Ending The Lazy Streak

I just wanted you all to know that I finally got off my hiney today and cleaned this place up. Remember yesterday when I guessed it would take me 45 minutes to get it all done? I decided to set my timer on stopwatch mode to see how long it actually took and worked in 15 minute increments.  Not counting the time it took to run 3 loads of laundry in the early afternoon it ended up taking me:

 Looks like I guessed pretty good!

Pics of the results:

Instead of trying to play catch up on the Weekly House Blessing and Zone items I missed, I'm just going to do as FlyLady says as jump back in where I am.  I'm going to end this because I'm having a brief moment of motivation and I still would like to mop the floors tonight.  Hopefully it doesn't pass.

Read more...

Odds and Ends and Poofy Hair

I have a little catching up to do!  I have not moved on to the next BabyStep yet, as it involves setting a specific bedtime and I did not want to do that on the weekend where I was free to stay up late/sleep in a bit.  I start back to my regular work week tomorrow so I will be establishing the bedtime starting tonight and will report back on this tomorrow.

In other news:

1.)  I fell a little behind with my routines over the weekend.  I am noticing this is becoming a pattern.  It's just a lot harder to complete my morning routine when I don't have a certain time I need to have it completed by.  When I am working I find it easy to set myself to task and get it all done before I leave the house in the morning.  On my days off there isn't that cut-off point, and I tend to get lax and not do everything.  I could create a self-imposed deadline, but I just don't wanna.

I did get right back on track last night, and I realized how much smoother things go now that these routines are taking shape.  I no longer have to worry that I'm forgetting to take something I need with me to work, because now it was pre-packed the night before.  I no longer have to sit on my couch/bed with the sheets all a muss because I made it that morning.  I'm finally seeing enough improvement around here to feel a little more motivated to do my routines regularly. 

2.)  Although I haven't officially begun Zone work yet, I did feel a little ambitious the other day and took a crack at the bathroom.  Since I moved in this apartment the shower curtains have been driving me batty; they were covered in soap scum that rubbed off on my hands anytime I touched them.  They belong to my roommate so I couldn't just toss them and buy new ones, so instead I decided to wash them in the washing machine. 

Before I did so I Googled around for info, and found that people have actually had good luck with washing plastic shower curtains in the washer and have used several methods to do so.  Some use hot water (theory being it relaxes the plastic so it doesn't shred in the machine), some use cold (they are afraid hot will melt the plastic.)  Some used bleach, some used white vinegar, and some used plain old laundry detergent.  Some combined these one way or another.

I ended up using warm water with laundry detergent and bleach. I also threw in some some white kitchen towels and washcloths to act as "scrubbers". There was no damage to the curtain, and it came out looking a million times better.  Here is the before:

Yuck.  Soap scum city.  Now here is the after:

Much better!

3.)  This has absolutely nothing to do with FlyLady or housekeeping, but I want to share anyway.  I work for a living history museum, which means I dress in 19th Century Costumes and portray life in Ohio for that era.  Mainly I do the Civil War (1860's), sometimes the Ohio pioneer era (1815ish), and only a few times have I done late Victorian (1890's.)  Today I had to do 1890s for a Victorian Tea we hosted, which meant I had to put my hair up into what is called a "Gibson Girl" style.  This is not easy, as my hair is only just past chin length.  I practiced for hours yesterday trying to get it right, and it still took me over an hour to do it again this morning.  Luckily, I found a hairspray that made this all possible, called Freeze It.

To give you an idea of the look I was going for, here are a few pics of an original Gibson Girl, Evelyn Nesbit:

There are many variations to this style, but the key factor is the poof, or "cloud" of hair piled on top of your head.  This is my problem; some of my hair at the nape of my neck isn't even long enough to each that far up the back of my head to be gathered into the knot on top.  The Freeze It took care of that no problem and just held it in place with no bobby pins or anything.  It also has "brighteners" in it that actually made my hair look healthier than it really is instead of giving me that hairspray-dulled look.  I actually found this by accident at WalMart while I was looking for something else, and almost passed it up.  It comes in a gold can and only cost $3.00, so I figured it couldn't be much good.  Luckily I pulled out my iPhone and looked up some reviews, and everyone said they loved it.  I agree!  For this amount of hold and the low price, it can't be beat.  I go through a lot of hairspray doing my hair for work and this will not only get the job done, but not break my budget as well.  I beats the expensive salon spray I used to use for over $10.00 a can!  Here's a pic:

FYI: This shows the Original formula, but I am using the Mega Hold version.  To wrap this up, here are some pics of me with the Gibson Girl hairstyle.  The back loops were done partially with my own hair, and only one small hairpiece.  Sorry for the yuck quality on most of these, they were taken with cell phones:

Setting out the lemonade.

Working with the cast iron stove.

Being silly and wearing a gentleman's hat on top my my Gibson Girl hair poof.

12 hours and a hard day's work later, the hair hasn't moved! (God, I look tired!)

The back.  I'm sorry I have to go brush this out now!  Good night!

Read more...

BabyStep 13: I'm On A Mission

Ow.  Ouch.  Owie. Whimper.  Whine.  In other words, I hurt!  Friday afternoon I somehow managed to crack off a corner of my back lower molar while munching on some of my roommate's Captain Crunch (shhh, don't tell!), and since then I have been in agony.  The tooth itself doesn't hurt at all; in fact, I didn't even know I had done it until the sharp edges the break created started to slice into my tongue.  I'm not being overly dramatic either.  My tongue lies (lays?) right up against this tooth, waaay in the back of my mouth, and I can't even swallow without the side of my tongue scraping up against these little razor blade edges.  It.  Is.  Torture. 

Since then I haven't been able to talk, eat, swallow, or even sleep properly.  Someone suggested I use a nail file to dull the tooth edges until I could get to a dentist, but since I am uninsured the nail file is as close to a dentist's instrument my tooth is gonna see for awhile.  I chiseled away at it the best I could, and it seems to have helped a little.  I still have to pop Tylenol and Ibuprofen a couple times a day to keep the swelling in my tongue down (did I mention this has made my tongue swell?), and I'm praying all the talking I will have to do at work tomorrow doesn't undo the little healing that has taken place.  Sigh. 

The point of all this whining?  Well, let's just say I have been in so much pain I took a FlyLady break Friday night and all day Saturday.  Cause really, considering this pain ranked right up there with the time I had my wisdom teeth all removed with Novocaine ONLY, and NO pain meds afterwards, I really didn't give a bleepity-bleep if my sink was shiny.  Not one iota.  But it's OK, I think I've made up for my lapse in productiveness today.  Which leads me to: BabyStep 13: Pick one of Kelly's Missions and do it.

This step is supposed to be our introduction on how FlyLady breaks your home into Zones to keep it what my mother refers to as "Company Clean" all the time.  I'll speak more on Zones in a later post, as I am having a bit of a conundrum about it.  And by the way, for those of you not in the know, Kelly is one of FlyLady's minions sidekicks.  Sort of like Batman and Robin.

I went as directed to Kelly's Page O-Missions and picked the one I could muster up the will power wanted to do.  This week FlyLady is in Zone 1 (front entrance, front porch and dining room), so all the Missions pertained to that area.  I don't have a dining room (heck, we don't even have a kitchen table), so the dining room missions were out.  I don't really have a front entrance either, so front porch (balcony) it is! 

My Mission was to sweep down this area and make it all purdy again as it the first thing people see when they enter our homes.  Not really true in this case, as I am pretty much the only one who goes out on the balcony, but I did it anyway.  I apologize in advance for these pictures, my digital camera was misbehaving so I had to take them with my iPhone:

The above shot is the balcony, in all it's undecorated glory.  This is the before pic.  I swept away as many of those stupid little helicopter-seed things from the nearby tree, though most decided to just get stuck in between the cracks of the floor.  I also got out a bucket of hot water and floor cleaner to hose down the patio table.  If you look closely, you can see a film of pollen has collected on the glass.  It was gross.  There is no after pic as you wouldn't really be able to see much of a difference anyway, but trust me, I spent 1/2 an hour doing all this.

I also took the liberty of sweeping the inside stairs that lead up to our and one other apartment, and am now considering it my "front entrance area." In reality this is a common area, which basically means we all use it but no one takes the responsibility to sweep it. I did it a few weeks ago just to be nice, but no one has touched it since and some new dust bunnies were forming on the stairs.  Buh-bye bunnies!

That's about it.  Mission complete.  I would however, like to share with you one last pic:

This is the broom I used to do all this sweeping.  My roommate made it.  With his own two hands.  We both work at a living history museum where we dress up in funny clothes and pretend it's the 19th Century.  I love it.  He is doing it until he can get a full-time teaching job.  Regardless, he spent all last summer making brooms.  It's a handy little skill!  If the world ended tomorrow and we somehow survive, he has the know-how to keep us the tidiest little nuclear-mutants around. 

Read more...