Sink Chronicles: Day 1

In an effort to try and get my life and house back (was it ever?) in order I decided to try out this flylady that I've heard people talking about. I've been referred to her website by multiple people in the past, but whenever I went to it, I just didn't have the patience to figure out where to get started. This time I delved a bit deeper to figure it out.

I finally found a page called Baby Steps and it has a day-by-day plan of how to get into a routine. I decided to follow this routine and blog about my experience each day! How fun. When I'm done with the baby steps, I might just see if I can figure out a way to get her a better/cleaner website!

Day 1: Shine Your Sink

Day 1 for me was yesterday. I was reading her website after Joshua went to bed and thought I'd start today, but the more I read, the more I wanted to get started right then. So at 10:30pm I started the sink shining process. The process takes 2 1/2 hours! Ok, I only did one side of my sink before I crashed. I shined the other half this morning.

Here are her tips on how to shine a sink, revised/edited by me:

Shiny Sink 101

This process is to deep clean your sink and get it to its shiny potential. This is not an everyday process. Once it gets to shiny, all you have to do is keep it shiny.

Supplies:

• Bleach
• Comet/Ajax/Baking Soda
• S.O.S. pad (if stainless steel sink)
• Scrubby sponge
• White Towel
• Windex

1. Take all the dishes out of the sink. (Put them anywhere you need to, even on the floor if you have no other place.)
2. RINSE SINK (I used my dish brush to get rid of any food residue.)
3. Fill one side with hot water and 1 cup of bleach and let sit for 1 hour. Pull plug with tongs, or don some long rubber gloves and pull plug by hand. (You can remove some of the water to the other side if you can't reach the plug.) Be careful not to get any bleach water on you or your clothes.
4. RINSE SINK (Again, be careful not to splash the bleach water on you or clothes.)
5. *Stainless steel sinks only: Use an S.O.S. pad to scrub sink. It polishes the finish and will have it looking like new (do not use on faucet, sprayer, or inside of drains, it will scratch them). RINSE SINK again.
6. Scrub sink with cleaner (Comet, Ajax, or baking soda) and scrubby sponge. Use an old toothbrush to scrub around faucet and hard-to-reach areas.
7. Take a sharp edge and clean around the rim of the sink, just like you would clean dirt out from under your fingernails. Be careful not to remove caulking or sealing around sink if present.
8. RINSE SINK (This time it's very important because you don't want to mix bleach cleaners with ammonia cleaners, it causes harmful/deadly gasses!)
9. Dry sink with clean towel.
10. Clean sink with a window cleaner, like Windex.
11. Put all your cleaning supplies away. It's counterproductive to leave a mess when you clean something.

You can see why it takes 2 1/2 to 3 hours to do, huh? When it's done, it looks so nice! In fact, I just ate my PB&J lunch admiring my shiny sink.

Before. Left side is full of water/bleach, soaking.

Before and after: Left side after, right side before.

Another before and after...pretty obvious which is before and which is after. Mind you, we didn't have a filthy sink, those are just water deposits!

After. Both sides shiny.

Lake Tahoe Trip 2011

We went on our annual Lake Tahoe trip for the 4th of July this year. We got there very late on June 30th and stayed until July 7th and had a really nice vacation.

Day 1: We took it pretty easy the first day. We slept in, ate a nice breakfast, packed a lunch, took a walk to the park, and had a picnic. At the park, Joshua slept in the stroller while we ate and then we played some ping pong and there were some little bitty lawn chairs and a baby swing that we put Joshua in.

Day 2: We slept in again and eventually headed down to the beach (it's amazing how long it takes to do something when you get all ready to go and then it's time for Joshua's nap). At the beach we mostly just played in the sand. The water is really high this year so it's FREEEEZING cold. Needless to say, Joshua wasn't a fan of going into the water at all, not even his feet. That night my cousin and her boyfriend (Sylvia and Frank...and Burley the Bulldog) came and we had enchiladas for dinner. yum! I made them with rice in the sauce and rolled half and tore the other half.

Day 3: We went on a hike around Spooner Lake (Dave, Joshua, Sylvia, and me). It was more like a nature walk, but a pretty area, for sure. I was wondering why people didn't swim in that lake, since it's sure to be warmer than Tahoe, but then we saw a sign warning of Leeches. Blech. That evening everyone else arrived: My aunt and her boyfriend (Karen and Greg), my mom's cousin and his wife and daughter (Darrel, Deia, and Mayara), his wife's nephew and his girlfriend (? and Mayara). It was a full house! That night we had Lasagne made by Sylvia with thinly shaved carrots and zucchini in it. Yum again!

Day 4: Sunday, so we went to church, took a nap, went on a walk, and then Darrel made ribs for dinner. oh. my.

Day 5: Independence Day! We woke up early to go to a ceremony at the lake (can't spell the word...revaly? revally? revely?) I spent the afternoon making a birthday cake, someone decorated the golf cart for the parade, and then there was the parade and the picnic. Tons of food as usual. We stuffed our faces with BBQ chicken, hot dogs, and MORE RIBS! At the end we snatched up extra left over drinks and food (and my grandmother snatched a few extra bottles of wine and hid them in a bag - as usual. hehehe. silly.). Then we headed home to eat cake for little Mayara's 5th birthday before the fireworks started. We debated going to watch the fireworks from the shore, but decided that it would be too loud for Joshua, so we ended up watching them from the deck and Joshua was fascinated...until he fell asleep.

Day 6: Darrel and company left early, before anyone else was even up. We bummed around a bit and then went to China beach (Dave, Joshua, Sylvia, and I) and played in the sand and water (it was warmer water there, since it's shallower and has black sand). Joshua was covered in sand, and even ate a few grains...crunchy! Frank had been working to get a bolt on his motorcycle loose all week and finally got it off that morning, so once he got it fixed, we all had an early dinner of burgers and hot dogs and then everyone else headed home again.

Day 7: Dave and I watched a movie in the morning while Joshua took a long nap, we went hiking up Shakespeare Rock and planned to have lunch at the top, but noticed some menacing clouds, lightening, and thunder rolling in, so we headed down quickly and almost MISSED getting poured on. We enjoyed the storm from the deck instead of going to the beach again like we planned. Then we had dinner of lemon cod with my grandparents.

Day 8: We washed sheets, vacuumed, and cleaned up after ourselves, and then headed home. They were fixing some scratches on the driveway which made it a bit complicated to pack up, but we got it figured out. On the way home, we noticed that Joshua had a fever ("Ding!" oh, that's why he's been taking long naps...), which turned into a pretty nasty flu/cold bug and was passed on to me, and then Dave, and it's almost finished running its course, two weeks later.

Besides getting sick, which is almost a given being around so many different people for a week, it was a wonderful trip and it was really refreshing to spend so much time together and not have to worry about a lot of things.

So Cal and Vegas, Baby!

My cousin got married on May 7th in Redlands, CA. I also had a friend getting married on May 13th in Albuquerque, NM, with a reception the following weekend in Las Vegas, NV. I also have a bunch of friends in Vegas and NM. So I had a choice to make. I obviously couldn't go to all three of them (three road trips in three weeks, no thanks!) I figured family should come first, and I could make a stop in Vegas and see friends, including the one getting married, on the way.

So my brother Alex, little Joshua, and I (Dave had to work *sad face*) packed up the car on Thursday morning, and headed to Vegas. That night I had a blast chatting it up with girls I love, while Alex did homework. Friday morning I hit up my favorite store EVER (H&M) for some new clothes (hadn't bought any new clothes - except maternity clothes - since the last time I was there...two years ago).

Then we headed down to California. We got there in time for dinner at my Aunt and Uncle's house, and had a delicious dinner made by Aunt Emiko: Rice, spring rolls, and orange chicken (was it orange? sesame? sweet and sour?...it was delicious).

Alex, my dad, Joshua, and I shared a hotel room in Redlands that night and hop-skip-and-a-jump-ed over to the Redlands Temple in the morning for Cynthia's wedding. I stayed in the waiting room while Joshua screamed slept peacefully during the ceremony. After the luncheon, we all crashed for a bit on couches until the reception that evening where Joshua got passed around from relative to relative during the festivities. We left early from the reception, which is unusual for us - we're usually the first to come and last to leave, but Joshua had been patient enough with us keeping him up way past his bedtime already.

Sunday morning we packed up, went to Sacrament meeting, and then drove all the way home. The last half of the drive was peppered with screaming Joshua (he wasn't a fan of the changes in altitude), and then a torrential downfall of rain, so the drive home was longer than planned, but we all made it home in one piece...physically.

I came home to a spotless house with a bouquet of flowers and a stack of girl scout cookies on the table - happy mother's day! (best. gift. ever.)

Gerber Generation Photos - PLEASE VOTE NOW!

Ok, so I'm one of those moms who enter their babies into baby contests. Of course I think he should win all of them! Anyway...I'm entering Joshua into the Gerber Generation Baby Contest (could win a $50,000 scholarship!!!) and I need help picking the photo to enter because I can just pick one!

I sat Joshua down (new thing--sitting on his own!) on our bed and snapped some photos while trying to get him to giggle. Please comment or like the photo you like best on facebook (I know it's hard to pick just ONE...you can pick multiples if you want...just not all of them, mmmkay?).

The deadline is June 30th! (Thursday!) so please do so ASAP so I can have one picked by Wednesday!

LINK TO FACEBOOK PHOTO ALBUM

Homes

I had the opportunity of going to a few of the parade of homes today with a friend. I'm definitely planning on going to all of them next year with Dave. It's so fun to look at average houses, super green houses, and ueber expensive houses. The only problem is that whenever I look at something and think, "oooh, I like that" you can almost always guarantee that Dave is looking at it and thinking, "ewww, I hate that." So someday when we have oodles of money and want to build our dream home, we'll probably have to have his and hers houses so we can both be happy with the design.

Here are some quick snapshots I got with my phone camera:

This is a master bathroom, believe it or not...the first door on the right was the shower, tub, toilet, counters, etc. Then there was a closet in the second door, storage and a little bench on the left (perfect for putting shoes on!) and at the end of the hall...can you guess?...my friend and I both thought this was a brilliant idea...it's a nursery! Probably the quietest area of the house, still close enough to the bedroom to be accessible in the middle of the night but far enough away that everyone can sleep well. Brilliant idea. And when you don't need a nursery anymore it can be a little reading room sanctuary or something.

This is the master bedroom of that same house. I just liked the window above the bed.

Again the same house, this is a cute little reading nook at the top of the stairs. Wonderful idea.

Ok, so turns out I just took a lot of pictures of the same house (the super "green" house). These were bamboo wood floors and I really liked the way the dark wood was set in the light wood in that pattern. Simple, yet enough to make it interesting.

This is just an inspiration piece. I like the way they used smaller glass tiles to separate the tile from the carpet. I'm not sure if I'd pick those tiles, but something similar would be nice.

Finally, here's a great view from a $1.5 Million house we went through. It had a ton of windows and lofty ceilings. There was so much natural light even all the way down into the basement. This was also a really nice house but I didn't get any pictures of the house itself. Next year...next year...

T Minus X Days

Every year we go on vacation to Tahoe. Now to keep some anonymity I'm not going to post when we're going and how long it is until then. But just know that it's on my mind and I'm SO EXCITED!

Since I've been thinking about Tahoe, I realized that I'm not so ready for it yet. I mean I'm ready for the vacation and time with Dave and extended family. I'm super excited about that part. However, I'm not physically ready.

I've been using giving birth as an excuse for too long, and it's time to give it up. I am on a mission to get back into shape. No, I'm not considering myself fat, I just consider the fact that I huff and puff after going up a flight of stairs a little pathetic. I can't take very big steps any more, Dave always has to slow down his gait for me, and I get headaches from my bad posture.

So today I joined the gym! I even worked out for a little while!

I'm not used to being away from Joshua yet, so it was only a 20 minute workout (plus I left him with my in-laws who were also watching a 6-week-old and a 14 month old as well), but it's a start! I've also found that even though I didn't get to the gym until 10:30 am, it was still a good start to my day and has made me much more productive.

I had found myself in a downward spiral where I'd sleep in, feel bad about sleeping in, bum around, feel bad about bumming around, so I'd surf the net, feel bad about surfing the net, etc. until it was Joshua's bedtime, and then I'd try and hurry and accomplish something to make the whole day not a complete waste, which means I'd stay up late, and sleep in again the next morning...

Not any more! aHA!

Project Finish Projects

We got lovely shelves to put up in the side of the Nursery/Office/Craft Room that's the Office/Craft Room side so that I could get the boxes of stuff everywhere organized and out of the way.

Once I started going through things and putting them on the shelves, I realized just how many projects I have started but not finished. Including: some skirts I tried to make in high school, a fire inspired quilt, a jeans quilt, a wool blanket quilt, my couches, curtains for the dining room, curtains for the living room, too-short pants to make into capris/shorts, etc.

So I decided to dedicate some time to finishing up projects that I've started.

On Monday I had a friend come over to borrow my cutting mat and rotary cutter. I figured while the stuff was out, I might as well do something with it. So I got out the jeans I had started cutting up into squares.

Tangent - I started cutting up these jeans into squares a few weeks ago when I put up the shelves and somehow spending two days holding the ruler in place while cutting squares injured my wrist, and it still hurts! boo...hiss...I need a gypsy gripper!

Getting some inspiration from the zig-zag quilt on my cousin's really cute blog (don't be fooled by the pinwheels in the first picture). I set to work. I matched up all the dark squares with all the light squares to make the zig-zags. What I forgot to take into consideration was that by making a 7" square into a square made of two triangles with a 1/4" seam I lost half an inch, so I had 70 squares that were 6.5" and 60 squares that were 7". Whoops.

But hey, it's my first quilt (rag quilts don't count), so I figure what the heck, who cares!? I'll just try not to look too closely at it whenever we use it for picnics, fireworks, camping, etc.

So all week I've been hard at work sewing the squares into strips, and then the strips to each other and I finished today!

Now the problem is that I don't have fabric for the back or binding, nor do I have any batting...but that will have to wait. So I really just got further along in the process of the project, but I'm considering that done!

I can't decide on what to work on next. I have two of the three curtains in the living room done, so they're unmatching and obvious. The couch takes the cake on unmatching and obvious. I only have one pair of shorts currently and it'd be nice to have another. Shall I put it to a vote? (See poll on right)