Suzy Q Homemaker

There’s nothing like an episode of “Hoarders” to make you feel like your house is the cleanest one on the planet, right? But what if I told you I had some secret rituals that help me keep things livable around here?  Jamie got me a gopher grabber when I was pregnant because it was hard to pick things off of the floor.  Even today, when my arms are full of Timothy, I’ll get that thing out, stick a box in the middle of the floor and go nuts picking things up and tossing them in the box.

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Remember when I posted about Lemi Shine before?  I didn’t get to take a picture of the before and after of the dishwasher, but you saw what it did to that plate.  Well.  We stopped buying Lemi Shine for a while and our dishwasher got funky again (along with the plates).  So I finally picked up some more and made sure to get photographic evidence for your consideration.

We’re hip-deep in holiday projects around here, and since certain members of my family read this blog, I’m unable to post a lot of my WIP! It’s ok, though: all will be revealed in a few months’ time.

Last night we had dinner guests again, though there wasn’t anything fancy to the dinner. With Corey’s soccer game, we couldn’t do anything nearly as fancy as we had done in the past. Thus, pizza! The focus of the evening wasn’t on dinner anyway; our lovely friends came over for some movie-watching and…KNITTING!

Jamie and D exchanged several knowing glances as they listened to our needles going clickety-clack throughout “Hannibal Rising.” I was glad to have something else to focus on, though, because the movie was highly disturbing.

Today we relax because there aren’t too many things to do around the house. In preparation for our guests last night, I mopped the kitchen & the bathroom. This isn’t to say there’s nothing left to do around here, but at least there isn’t a dried-up puddle of milk under the kitchen table anymore!

My craft room/office needs some serious help today, though, so I may attack it. The sewing machine is sadly neglected under a pile of everything and I really need to dust it off for some holiday projects. Not to mention the fact that I need to whip up a new pincushion. My trusty tomato died last night. Thanks to a fellow hyena, I really want to make one like this out of some of the vintage fabric my grandmother gave me.

In other bloginess, I found this blog and I’m sure I’ll be spending most of my free time surfing all the wonderful tutorials like this one. I have a pair of too-big flip-flops that could use a face-lift. Don’t we all?

The baby must’ve nursed all night last night cause I’m exhausted! Plus my boobs were practically deflated instead of slightly engorged like they usually are.

The living room is almost other-people’s-kids-proof. I spent as much time as I could picking the little things up that can get into toddlers’ mouths, making neat piles of random shit, and trying to dust. DH is supposed to finish cutting the grass this evening so they can play outside without fear of grasshoppers & spiders. Speaking of spiders, I’ve been avoiding the clothesline because spiders like to build webs on it. To use my sister’s words, my environmental conscience is battling my severe dislike of spiders. Why does the world have to have spiders anyway?

We only have two fish left now. The smallest of the two, which incidentally was the smallest of all the fish, is now chasing its last companion around the tank. I’m pretty sure it’s trying to kill it. I’ve resigned myself to starting over completely with one fish. We had to special order filter cartridges from the internet because PetsMart no longer carries the one we bought last year. I hate that jank.

Here is some happy pet news: Lucy is still fat and clumsy. She runs laps around the kitchen table when it’s time for me to feed her. I’m thinking that if I waited long enough, she may actually get some exercise. We switched her to the senior formula because we realized that she is as old as our marriage. I’m pretty sure Gwennie’s even older. Neither cat is as old as my mom’s cat, though. and SHE’S OLDER THAN GOD.

You know, I dusted the bookshelves & faerie figurines yesterday and now there’s a brand-new layer of dust all over. What gives? I guess I should actually vacuum-dust with the Rainbow instead of trying to use one of those pansy-ass Swiffer dusters.

All in good time.

One more household thing:

I’ve moved all the laundry into the laundry room. I’m declaring the master bath & bedroom a Laundry-free Zone because I’m sick of the garden tub turning into the world’s largest laundry basket. I doubt I will ever get dh not to leave at least one pair of pants & socks on the floor by the bed, but at least the bathroom will be presentable. Right? Right.

DS2 is three today and we’re having our usual cookout/birthday party this evening. I made the mistake of ordering the cake to be picked up around 5:30 when it turns out dh gets off work early today. This means one of us will have to make an extra trip into town this evening instead of him just picking up the cake on the way home from work. I called the store to see if we could get it earlier, but they said there was “no way.” I guess I should count my blessings that we were able to get a cake with Superman on it in the first place.

I got a bit behind on housework yesterday because I got lazy and nursed the baby in bed in the afternoon. It was all I could do to get up again after that and then I didn’t feel like doing anything truly productive. Today, though, because there will be outsiders in the house, I must motivate myself to clean, clean, clean. Even though I dusted two days ago, there’s a nice coating of dust upon everything again–it’s the only drawback to living out here in the country. So I guess I’ll try to find where I put the Swiffer duster I managed to get as a free sample and dance my way around the house like I’m in a commercial. Or maybe I’ll give it to the oldest and let him do some dusting for me.

We’ve come to the conclusion that the baby absolutely HATES being in the carseat. He screams almost the entire way whenever we go somewhere and I think we may have to pacify him from now on. I detest pacifiers, but he’s not able to find his thumb and we can’t really reach him to put a finger in his mouth while we’re driving. So, it’s either use the pacifier or not take him anywhere. I can’t possibly just stay cooped up all the time. Pacifier it is. At least I didn’t buy it myself–it was free from the hospital.

I got the nursing shirts I bought off ebay the other day. I like them, but because I’ve still got the baby belly going on, they are a little tight and short. Once I can fit into some regular (not maternity) pants again, I’ll be able to wear them comfortably. I tried on some of my pre-pregnancy pants yesterday and I couldn’t button them. Alas!

And now for some news:

My dad is in the hospital. He had a bad reaction to some pain medication and is now in ICU for severe dehydration. His blood sugar levels are all out of whack and they aren’t sure what to do. I’ll probably find out more today.

On one hand, I’m worried for him because he’s so sick and I feel like I’m too young to lose a parent. On the other hand, it’s his own damn fault for not taking care of himself in the first place. He’s a diabetic, for Christ’s sake, and he still smokes, drinks, and does stupid things like forgetting his insulin when going on a weekend trip out of town. I want to feel bad for him, but I’m too angry.

Ok. I’m done.