Alright, Flylady, I shined my sink. NOW what??

It's that time of year. The season has officially changed. The summer clothes need to packed away for next year, and the lovely sweaters get laundered and brought back out. That always throws me into a cleaning spree. Is fall cleaning a thing? If not, it bloody well should be! It CERTAINLY is a thing here. And this year, happy birthday to me, I am getting my dad's sleeper sofa, which I love. I ALSO inherited two FABULOUS dog crates.

Have I mentioned that my house is tiny? That I have OCD? Yeah......... And now, EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF FURNITURE I OWN HAS TO BE MOVED (except Roo's bed, which is a Goliath beast of a thing and will not move unless and until we are moving out of this house. It took three people four days to get it where it is now!) Also, the laundry/storage room was a big heap of cluttered chaos. I haven't been able to find anything in there since a few weeks after the last time I pulled EVERYTHING out and reorganized it. So I pulled everything out again. But good news! We think we found Hoffa behind the paint cans left behind by some previous inhabitant....

In the last week, I have thrown away two over-full big trash bins (you know, the small dumpster thing the sanitation folks send out?) of junk, my paper recycle bin has been filled to overflowing twice (it's more than overflowing now, and I DON'T think they pick up recycling this week. Oops!!). I've donated TWELVE bags of clothes and shoes, SIX boxes of food-that-isn't-gluten-free, and I am currently looking for the right family to give FIVE bins of toys and games for preschoolers, a play vanity, and a tricycle (Merry Christmas!). I even finally talked myself into throwing away the patio bench that I loved so much that has been broken since May and cannot be fixed.

I've rearranged both bedrooms, the living room, the storage room, and the carport. On Thursday, the lawn will get mowed and edged, and the garden spots will be adorned, and, in theory, my coveted sleeper sofa will be arriving in my living room.

And I am asking myself, again, how do I keep my house and my brain in shape once I have completed my own personal Extreme Home Makeover: Crap You Already Own Edition. I am also asking myself exactly WHERE I am going to store my extra towels now that I've moved the dresser they were stored in into my bedroom and my tall-boy into the storage room to hold art, craft, and school supplies so I can actually FIND them. But that's not what this post is about. Much.

I've tried "organizing," "housekeeping" and other such systems in the past, including letting my OCD and my ADD wage war and wreak havoc in my head - and my kitchen. And ALWAYS, ALWAYS, I overthink things WAY too much, and I let my OCD get the better of me (as it will do, whether you "allow" it to or not!), and I give up, and three months later, I spend ten days trying to sort through boxes of what-the-heck-is-this?! and I-forgot-I-owned-this! Seriously. I went through a box of stuff tongight. I didn't know the box existed, much less the really cool vases and the WEATHER RADIO it contained. I have no idea how long I've had it. Probably all summer. And I've been LOOKING for a weather radio. To PURCHASE. So glad I never got around to that!!

So, I am working my way through the laundry and the storage room at this point, and then, a thorough cleaning of the floors, and I am finished. I am determined that the contents of my storage room shall henceforth remain static. If something goes in, something comes out, and it will only contain (other than the laundry supplies. DUH!) art supplies, craft supplies, school supplies, a spare AC, ceramic space heaters, camping supplies, and seasonal decorations. And I may need to scale those back.

I need to maintain, and keep organizing regularly. But how?

So, I thought I'd give Flylady another go, but this time, I am determined not to try to get ahead of myself. She says to make shining your sink a habit, right? But the "baby steps" are theoretically a month's worth of things. Not me. Not this time. So, here's my plan.

Flylady has "zone missions," right? Each week, they focus on a different area of the house, and each day, there's a short "mission" for that area. I should do that.

I like the ideas at Organizing Made Fun's 31-day challenge. It was for October. Nobody says I can't do it now. It's like a daily mission. I should do that, too. That's two short tasks a day. Morning and afternoon, right?

And I am not doing Flylady's steps in 31 days. I don't shine my sink. It's not even close to a habit. I am just going to work on THAT step and the mission-things until I'm doing it without flipping out on myself or complaining, or stressing. THAT's a better plan for me, I think. I should TOTALLY do that.

I am hoping that maybe this time I can maintain without the crazy anxiety attacks I get. Because, honestly, as mildly as I've got it, OCD is a BEAST. I was talking to a friend tonight while I was working on the patio trying to get stuff done, and I said the following, almost ver batim:

"This is stupid. I am seriously about to have an anxiety attack because I don't have the right bin for my lumber, and I don't know where the lumber goes. And I want it in an opaque bin with no lid. If I am going to use a CLEAR bin, I want my garden stuff in that. Okay, transferring garden stuff to clear bin. That's a bit better. I still don't know where the heck to put it without making it look JUNKY. You know what I need? I need some pallets and some canvas and a sheet of plywood so I can build a little mini-shed-thing to store my garden stuff in, because then it wouldn't look junky. And another one (or two) for my lumber, because that makes SENSE, darn it. And I feel COMPLETELY insane right now, because I can acknowledge that I am about to have an anxiety attack. I can tell you exactly WHAT is triggering my anxiety attack. But I can't do a THING to prevent it, because if I go inside and get away from the trigger, the anxiety is only going to get WORSE. I feel stupid. A stupid, insane, neurotic mess. OMG. Where do these bins go?"

I've got a bunch of laundry to put away. I haven't vacuumed the floor yet. So I can't put the laundry away. I know that's ridiculous. But it's true. And that's neurosis. And it's OCD. And it's my daily self. So. I am going to go put away dishes, wash a couple, because my sink isn't shining right now, and go back to work on the carport and the laundry.

And when I am finished, I have this plan to thoroughly clean my vacuum cleaner. That gives me a bit of anxiety too, because it has to dry for 24-48 hours, and I vacuum about every six hours. Not the whole house, mind, but SOMETHING.

But after THAT, I am going to just see how I do doing the flylady system, basic daily cleaning, and some organizing challenges. Because my life is crisis cleaning, and I can't live like this. Especially not if I am going back to school full-time (starting up again tomorrow! YAY!) and trying to get a "real job"

But where the heck am I going to keep my rag towels?!

I keep trying to just breathe and remember:
Íosa Críost é buadhach (Isous Christos NIKA) (Jesus Christ is Victorious)

Stay tuned for the reason we started learning this phrase! Bullying and Boy Scouts.

With love as always

Halloween, food allergies, a rant, and a reply

I posted this as a reply on a post over at BlogHer, but I thought it warranted it's own space here.

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We also prefer give out stickers, halloween-themed pencils, and silly-band type treats. I take my boy trick or treating, but then I have to go through everything and make sure it's safe. He's been a trooper about it, but it does kind of bum me out to have to toss out 75% of his "candy haul." On the upside, it's fewer days of being relentlessly bugged every twenty seconds for a piece of candy even though the answer was "no, and don't ask again til after lunch" about a minute ago, and it's only 8:00 in the morning!

What has really driven me bats this year is the SCHOOL! It's our first time in public school, and it's ridiculous. When I went in to register him, I took his medical documentation to prove his allergy (gluten), and was told that we could fill out x-form and y-page and jump through a hoop or two and that the school would accommodate his needs. Well, they don't. They do NOT make accommodations for gluten allergies here. They also do NOT have any sort of list of ingredients on school foods that they will make available to me. So, my son qualifies for free lunch, but it costs me four or five times as much as it would cost me to feed him at home. And he's constantly being given "treats" for different things at school. Not ONCE has one of them been a safe food. Not ONE SINGLE TIME.

His birthday is this Friday. I was asked if I was sending cupcakes. I am not. I wish I could. But the school says they must be CUPCAKES (not cookies. That's not okay for some reason. What the heck??), store-bought, in the original packaging with the ingredients listed and peanut-free. That's doable in theory. Except there is not a single local store that carries any such thing WITHOUT GLUTEN. I'd have to drive an hour to spend something in the neighborhood of $50 to make that happen locally! So, not only does he not get to bring cupcakes in on HIS birthday, but if somebody ELSE brings in birthday cupcakes, he can't eat them, AND the teacher can't tell me in advance if there's going to be a birthday so that I can send my own child something safe.

I don't understand. If we can accommodate any allergies, shouldn't we accommodate all of them and/or just ban food from classroom parties?

New Chapter

It seems we're entering a new chapter. I will explore it later in some detail, but right now, I am just asking for your prayers as we enter into the public school system and back into the work force.

posted from Bloggeroid

My dog has thumbs.

Do you remember a few months back when I built a locking cabinet to keep my labrador retriever, Mandy, out of the trash? Not only has she figured out how to open it and get into the trash, but she's also mastered opening my bedroom window to let herself out. The problem? She then climbs the fence and takes herself on a walk around the block. The only logical conclusion? My naughty dog has opposable thumbs! Any suggestions, friends?

posted from Bloggeroid

Drugged kids?

Y'all know this issue is close to my heart. So, I am going to post my story soon (tonight or tomorrow I hope), but for now, I HIGHLY recommend watching this documentary. It really delves deep into some of the reasons I refuse to medicate my family.

The Return of the Fidget

Glory to God! My little man made it home last night! And he's psyched about our new eating plan.

It was an interesting week. I was working on cleaning up his room, which had an odor I couldn't find the source of. Well, I found it.

See, the thing is, my child is six, and still wets the bed fairly regularly. The doctors have said they don't consider it abnormal until it's still happening when he's coming up on nine. So we just handle it. Or so I though. I've layered the mattress - a waterproof cover, a fitted sheet, repeat a few times. I also snagged him some extra bedspreads. That way, if he wets, we can pull off a fitted sheet and a quilt and just throw on a new bedspread and get back to sleep. No big deal, right?

Apparently it is. It seems that his dad's family makes a HUGE DEAL about it, and he gets in  trouble there if he wets - even though his dad has admitted to wetting through elementary school himself. So, I guess he's sort of internalized it or something. Or he's afraid that I am going to flip out too. I don't know. I get that it's embarrassing. I really do. But I try to make it "just a thing" for us. It's just something we deal with because it has to be handled.

But he had trashed his closet. I mean toys, books, shoes - everything just CRAMMED IN THERE. And not just crammed in, but covering his hidden accidents. When he wet, he crammed stuff in the closet instead of coming to me with it. So I CLEARED OUT THE CLOSET. All of it. The closet is no longer storage for toys at all.

It became a project for the whole house.

I pulled books off his bookshelf, and moved the books to the living room. I pulled the bookshelf (yes, bookshelf) out of the bathroom to store our collection of VHS tapes. I put the bookshelf from his room into the bathroom. Then I set out to build him cubbies out of milk crates so I could take the plastic drawers and reclaim them for art supplies. Here are some photos. Please forgive the blurriness of some of them. I took several, but I've got this hand-me-down point-and-shoot.....

Milk crate cubbies - all of his toys are organized and accessible under his loft bed. He has a toy cave!

This corner was ALL cluttered up. The bookshelf (and four milk crates) were at the window, and everything else was shoved behind the closet door. Now he can actually get to his music stuff!

I shifted around posters, cleared and cleaned the top of his desk (and underneath it. Dude is a clutterbug!).

This was also crammed full of toys (and milk crates!). The cool hat rack was behind the bedroom door)

I cleaned up the area between the door and the closet and used some wood salvaged from my neighbors kitchen remodel to build the boy a trophy shelf. I have to pick up his trophy, but when he got home, we hung his pine derby ribbon and put the derby car on the shelf. 

Smaller, but much more suited shelf in the bathroom. I think I like it better!

This one WAS in the bathroom, and the VHS tapes were taking over my world (and by "world" I mean "beloved huge bookshelf that I scored for cheap at Goodwill). I love it here, and all our movies fit. There WAS a stack of milk crates there, but they were turned into cubbies in the boy's room. So we've gone full circle!

I am still working on the rest of the house. Still figuring out how I want the laundry/storage room organized, how I want my art/craft supplies organized in there, and how to get people to buy all the loads and loads of stuff in my carport waiting for a yard sale!! I have to move my dresser to make room for an extra-large dog crate. And I am still working my way through laundry - cleaning EVERYTHING here!

I know some of you are curious how the "diet" is going. I hate that word, "diet," but I guess it applies if we take it to mean "the way a creature eats" not "a hare-brained scheme to lose a lot of weight fast with no long-term plan."  The Young Farmer is totally on board, especially if it means he gets to graze on fresh chard and carrots. I'm working on a pot of soup for his lunches this week, which he's totally excited about. It's split pea and broccoli soup with some turkey. He picked it out.

We talked about gluten, what it was, and why it may not be a good idea for us. He wasn't sure what to think at first, then he discovered the juicer and forgot ALL ABOUT bread. He had fun picking out stuff to put in juice. We have made apple juice and blueberry lemonade for him today. Both were pretty exciting. 

My "jus de jour" today was kale, cucumber, swiss chard, carrot, dandelion greens, bell pepper, apple, blueberry, and lemon. It is actually quite satisfying and tasty. No, I haven't quit my coffee. 

For dinner, we made stir fry with chard and carrots from the garden and your standard-fare stir-fry veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, water chestnuts, snap peas, green beans, peppers, baby corn, mushrooms, fresh garlic, onion, a bit of kale, and brussels sprouts) cooked in bone broth with just a bit of fish sauce and about three ounces of ground turkey. I am guessing the boy liked it. He ate THREE BOWLS of it.

So, so far so good. Kiddo loves his room, loves the kitchen, loves the food. He loves to have a hand in the decision making about what foods we're eating. I think that helps a lot. We talked a bit about how Mama is sick a lot, and this can help me get better, and also about how it might help him feel better instead of feeling so frustrated and grumpy sometimes (how he explains the "ADHD moments" - oh, how well I understand!).  His only request was that we make Saturdays pizza day. I told him we could compromise with a gluten-free crust. He agreed happily. 

I will take off for now, I've got laundry waiting for me! Thanks for reading. Thanks for praying. And thanks, so much, for being with me on this journey of mine.

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Linking this post with:
Making the World Cuter
Make it Pretty Mondays
Inspiration Monday

Monday, Monday (bah dah, bah dah dah dah)

Don't tell me you're not singing it yet.

Okay, I am not as cool as Mama Cass Elliot. I am just not. I am, however, an awesome (and overweight) woman. You can call me Mama Kath.

No?

Okay.

Enjoy the music anyway. For my friends on the Old Calendar, today is the first day of the Apostle's Fast. It is interesting to me how the calendar difference can just erase an entire fast period from the calendar for a big chunk of the Orthodox world. It makes me wonder about things. I think I am going to sit down later, perhaps, and do some research into WHY so many jurisdictions changed their calendar! Does anybody know?

Regardless of your calendar, it is Monday. Summer is in full swing. My sunflowers are HUGE, and my little garden is producing little green tomatoes and tiny carrots. And my much-beloved Lawn Dude is here working his magic on the overgrown jungle of my yard. This is the downside of summer. if I go two weeks without mowing, it turns into a perilous jungle out there. Seriously. Little Man plays tiger in the tall grass. There are dangers in the jungle!

Speaking of the wee one, he is currently out of town with his dad. They're going to the annual family reunion. He was totally excited. I was........not. I haven't been away from my only child for more than just a couple of days in a VERY long time. So eight days and seven nights is not really an appealing thing for me right now. It's been less than 36 hours, and I have already turned into a crazy woman.

At least I use my powers of neurosis for GOOD, right?

I am cleaning, reorganizing, sorting, washing, scrubbing, planting, baking, creating, fixing, rearranging - probably sulking a little bit too. I am trying to see this week as my opportunity to do some serious projects that I can't easily get done when the kiddo is home.

I tossed out all the junk food, so I don't get lonely and binge on junk. I went to the grocery store, and I loaded my cart with fresh, seasonal veggies to eat while he's gone. I am planning on not re-purchasing any of the junk when he gets home. I've been doing more and more research on things like the GAPS Diet, the Feingold Hypothesis, and whole foods as health care. I am sold on GAPS, since I personally know several people it's worked for. Some bits of Feingold have been common knowledge in the ADHD community for years and years (artificial stuff is bad for you! Also, it hinders our ability to exercise some control over our emotions and things. And let's face it, my family puts the H in ADHD.) So I am going to work on transitioning us into a GAPS style of eating, with special emphasis on whole foods and local stuff when possible.

I am currently re-arranging my "pantry thing."

You remember the pantry thing? Did I show you the pantry thing?

This:

It's a great pantry. I love it. When I moved in, I was using a half-broken old changing table as a pantry shelf thing. See, my kitchen has 13-foot ceilings, and the cabinets go ALL THE WAY UP, but the lowest cabinet is about six-and-a-half feet up there, and I am only 5'4". So most of the glorious cabinet space here is entirely wasted. I briefly entertained the idea of taking the doors off and putting pretty stuff in it, but then realized that I wouldn't be able to reach it to DUST!

It didn't take long for the half-broken changing table to become an entirely-broken-beyond-repair heap of useless MDFboard. When that happened, my mother picked this up at a garage sale for me. It's brilliant. I painted it when I built some really cheap cabinet doors to keep my dog out of the trash. Did I show you those either? (NOT useless MDF board here. This MDF board was very useful, and also free. I paid for the hasp. That was it!)

But I am rearranging the pantry. I have two purposes here.If we're going to eat REALLY HEALTHY STUFF, well, then I don't need a pantry full of cheap stuff, so I don't need to dedicate shelves to things we PROBABLY shouldn't be eating anyway. I do, however, need some space for my business supplies.

Yes. Business supplies!

I am now making and selling organic bath and body products.

It was an answer to prayer, and it happened SO suddenly. Have we discussed my health? I have lupus, eczema, and psoriasis (among other things. But these are the pertinent issues that lead to the business). I was sitting up one night, entirely unable to sleep, OUT of any products that would make me stop itching, burning, and hurting all over. In desperation, I went to my garden and grabbed what I could: lavender, mint, rosemary, and calendula. And I started to work distilling, pressing, and infusing my extra-virgin olive oil to try to get some relief. It helped!

Next, I made a moisturizing bath soak.

Then a heavy body balm for the worst spots.

Then a lotion for maintenance.

Then I started making a little money selling it. Now I am working on opening up an etsy shop! I'll let you know when that's up and running.

My skin is feeling better than it has since I was a CHILD, and some of the spots I have been fighting for months are FINALLY starting to clear up. 

So that's my Monday so far. What's your Monday looking like? Do you have big plans for the week?

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