cookbook. http://amzn.to/18lWh4I

3. I stocked up supplies for quick dinners.

Everyone has times when they just don’t feel like cooking, but eating out is expensive and not particularly healthy. We started keeping on-hand supplies for quesadillas and refried beans, soup and sandwiches, or taco salads. These don’t take much work, and my kids will eat them. It saved us stress, time and money.

4. If there was something I knew we needed regularly, rather than buying one I bought two.

For a long time I bought only what we’d need once we were almost out of it, and didn’t think ahead to when we’d need it again. Sometimes this was because it was cost prohibitive for me to buy ahead, but sometimes it was just a lack of planning. As we got more established, and I got better at managing our home expenses, it saved us trips to the store which in turn saved us money since we weren’t picking up all those little extras that end up in the cart when you shop with three children.

There you have it.

Getting our meals organized has made our supper times much more enjoyable. There are many tools out there to help you plan your meals, even planning out a couple weeks in advance, so I won’t offer those here. However, I do think that having a plan cuts down on the hunger induced crabbiness and anger that can well up when everyone wants food and no one knows what to do about dinner. It can also help the main chef in the house share the work of cooking. When there’s a plan, the chef can point out things others can do to help out.

I hope this series has been helpful. It comes from learning it slowly over time, the hard way.

My goal for structure is to get things done and thus free me up to have adventures and fun everyday, investing in friendships and relationships. Rather than rigid schedules or routines, these little helpers are there to serve you and keep things working smoothly in your home so it can be a place people (including the people who live there) can be welcomed and valued.

I’m always on the lookout for other ideas to make things easier around family life. If you’ve got any favorite routines or tips, please share them with the rest of us! And as always, thank you so much for reading.

Getting Organized at Home, Part 2

10
Oct

laundry (Photo credit: bies)

I think this is going to be a three part series, just like a good sermon, right? But my main points aren’t all going to start with the same letter. You’ll just have to find another way to remember them.

This month I had a revelation.

Some of you are really smart and have already known this thing for years. It was such an unspoken assumption that you never thought to mention it to me. But it really was a new thought in my head.

Wanna hear it?

My revelation is simple.

It dawned on me as I was emptying the dishwasher that I will have to do this EVERY DAY.

Whaaaat??!

Yes. It is no longer a once every couple days type of thing. It is an every day activity.

The same goes for laundry (well, almost every day).

The same goes for dinner.

These things must happen every single day.

When my family consisted only of me and my husband, we could go days before the dishwasher would be full enough to justify running it. Laundry was only as needed, maybe once or twice a week. We could whip up meals easily and in a pinch we could scrounge a series of snacks and call it good.

Not so once you have a bigger family.

These people want to eat all the time.

And they must be forced to wear clean clothes or, if you’re not watching, they’ll wear the same thing four days in a row and two of those days there was mud adventures and coloring time with sidewalk chalk and markers.

Plus they can’t do much of the heavy lifting chores themselves. That will change but for now, it mainly fall to the person who stays at home with this wild crew.

And that’s me.

Everyday Flexible Routines

Part of my problem is that I don’t love routines.

Traditionally they’ve made me feel confined and limited, bossed around, if you will.

Dishwasher, open and loaded with dishes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But as I’ve tried to wrap my head around the necessity of routines, I’ve realized they also free me up to be able to keep one step ahead of the other people in my house.

If I keep up on the laundry, then nobody is bugging me for clean socks two minutes before the bus arrives.

If I make sure the dishwasher is emptied (by me or the child who is assigned that duty) then everyone else can more easily put their dirty dishes INTO said dishwasher.

If I maintain a rough routine, it allows me space to schedule all kinds of other things because I know the bare bones have been taken care of.

Here is an example of the everyday tasks I’ve admitted need to be done every day:

Run a load of laundry, including folding and putting away (some days it doesn’t get put away but at least it is folded and clean).
Unload dishwasher. If there are any dishes left in sink that didn’t make it in before I washed it, load ’em up.
Make the stupid bed.
Wipe down bathroom sink and make sure clothes and other items aren’t left in there.

See? That’s not so bad. Some of these routines only take a minute but they contribute to a sense of order and cleanliness. (Dorky word choice but dontcha just feel better knowing that you’re not going to get a glob of toothpaste on your hand when you turn on the faucet in the bathroom? That’s the power of cleanliness)

Tackle What Bugs You

My list probably won’t look the same as yours.

For example, it makes me crazy to leave our bed unmade. In my head, it makes my entire room look like a disaster, and maybe it is, but the unmade bed just accentuates that fact.

But that’s my thing, and it may not be yours.

Other people need to vacuum every day, or change the sheets daily. This seems like overkill to me, but if that’s what helps you keep your ship afloat, you should do it.

Some people are highly sensitive to crumbs and must sweep all floors in order to be assured the five second rule (you know the one where you’re eating something and it fall s on the floor? You’ve got five seconds to pick it up before it is officially dirty) can be safely and confidently implemented.

Whatever your thing, be it mail, garbage, a pristine refrigerator crisper drawer, go ahead and make it part of your routine, but I would encourage you to only include the things that really create a hitch in your day if left undone. Most people can get by without washing their windows every day, but it is harder to ignore the food demands of a family. See the difference?

You’re the Boss of Your Routine

If you start to teeter into being unable to leave something undone, or if you’re habitually late because you can’t leave your house until you lock and relock the doors five times each, then you may need to step back and re-evaluate the role of routine. Is it helping you or is it controlling you? Remember,

You’re the boss of your routine, and it exists to serve your purposes, not vice versa.

The goal of organizing the home is to develop an atmosphere of hospitality, peace and security. A messy jumble of a house might be fun for a while, but it soon it starts to feel cluttered, stressful and unwelcoming. There’s a balance to be found — organized but not rigid, tidy but not sterile. Take a little time, look around your home, and figure out what things might need a little more daily attention and they’ll be so much more manageable for you. You can do it, and then put your feet up and reward yourself with a good book, knowing that you’re creating a home you’d want to live in!

You offered some helpful insights after the last post, and I would love to hear some other things that work for you to stay on top of the business of running your home. Let’s help one another.

TC Larson

Stories and Mischief