Boxing Up Christmas

I really think I put up my Christmas decorations too early this year -- as in the day after Thanksgiving. Next year I'll push myself to wait.

Advent is about waiting, and I really could have used that time before Advent to remain Christmas-free so I wasn't itching to put everything away now, when it's actually still Christmas!

The 12 days of Christmas begin on December 25, and they end on January 6 with Epiphany (or Three Kings Day). We celebrate that in our house, so it feels a little wrong to have put away all the Christmas decorations before that finale. So I wait.

But oh, the nester in me would like to get started with the boxing and the wrapping next year's Advent books. I'd like to clean and organize and start other preparations for our 2016 changes. But my waiting continues.

I'm trying to enjoy the lights and decorations a little longer. I have done a few organizational things unrelated to Christmas stuff, and I've got quite a pile of wrapping-for-next-year, my Xmas books and other bits and bobs started in our bedroom as a staging area, waiting for when I do get the boxes and really start putting things away.

Even after I complete my Christmas boxing there is more to do. Closets to organize, furniture to move, etc. It's quite daunting no matter what, and I probably have another somewhat big job starting in January that will take up a lot of my child-free time.

How long do you leave up your holiday decorations? Do you think I'm being crazy for waiting to put mine away?

Cleaner

I've started trying to keep the house clean using a calendar/task schedule -- modified from this one that I saw on Pinterest (I swear I don't spend much time on that site!). I made mine in Word using my wedding font and swirl graphic (what a nerd).

As to cleaning, I don't do things perfectly, but I am getting into some kind of rhythm of doing each daily chore without too much self-whining. There's still some, but I love checking things off lists, so this is appealing to me.

BUT things broke down last Wednesday when I fell sick. As in stomach-bug-can't-move-fevers-and-chills sick.

Oh, and Shawn was out of town.

Luckily a good friend helped me by bringing 7up -- I am a weirdo, but that's all I wanted. Some 7up and my couch ... riding out the sickness.

But oh yeah, I still had to take care of Jane.

Thankfully she was not sick, but she gave me a break by playing a lot on her own, reading her books -- or bringing them to me while I splayed on the couch, and we took several naps together while we waited for Shawn to get home from his trip.

Somehow we made it, and although Jane got a little bit of the sickness on Friday (without ever skipping a beat and remaining her happy self), and Shawn got as sick as I was on Sunday we are all healthy today.

BUT my inlaws came to town the day after Shawn got home. And yep, my father-in-law got sick too.

My mother-in-law has the best constitution of us all, as she didn't even get a single chill. (Her preventive measure: Rolaids, so who knows.)

Basically, with the sickness and then family in town I got a little behind on my chore list. Try a LOT behind.

So today, after my inlaws got on the road, I got Jane down for a nap and got to work -- trying to deep clean the bathrooms especially and in general catching up on the backlog of chores.

I've pretty much got everything done, including fresh sheets in the guest room and clean towels in the guest bathroom, just in time for my mom and sister and Owen to come for a visit!

Basically this full day of cleaning makes me appreciate the bite-size approach of the cleaning calendar and hope I can keep it up and have some semblance of a tidy home. (Just look away from the overflowing laundry basket of toys...)

One of my chores is to pick up this mess every night -- I do it almost every night.

Hail the Presidents

What did you do today?

Today I attempted to be a housewife, a given since I was home alone while the hubs was at work. Federal holidays are fun!

Anyway, I made five meals for the week -- onion soup, enchilada casserole, chicken and onion bake, hamburgers, a salad w/ mini burgers. I also went to Target because I could! I made myself fly in and out for the few things we needed, avoiding the clothing sale racks.

I'll never be a worthy stay-at-home spouse, but man it's fun for a day here and there. And that plays into some blog posts I've been meaning to write about.

They're both several weeks old. Once is a Slate article about Mormon housewife blogs and the (non-Mormon) writer's addiction to them. These blogs are an extension of scrapbooking and documenting a family's life. And they present a perfect stylized life.

There are lots of other blogs like that, with and without religious overtones, and I like reading things like that, even if they sometimes make me feel bad through jealousy. Another blog (Those Hardings) wrote about that and how she tries to avoid comparisons. The comments on her post are really good, and I actually found the post via That Wife (a Mormon blog that I probably found via the Slate article in the first place).

It's unlikely I'll ever change my blog reading habits to avoid anything that might make me want to compare my life to another blogger's. And I'll continue to write about only the best parts of things and try not to reveal the girl behind the curtain, if you know what I mean.

The rest of my President's Day involves continuing to watch DVR'ed House episodes in advance of tonight's new episode. I already worked out so I can relax until dinner.

Boxes Boxes Everywhere

My boxes are actually full of other, flat boxes. There are about nine boxes of boxes in total throughout our apartment. Here's a mini slide show to give the full effect. I didn't use a flash though, so the pictures are kind of blurry and rushed (kind of how I feel).

Abandon

Plans change. Seems like our house guests aren't coming this weekend after all. Maybe sometime in September. They couldn't find a kennel for their dog. So more nesting and unpacking for me. Maybe Shawn and I will do an Ikea run.

One thing I want to get is a toilet paper stand to hold extra rolls and to actually house an unroll-able roll. There's a TP holder in the bathroom, but it's so inconvenient, basically completely behind the toilet, so that I can't reach it without literally twisting on the seat. And there's space to either side where a stand could fit. Like this one from Target for ~$15:

Another WEIRD thing is that the light switch for the bathroom is outside the bathroom. That means someone could play a dirty trick on me in the shower. It will take some getting used to, and the good news is the light switch is on the way to the bathroom. :)

There are no drawers in the kitchen, so the silverware is living on top of the fridge. There are other little quirks to work out, but it seems like we have so much more space with all our various rubbermaid storage bins tucked away in the little side room/closet area.

A/C installation went well, as did the cable/internet. We have a phone line now, which could come in handy for work conference calls and for lowering my cell phone bill! Everything's coming together, which is a very good thing.

Photos and description of baby blanket coming soon.