Making Life A Little Easier To Enjoy

I am not typically one to indulge in more expensive items that can be done the same way but cheaper. For instance, I'm perfectly fine buying the store brand items instead of paying extra for the name brand. Up until now, I've used a mop to clean my floors...when I find the time to fill a bucket and deal with all of that. Last week, my sister asked if I wanted her Swiffer Wet Jet that she left at my parents house. I said sure, but really didn't think I'd be a fan.

At the store, I cringed at the sight of the $7 refill pads. That is a lot more than I like to spend on cleaning products, but decided I'd give it a chance. SO WORTH IT!

I love my "new" Swiffer Wet Jet! Yes, it is pricier than I normally spend, but I'm cleaning my floors more often than I did before, and with a soon-to-be-crawler that is important to me.

It may be a little more expensive, but it makes my life easier and cleaner. Definitely what this new mom needs!

Baby Girl To-Do List

We are closing into the final weeks! Tomorrow, I'll be 38 weeks. Yesterday we had a Dr appointment and I was 1 cm dilated, which she warned I could be for weeks. But she did tell me that I better get my bags packed. Which got me thinking of the list of to-dos that we have. We're almost there!

Clean out entryway
Organize entryway closets
Take Rummage Sale items to church
Move Hope Chest to living room
Move chest of drawers into our bedroom
Put together bookshelf
Window Cover for nursery
Decorate Walls in Nursery
Pick a name for Baby Girl
Choose a Baby Dr
Install Car seat (Matt just texted me that he's taking care of this. YAY!)
Pack for the hospital
Address birth announcements

I'm very excited about how easy its been to keep our house clean since my family came and helped us finalize all of the decluttering. What was taking me months, only took my family 1 1/2 days to finish up. But I'm much more inclined to keep things picked up, since everything has a home and a place. Which brings me to the shoe shelf my dad built us. Doesn't it look awesome! This area used to be cluttered with all kinds of junk that we would just pile up. I'll have to post some before pictures if I can find them.

Reminds me of the verse "For God is not a God of disorder but of peace" 1 Corinthians 14:33. I love my peaceful home!

Folding Laundry - We All Have Our Own Ways

Click on the photo to view larger image.

Rummage Sale, Matt's Gone and My Sister Is Here!

Another crazy weekend! Does it ever stop? I'm beginning to think not. My sister was telling me last night that when life becomes routine, people live that routine instead of living life. I am beginning to feel as if we are living crazy busy.

Anyway, this weekend was our annual church rummage sale which supports our youth trip this summer. I wish I had pictures from this weekend because we had SO MUCH stuff! We had so much left over as well that we are going to do another one in a month or two. Well, the youth made $2000! It was great! People started showing up at 6:30 AM!

Matt started trying to find things from our place to put into the rummage sale. I kept encouraging him to go through his closet and dressers, but he wasn't really interested. An hour later, I noticed a huge pile of clothes on our couch:


Matt cleaned out his closet of all of his old clothes. He has lost almost 50 pounds since we got married and has gone down two shirt sizes. So all of his old clothes were way too big, but he still wanted to hold onto them. I was so proud of him that he was getting rid of some things.

Then I looked into his closet...

Its mostly empty! He really did get rid of it all! YAY!!!! Then I realized we need to get him some new clothes. :) But that's a good problem to have!

I will write more tomorrow on Matt's trip and my time with my sister...this post is too long already.

Oh and by the way, I am so excited because there was this awesome desk at the rummage sale and I was telling someone that it would be a great scrapbooking table. Someone overheard me say that and asked Matt if they could buy it for me! I don't know where its going to go, but I have a new scrapbooking desk!! :)

Red-Eyed, a Clean House and Waiting For My Hubby!

Matt left yesterday for a conference in Central IL, so I had to stay home by myself last night. I am not a big fan of being home alone all night long. I am a 22 year old who still thinks there are monsters under her bed! :)

I decided the only way I would sleep well is to stay awake as long as possible, keep busy and then maybe I would crash and wouldn't realize that I was home alone. Seemed like a good plan...I turned the TV on for some background noise and started cleaning. I took a tooth brush to the bath tub and washed 10 loads of laundry (clothes, all the bed linens and decided the towels could use another washing as well). I washed the shower curtain and all of the rugs. Cleaned out the fridge. Organized all of my important folders. Took care of the dust bunnies that had been burrowing themselves in my house. I browned meat for tacos and made a meatloaf to freeze for dinner later this week.

3:30 am rolled around and I finally forced myself to turn off the lights and lay down. Still my mind was racing. I heard a noise and thought for sure someone had finally decided it was time to attack me (I was just sure that they had decided to wait until my house was clean to reveal themselves). Grabbing my cell phone (like that would help) I walked toward the noise ready to pounce. I soon realized that I had gotten all hyped up over a piece of paper being blown around by my fan.

Rushing back under my covers to safety I felt so childish and silly. I just started praying for peace. Then the thought hit me, so what if I had been attacked and killed? I would be in heaven with my Savior! So what was I afraid of? I was afraid of the feeling of fear. Well that is temporary. I was afraid of feeling pain. Again, temporary. I needed to place my faith and life in the One who is eternal! Once that thought had gone through my mind, sleep finally found me...

...the alarm went off this morning way too early. Hadn't I just fallen asleep? Looking in the mirror all I could see were my blood-shot eyes and my brain was too foggy to think about doing anything about it. What a stupid idea to stay up until I crashed! :)

Hopefully Matt will not be delayed by snow and will be home tonight!

Looking in...

Do you ever feel like people get a glimpse into your life at the wrong time and possibly get the wrong impression?

For instance, when I was in high school, a family from our church visited my school to see if they wanted their child to attend there. They happened to look into a classroom and there I was, chewing on my nails...looking very bored. That next Sunday, they told me what had happened and I was so embarrassed! Normally, I was a really attentive and good student, but apparently the subject was really boring that day. Wrong time. Wrong impression.

This weekend we had several people over to my boss' lake house for a cookout. It got really late for my friend Rachael and her husband Shawn to drive home, so they decided to stay overnight at our apartment. Of course, before I had left for the lake house, I had baked bread but did not have the opportunity to clean up the kitchen. And of course, there was the three piles of laundry in my bedroom and the unmade bed. To my mother's chagrin, I am not a clean person...I really have to work at it. But normally, my kitchen is clean and I don't have three piles of laundry...just one. Once again...Wrong time. Semi-wrong impression!

Laundry Tip

You know that gross yellow pit stain you get on white shirts? I learned this great tip for preventing/removing those pesky stains:

Pour or dab some white vinegar onto the stain then immediately wash (don't let the vinegar dry...it can actually weaken the clothing) *Don't use paper towels with colored designs on them to dab the vinegar...it will transfer the dye onto your white shirt*

The stain comes from the reaction between your deodorant and your sweat, so I use this as a preventative measure for all of my white shirts!

DeCluttering...

My mom was here Friday night and Saturday and we had a lot of fun decluttering my house. Matt and I have been living in our apartment for over a year and I had yet to unpack everything! Boxes of books and Matt's "nostalgic" things have been piling up in our guestroom and it has been crying out, "Anne...unpack me!" Until my mom came, I have been too lazy to do anything about it. For 7 hours yesterday my mom and I (with Matt's help!) unpacked boxes, went through old clothes, and lots of pictures and papers that had piled up or had never been unpacked in the first place. I wish I had a before and after photo.

It was like that tv show on TLC where people have been piling all this junk and then TLC comes in and organizes everything. There is a wonderful feeling after things finally have a home and they are put away! My guest room actually has a floor...so if anyone wants to come visit...you can actually walk around the bed now!

A little tip my mom taught me: You can fake clean your house! If everything is put away and your house is truly decluttered...then you don't have to dust as often because it has the "look" of clean!