Source: Noricum via Flickr.

Over the last 30+ days, I’ve somehow developed the habit–a real live actual habit–of keeping my dishes washed. This is nothing short of a miracle in my book. In the course of my entire married life, I have almost always had a sink full of dirty dishes and a dishwasher full of dishes needing to be put away.

The routine was this: my son loads the dishes after dinner (with his sisters helping to clear the table and bring him the dishes). If not full after dinner, I would continue to load the dishes throughout the following day. Sometime in the early afternoon, I would wash and unload the dishes. Something about knowing someone else would load the dishes if I got the previous load washed and unloaded was really motivating.

Something else that helped? Enforcing the rule: no dirty dishes in the sink! It is utterly depressing facing a sink so full of dishes that it’s next to impossible to rinse and load.

Notice I’ve been using the past tense here? Well, naturally, this week my dishwasher stopped working.

Crap. Crap crap crappity crap.

To avoid a full blown panic, I did two things. First, I went into Frugal Dish Mode. Dishes were only used as a last resort. Everything was rinsed and stacked neatly beside the sink immediately. (I’m not handwashing crusty nasty dishes here people.) Lunch was on paper towels, and dinner used only the bare minimum of dishes, and only after foraging for a few paper plates I had stuffed in the back of my pantry.

Second: I looked on the bright side.

After all, at least it wasn’t my sink that stopped working. That would have been a disaster.
At least my sink wasn’t already overflowing with dirty dishes–I could have been a full load behind.
At least I had those two paper plates leftover.
At least my husband can fix most dishwasher issues, so we don’t have to pay a repairman.
At least I have a dishwasher!
Hey, at least I have a husband.
At least half of my kids are old enough they can wash a few dishes themselves.
At least I wasn’t out of dish soap.
At least I was kindasorta caught up on laundry so I had clean dishrags.
At least it wasn’t my washer that was broken.
At least we’re all healthy.
At least I have all of my appendages, all the better to hand wash dishes!

My husband didn’t have time to fix the dishwasher within the first 24 hours, but the following night he looked at it. He pulled it out, looked at some switches or something, figured out which switch wasn’t allowing water to run, and switched it.

Dishwasher = fixed.

All without my habit falling apart completely.

Have you ever had a vital appliance go down? How did you handle it?

One of my first quilts. Imperfect, and I love it. :)

You know those little things in life that shouldn’t be special, but are? For example: clean sheet day. This is an unofficial holiday my husband and I celebrate rather infrequently. Don’t judge me, but rather than a weekly clean sheet day, we rejoice during my *ahem* bimonthly changing of sheets.

An even bigger holiday? Clean quilt day. As I’ve been on a quilting kick, I decided it was time to soak our bedroom quilt in Oxiclean and restore it to it’s beautiful white, blue, and green condition. The dingy gray, blue and green combo just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.

Oxiclean in the tub full of warm water for a few hours yield one nasty tub full of nasty nasty water.

Nasty.

Several hours later, all my bedding was dry, the bed was made, and my room smells lovely. Clean Quilt Day: a very special occasion indeed!

Source: Shoebox Blog

WANTED: ONE MOM FOR TEMPORARY HIRE

Our fast paced company (The Family, Inc.) is currently looking to fill a temporary position for one Mom. Current Mom is seeking a Mental Health Break and would like to train temp worker prior to taking Leave. Job responsibilities include the emotional, spiritual, educational, and physical growth of current associates.

Successful applicant will be:

Trained in math and spelling up to seventh grade level, with history of working with teachers and other school support. Exp. in making doctor’s appointments and finding babysitter’s especially helpful.

Skilled in making dinner, though willing to train. Dinner must be filling, thrifty, and somewhat nutritious. Getting certain members of the the company to eat vegetables would be a plus.

Daily janitorial duties are required. Junior associates will disrupt applicant during cleaning process, so applicant should be able to multitask well. Associates will also make messes in the area previously cleaned, so patience is required.

Must have good eyesight for finding the Lego’s and misc. thumb tacks hiding in carpet. Applicant should not have a strong sense of smell, as she will need to wipe the rears of junior associates. Applicant will also need to have quick fingers to fill a sippy cup before junior associate cries, a strong voice for reading the same story over and over; physically fit is preferred but not necessary, though ability to chase after associates and company animal desired.

Must be available 24/7. Ability to sleep less than six hours a night would be a plus, as junior associate wakes several times for the potty. Drivers license required. Position unpaid, though highly rewarding.

As current mom is feeling overwhelmed and underqualified for the position, possibility to turn into long-term employment possible!

I was able to attend a kick off press conference for the Clear the Air Challenge 2012. It was attend by the governor, the mayor, the Today’s Mama team (including the fabulous Rachael Herrscher sp), and the press.

This August, Clear the Air is starting a great new challenge for you! You know that yucky cloud of yellow air that hangs over our valley in the winter? Clear the Air is asking us to work now (when the weather is great!) to take part in a valley wide initiative to clean up our air quality. All through the month there will be awesome prizes just for entering how many trips you’ve saved each day. Here’s the info from the Clear the Air site:

A single-occupant vehicle trip is any trip you may take from point A to point B. By making small adjustments in your schedule, you can easily save vehicle trips throughout the day.

For example, if you have two places to go in one day (points A and B), instead of taking four separate trips from your home to each destination and back, you can travel from your home to point A, to point B and then back home. By making this small adjustment, you will have taken 3 trips instead of 4, and saved one trip.

• If you decide to ride your bike somewhere, you’ve saved 2 trips.
• If you run your errands on the way home from work instead of going home first, you’ve saved 1 trip per errand (work to library – 1 trip saved, library to grocery store – 1 more trip saved).
• If you carpool to your kids’ soccer game, everyone in the car but the driver saved 2 trips.
• If you work from home one day, you’ve saved 2 trips.
• If you walk to an event, you’ve saved 2 trips.

Starting today, I’ll be posting a Top Ten list each Tuesday. My reason is two-fold: partially because I’ll be linking up with this Top Ten Tuesday linky party, but mostly because I really love top ten lists. As a teen I looked forward to Friday nights on Letterman so I could watch his top ten lists. Half of which I barely understood, but they were delivered in such ridiculous style, I couldn’t help but laugh.

With that introduction, I bring you the:

TOP TEN THINGS I {PRETTY MUCH} NEVER CLEAN

10. The dishwasher. Also, the washer. Anything responsible for cleaning something else I figure should come out clean in the end.

9. Air vents or ducts or other miscellaneous holes in floor/ceiling/wall. Yes, I know there are pencils, fruit snacks, and even random socks hiding in that thing. Doesn’t mean I’m about to rip it out and clean it. Though looking at the picture is kind of making me itch…

8. Baseboards. Or floorboards, or chair rails. Seriously. I’ve got better things to do. Like Pinterest.

7. Our shutters. This one is particularly sad because my husband actually made the shutters (he works here), and so I should be all proud and keep them in tip-top shape. But grubby little hands like to open the shutters and shut the shutters and they get dusty and I don’t even own a duster. Which leads me to…

6. Dusting. I may occasionally wipe down nick-knacks or shelves with a damp paper towel. I never dust the top of my fridge, the top of bookshelves, or pretty much anything else that will remain unseen until I move.

5. Walls. Until I get in a panic because I’m about to have company then I send in an army of little people with Lysol wipes. It’s actually one of their favorite chores, so you’d think I’d have them do it more often. It’s hard to notice the grime you live with every day!

4. The windows. Nope, uh-uh. Though I’d happily put this on a list for “things kids can do when they owe me big time.” Otherwise… I’d probably rather do laundry. No, that’s not true. BUT it’s probably more important for me to do laundry than clean my windows. I’ve got to have priorities somewhere.

I’m starting to realize this list is basically pointing out the fact that I purposely avoid deep cleaning pretty much anything until company comes over.

3. Our dining chairs. I’m the least OCD person on the planet, so I let my young children feed themselves. Consequently our chairs end up kind of gross. Again, this is something that generally waits until I’m about to have a lot of company over.

2. Under my bed. Unless… actually. I think I’ve done that once, and I may have been pre-birth nesting, so I’m not sure that counts. We’ll put this firmly on the ‘never’ list.

And the number one place I pretty much never clean is…

1. Behind the stove. Ew, ew, ew. Between the greasy dust and the random kitchen utensil or spice that falls down there, this is not a place I want to ever even see much less clean under or around. Ooh, let’s add “in the oven” to this list. Seriously. I forget that’s even a thing more often than not. Also, I need to mention that I cleaned the top of the stove for this picture. (And move the dirty pots and pans, of course.) I did not do the grates. I will probably never clean the grates.

Now if you’ll excuse me… I may have unintentionally inspired myself to go do a little cleaning!

What do you pretty much never clean?

Linking up to Many Little Blessings Top Ten Tuesday Linky List!

The mom who has kids in dirty clothes, third day running?
You, who can’t remember when she got a shower, let alone her kids got a bath?
I’m talking to the mom who can’t find her kids’ left shoes to save her life. Not a single left shoe in the entire house.
Also, you, the mom who can’t craft, can’t cook, can’t bake, can’t do anything remotely homemaker-y, and hires a cleaner.
Even you… the mom who
works outside the home.

Listen up.
I’ve got something to tell you.
And it’s important.

So put down your iphone and stay off of Twitter for a second. You don’t need to pin that project on pinterest right now because let’s all be honest, you’re never going to make it anyway.

Are you listening to me?
Here it is:

Happy Mother’s Day.

You deserve to hear it most of all, the day when we feel the least like the best mom ever.

Because even when you lost the keys in the dirty laundry (again) and you screamed at your kids (again) and you are terrified someone might come to your front door and see the state your living room is in (again) and you have no idea what’s for dinner today, tomorrow, or the next (again)…

There is no one, and I mean no one, your kids would rather have for a mom.
Slacker ways and all.

And that makes you the best mom ever.

PS – Obviously I have to say happy mother’s day to my own mom. So yeah… gushy moment over. Whew.
PPS – Just kidding mom. I love you.

This giveaway is now closed.

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I’ve been trying to come up with ways to simplify my life–and my kitchen–for awhile now. One thing I came up with was to buy each person a clear acrylic cup for Christmas. I figured each person would have just one cup; and they could only use that cup for drinking. They would be responsible for rinsing/washing it out in between dishwasher loads, and I wouldn’t have a counter full of half-empty, forgotten cups of water.

I love that my kids are water kids. They chug it like fish, but all those forgotten cups led to a lot of wasted water and a ton of space in my dishwasher. And who wants to wash more dishes than you absolutely must?

I had (in my ADHD mind) planned on getting waterproof vinyl and using my Cricut to cut out everyone’s names. Well, that didn’t happen by Christmas, but I gave them their cups anyway. Then I had this idea to use an airbrush with a vinyl stencil to etch their names into the cups. The only problem with this was that I didn’t own an airbrush!

December came and went and we were well into January. Rather than having less cups, I now had 6 extra cups with the same problem. I needed a way to keep these cups straight, a little better than the masking tape with a marker plan Jordan cleverly devised. I honestly don’t know what I was searching for or how I came across this… but one wonderful day, I found…

DrinkBands are one of those smart made-by-frustrated-mama designs that are just brilliantly simple. Let your child pick a color. (There are eight, which was so perfect for my bigger family!) Place the band around your cup. Even the youngest toddlers can tell which cup is hers and which cup is not! 

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Even better, the bands are dishwasher safe. I don’t have to worry about kids taking them off and losing them, or remembering to put them back on after I run a load of dishes. One thing you need to be aware of is that they seemed to shrink just a bit in our hot hot dishwasher water. This was actually a benefit for me though. It’s now even harder for kids to take them off!

DrinkBands come in two sizes: regular (one size fits most) and small (for baby bottles! and small cups!). I honestly think my kids are getting sick from each other less because they know which cup belongs to them. My counters are massively decluttered, and I’ve cleared an entire shelf that was previously for kid-safe cups. I keep removing cups from rotation and putting them into storage, waiting for the family to complain that there are no clean cups. It hasn’t happened. They simply rinse our their cup and are good to go.

I’ve also cut down on my dishwashing. I can fit cups for the entire family on the top of my small dishwasher, with room to spare for sippies and bowls. And frankly, when you put 15-20 cups into storage, washing the dishes is much less overwhelming, because there is simply less to wash. This has been the biggest surprise benefit for this ADHD mama!

With 8 bands in a set, I even have extra bands for when neighborhood kids pop by. I eventually decided I need an extra set because I need a cup for Diet Coke and water, and my husband likes a tall glass of water by our bed. My kids love water bottles, so I’ll place a duplicate band over their water bottles for school.

I want you to know that I loved DrinkBands so much that I contacted them and asked if I could do, what else?? A giveaway! Renee, the mastermind behind DrinkBands, was happy to offer a set to my readers. Since you are reading this right now that qualifies you to win a set! These are perfect for families, hosting parties, visiting grandchildren, and more, and entering to win is easy.

All you need to do is comment on this post and tell me which of the DrinkBand colors you would claim as your own!

Want more entries? Leave me a new comment after you:

like my Facebook page (or let me know you’re a fan!)
like DrinkBands Facebook page
sign up for Mom Hack tips on DrinkBands site  (on the right side of the page)
follow me on Pinterest
sign up to receive Confessions of a Slacker Mom in your inbox!
or
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This giveaway is now closed.

Full Disclosure: I contacted DrinkBands in regards to reviewing a product I already loved and wanted to share with you. They sent me a second product as well as offered to giveaway a set of DrinkBands.

]]> http://confessionsofaslackermom.com/giveaway/drinkbands-review-giveaway/feed/ 120 http://confessionsofaslackermom.com/cleaning/how-to-ditch-the-cfl-lightbulb-and-go-green/ http://confessionsofaslackermom.com/cleaning/how-to-ditch-the-cfl-lightbulb-and-go-green/#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:45:10 +0000 theslackermom http://confessionsofaslackermom.com/?p=1477

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You know how cool it is to be “green” and so you made the switch to CFL bulbs because everybody was doing it?
Have you ever broken one of those “cool” twisty lightbulbs?
On TodaysMama, there was recently a post about how to clean up the mercury should you break a CFL bulb.

What? you say, What mercury?
You heard that right. There is toxic mercury inside those “green” CFL bulbs. When you break a bulb, some of the mercury is released as mercury vapor into your home. Here are the regulations the EPA would like to you follow with a broken lightbulb:

Before Cleanup

• Have people and pets leave the room.
• Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment.
• Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.
• Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb:
  • stiff paper or cardboard;
  • sticky tape;
  • damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and
  • a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.

During Cleanup

• DO NOT VACUUM.  Vacuuming is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken.  Vacuuming could spread mercury-containing powder or mercury vapor.
• Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder.
• Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.

After Cleanup

• Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly. Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors.
• If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.

Okay, so take everyone out of the room, turn off your heat or a/c, don’t vacuum, use tape to collect the tiny shards of glass (and potential mercury), air out the room… guess it’s time to break out the ol’ HAZMAT suit, eh?

Does any of this seem practical to you? Does any of it seem remotely “green?” Many states have laws about disposing them in your trash. In Utah, there are no specific laws (yet!) about disposal of mercury bulbs, but the Utah Health Department has this to say {emphasis added is my own}:

There is currently no Utah State or federal law requiring that mercury containing bulbs be recycled. Because these bulbs can break and seep mercury into the ground, which can pollute groundwater, we encourage residents to recycle them. If there are no facilities in your area that accept used bulbs, they can be disposed of in the garbage, however this should be a last resort if possible.

If your local waste management agency offers no other disposal options except your household garbage, place the CFLin a plastic bag and seal it before putting it in the trash. If your waste agency incinerates its garbage, you should search a wider geographic area for proper disposal options. Never send a CFL or other mercury-containing product to an incinerator.

When I found all this information out a few years back, I asked my husband to not buy anymore CFL bulbs {psst – he was on board because he ♥’s LED lights almost as much as he loves me!}. In fact, we have broken CFL bulbs, and the pain to clean them up outweighed whatever money we were saving on our utilities. So if you want to be truly green – not just “green washed”, what can you do in your home to save money and reduce your carbon footprint?

Buy these suckers:

Introducing the not-so-new LED light. LED lights have been around as long as I can remember. If you have a little pen flashlight, you probably even own an LED light. An LED is a “light emitting diode,” and traditionally they are very small lights that can be clustered together to form words or images

like a sign on the bus. But LED light technology is catching up to where it needs to be: the general population. There are now LED light bulbs available that you screw into a standard… light… socket? Is that a thing? Anyway, Home Depot has them for $10 a lightbulb. Not cheap for a 40 watt bulb, but let’s look at the highlights:

• no mercury
• will last an estimated 46 years (that is not a typo)
• will cost an estimated $0.96 a year in energy costs

And hello. They aren’t freakish looking twisty bulbs and oh did I mention?

They won’t kill you.

{Okay, I know this isn’t my typical lazy-mom post, except that I refuse to clean up toxic spills after someone breaks yet another bulb. But this is something I believe strongly in. We try to purchase an LED bulb every few months and are slowly moving our home to a truly green status.}

{Except for that piece of paper I just threw away because the recycling can is all the way upstairs. I mean, a girl has got to have limits, right?}

One thing I always struggled with accepting in FlyLady’s program was that she preached and preached how we are all perfectionists. Please. Anyone who has been inside my house (without an hour’s prior notice) can tell I’m no perfectionist. My house is currently a disaster and even when it’s picked up I don’t bother to remove the tiny hand prints from the walls, or scrub the carpets, or dust anything. I’m not a perfectionist, and my husband would agree.

This morning, as I was lying in bed after my husband left (at 4:30 a.m., I typically roll over without a second thought), I felt overwhelmed by the condition of my house. I was complaining to my mother yesterday that I wasn’t going to get to heaven because my house is far from being “in order.” She tried to persuade me to believe that the scripture was indeed talking about spiritual houses, not our actual homes, but it did little to soothe the guilt. When I found myself unable to sleep today, I started attempting to talk myself into cleaning.
{Note: talking myself into doing anything before 8:00 a.m. is a pretty big accomplishment.}

I was thinking about how hard it is to get it all done. I have a tendency to not start what I can’t finish, or what I’m overwhelmed by. This in turn exacerbates the problem and days later, what I was originally overwhelmed by, I am now paralyzed with the thought of attempting the task.

The truth is: mothers–women–are ingrained with a certain level of perfection. It appears easy for others to care for their homes and their children and put dinner on the table. For me, it’s one mental fight after the next. Rather than shrugging my shoulders and saying, “Yeah, I’m just not a homemaker,” my spirit desperately wants to achieve perfection in this area. Because I know the laundry I just washed will ultimately end on the floor to be trampled because I was too lazy to fold it, I don’t do it. Because I don’t even know where to start in the disaster of a kitchen, I don’t start. Because every room in the house is a mess and by the time I clean one and move onto the next, the first is messy again, I continue to neglect them all.

I don’t do it because I can’t do it like “they” do it.
{Whoever they are–a question frequently asked but rarely answered.} 

The answer, it seems to me, is just start.

Isn’t it better to have a small load of clean laundry done, even if it perhaps doesn’t get put away? Even if there is a mountain more to do? Isn’t it better to load just the “easy” dishes–not the grimy ones–so you have something to eat off of in the morning? Isn’t it better to pick up just one room, even if the rest you can barely move through, so you have a place to relax and feed your spirit? {And perhaps your family?}

Why does it seems so hard just to do a little? I can’t do it all, so rather than doing nothing, what if I just tried to do what *very little* I am capable of doing? My husband says I sell myself short. Maybe when it feels like I’m barely capable of cleaning anything, if I just do what I can, I’ll find that it’s more than I realized all along?

I wish I could tell you that I tried this and two weeks later, my house is totally clean and I’m now up to perfect standards.
{Nope.}
These are just the musings of a slightly sleep-deprived mom, knee deep in laundry and too scared to start.
Let me know if this helps you.
I’ll let you know if it helps me.

P.S. – I’d be remiss in posting this if I didn’t say Happy Birthday to my own perfectly imperfect Mom! Give her a shout out in the comments, will ya, for raising such an awesome kid?! Happy Birthday Mom, and thanks for everything. I love you!

So, it’s Thanksgiving.

Which is a day to give people your thanks. I’m not really the touchy-feely-mushy type, so I’ll just give a big ol’ general shout out to everyone in my life:

Hey, you. Thanks.

Whew. That was tough. If you’re reading this, that comment up above? That was for you, too. Because I’m constantly amazed that people actually read this blog. Other than my momther, (momther? What’s that? It sounds like a cross dressing dad, which is not at all what I meant. I swear. My mom is all Mormon and stuff.) I have people who actually come back to this blog. Even if I haven’t posted anything.
{Proof that anything is better than laundry.}

So…
if I keep going, I’m probably going to have to start naming names and saying for what I’m grateful. Let’s just change the subject.

I’ve been baking.
:)
This makes me intensely happy. Even though the apple pie filling was from a can, and the pie crust was from a mix, I’m still pretty happy. And it still took me an hour to make it look super cute.
Even if you’re not Martha, you should still try to make things look cute.

Then I made stuffing. I haven’t posted my stuffing recipe here, but it’s divine. If you want it, give a shout out. Stuffing shouldn’t just be for Thanksgiving, people. Let’s give stuffing some love.

The stuffing is homemade. Well, store bought bread cubes and store bought broth, but there was some pretty serious onion chopping going down in my kitchen. I call that homemade.

And you know what the best part is?
The best part is that Gary is working on my bathroom. Which is pretty cool in itself, but even better is that the water is turned off.

Dude. I can’t do the dishes. Until after we get back from dinner at my mom’s. (Momther? Seriously, what is wrong with me? Too much Diet Coke I’m thinking.)
It will be late when we get back. And tomorrow is Black Friday. Believe it or not, it’s also our first Christmas party of the season.

I can see me not doing the dishes for the next… twenty-four hours. Or longer.

Psst… anyone want to come and do dishes tomorrow? Because I would be totally grateful and even name you by name.