40 Weeks + 12 days

Baby or no baby? You don't really know yet, hahahaha!

Today on FlyLady is to pick a mission, which is a little extra tidbit after the weekly quick clean. In reality, there isn't much to keeping a clean house. This is what FlyLady seems to have as a regular maintenance, it's just the 30 day FlyBaby portion adds to it and establishes a schedule and seems to get your whole house well cleaned so that maintenance is easier.

1) Morning Routine
2) Afternoon Routine (if you need one)
3) Before bed routine
4) Quick clean your house 1 day per week
5) Zone cleaning - 5 zones in the house - 1 zone per week so you rotate through in a month. The zones are the high traffic areas and you do a more detailed cleaning when you hit that week on a particular day. These are also called the missions. This week is the master bedroom and for today's challenge I'm supposed to pick one of the daily missions for the master bedroom to do today. I already cleaned off all the dressers and night stands.

40 Weeks + 11 Days

The baby is supposed to be here by now, provided the induction worked yesterday. Honestly it could have been a few days ago, I've scheduled posts for several days since I won't be home and can't access my blog from the hospital. Sooner or later you'll get a post of the birth (might be several days after I get home).

Today's FlyLady.net challenge is to delete all the emails I've received so far from the list. It's good practice in removing things we no longer need. I've actually already done that twice, so it's not much of a challenge for me.

40 Weeks + 10 Days

Another day of waiting for baby (maybe - have I mentioned that all these posts are pre-scheduled for quite a while now and there are still 4 more to go on the scheduler?). Baby does practice contractions every 2 to 3 days, and I sit for 7 to 10 hours, finally timing them in the last couple of hours. The annoying thing is, once I reach an hour of contractions that are 4 to 6 minutes apart I'll go take a shower and rest up until a more reasonable hour of the day arrives (because usually the contractions start around 6 to 8pm, so it's 4 or 5 in the morning when I've reached the 4 to 6 minutes apart) figures I end up falling asleep and the contractions go away. Sneaking baby, maybe it just wants to get the process down perfectly before it arrives.

I did find out that if we are induced it takes 8 to 12 hours typically for baby to arrive after labour gets started. Although apparently inducing labour doesn't always get things going and either you try again another day, or have a C-section.

Today's flylady.net challenge is to write down some inspirational quotes for motivation. For example, even cleaning incorrectly still blesses your family and clutter can't be organized.

40 Weeks + 9 Days

Not much time left but still waiting for baby to arrive. Yesterday after seeing the doctor I started having some feelings, not happy ones, but not sad either. I've spent some time exploring just what exactly I am feeling, because I was having a really hard time putting words to describe it.

I believe what I feel is related to the unknown of bringing home baby. We still don't have a name, the baby's room is not quite ready (haven't hung the shelves). I'm not sure I'm ready to take take of an infant which is weird because I used to babysit one with no problems. Can it really be so simple as change, feed, burp, sleep those first few weeks? What if I have trouble breastfeeding? What if like my SIL I come home from the hospital so confused and out of sorts that I can't even figure out how to make a bottle. For example, I have a microwave sanitizer for the bottles, but oddly there are no instructions in the sanitizer on how to use it. Do I put the nipples in the sanitizer, or do I sanitize them a different way? I feel like I have so many questions and no answers, and what answers I do have I'll forget when I need them.

I confess that some of this has to do with my profession as an analyst. Part of my job is to look at defined requirements and determine solutions, but sometimes the requirements are ambiguous and its my job to refine them so there is a clear yes/no path and dealing with the alternates that can occur. I've actually noticed in the last 6 to 12 months that this analysis I do has made filling out forms somewhat interesting because when answering questions the question can be somewhat ambiguous and I could put many answers. For example, the hospital pre-registration form, asked if I have any children, then asked if I had made care giving arrangements for my children and if not why not. The way it was structured is that the care giving question was mandatory and not optional based on the number of children being greater than zero and they asked it twice, so was there supposed to be a different context the second time I had to answer the question?

Then there's my need to plan, and I feel very unplanned for being able to take care of a baby. For going to the hospital I knew I would be there at least 36 hours and hubby would be with me, so care for the dog had to be arranged. He needs to be feed twice a day and let out preferrably 3 times a day. I felt the need to have plans for the following scenarios:

1. Go into labour during the day - not an emergency
2. Go into labour during the day - emergency (need to rush to the hospital, so can't take Drake to parents or boarding)
3. Go into labour at night - not an emergency
4. Go into labour at night - emergency

See, we're not sure how Drake will initially react to our parents coming over to feed him without us being home. We also couldn't take him to be boarded if it was at night or on the weekend, and since labour could occur at any time also didn't want to take him to be boarded the day before the due date and have the baby be 10 days late as that's quite expensive.

Anyway, moving on to the cleaning topic. Today's cleaning challenge is that we can do anything for 15 minutes, so I have to set a timer for 15 minutes and go through the house to throw out all the garbage I can find and take it out to the curb/garage. Then I set the timer for another 15 minutes and I sit back and read a magazine. I'm not much of a magazine reader, perhaps I'll watch TV, listen to music or read a chapter of one of my books.

40 Weeks + 8 Days

Today I thought I'd share how Drake (our dog) has been following me around for the last 3 weeks that I've been home instead of my husband. Hubby truly is Drake's favourite person, but I think that might change over the next year while I'm home and spending time with him. Drake isn't a cuddly dog, but he has been sleeping in the same room with me more frequently rather than sleeping by the front door waiting for hubby to come home. He also sometimes sleeps beside the couch I'm on, although I think that is related to me having eaten something while sitting on the couch first. Drake often comes to sleep with me for our daily nap on the bed, although if hubby is home then Drake will likely stay with daddy than napping with me.

Today's new cleaning challenge includes decluttering an area for 15 minutes. Yesterday was to make a journal of my morning and evening routines for cleaning and tidying the house and getting myself ready and organized.

There are also weekly things that FlyLady.net does. Monday is home blessing day which is spend 1 hour cleaning, no more than 10 minutes on any one chore (vacuum, dust, mop, change sheets, garbage etc). Tuesday is planning day for the next week, i.e. menu planning, date night/family time planning, activities planning, wardrobe, trips, etc. Seems this continues throughout the week, I kind of like that there's only 1 day for quick cleaning (beyond the zone cleaning and FlyBaby 30 day habit maker) and that it is at the beginning of the week so that your house starts the week out clean.

40 Weeks + 7 Days

Not sure what to say today, I have an appointment at the hospital for a weekly non-stress test to make sure the baby is still thriving. I was kind of hoping to be in labour by now though.

I did nothing on yesterday's to do list, oh well, I need hubby to help with the shelves as it's a 2 person job. The bathrooms and kitchen are done, except the floor, mostly because it's difficult to get down to scrub the floor properly.

The house is actually pretty clean and organized now, yay! I think I'll work on finding 30 items to toss and 30 to donate. Always good to purge a bit of stuff every now and then. When in doubt it's pretty easy for me to toss hair, skin care and make-up products, and to donate books or clothes (or maybe I'll sell the books to a used book seller).

Hubby's working from home because, honestly, I'm a little scared to go into labour by myself. I keep worrying I'll be one of those rarer labours that require emergency assistance and I won't be able to get to the front door to unlock it to let the EMTs in. I know, everything will be fine, and likely I'll be a scheduled induction anyway.

40 Weeks + 6 Days

Another day of waiting. Another day to do tasks around the house.

Last night I felt a pretty much rhythmic movement from the baby, I thought it might be stress from the false labour, or some other thing that was beginning to worry me and I thought about calling the on call doctor. Finally 'hiccups' occurred to me because I have felt this from the baby a couple of times before, I just never realized it was hiccups! I can't believe it took me until being almost a week overdue to recognize hiccups.

I've learned something else today, it seems that no matter how much I clean, even after I just finished some things actually look less clean? For example, I just damp mopped the floor and I vacuumed it yesterday, yet I currently see 2 doggy hairballs, I just mopped it 20 minutes ago! I'm thinking the damp mop must have caused the hairs to stick together more and then they fell off the mop. Same for dusting the (glass) coffee table, now the 2 long edges actually look more dusty with stuck dog hairs. Maybe I should be using microfibre clothes to dry dust everything first?


Today's to do list:
Finish cleaning the bathrooms
Hang the shelves in the baby's room
Clean up the construction materials in the baby's room

40 Weeks + 5 Days

Finally got the upstairs vacuumed, and I've tried to find those knitting books, but I'm at a loss, I've checked every logical place, so only the only places left are either buried in a box somewhere, or in an illogical place while I was doing a very quick cleanup must have tossed it somewhere strange.

I made my sciatica pain worse in my right leg today, so I'll likely be taking it pretty easy, maybe I'll just take a few clothes to the donation box today and tidy up the kitchen. Although today is the day to identify and spend a few minutes tidying up your hotspots at FlyLady.net I'm on Day 6 of the baby steps program.

5 more days until inducement and the baby arrives.

40 Weeks + 4 Days

Still waiting for baby to arrive. I'm pretty tired today, so I'm thinking I'll take a break from my to do list today. I did however, finally, get the thank you cards written, I just have to mail them now. I still want to find my knitting books and vacuum upstairs, but if it doesn't happen then it doesn't happen.

40 Weeks + 3 Days

The doctor and hubby and I have set a date for inducing labour. I had a choice between Nov 20 and 25th. The doctor didn't think we'd naturally go into labour by the 20th, but that we would have delivered by the 25th. Have I mentioned that I think the delivery date will be the 23rd? Anyway, at least now I have a firm end date! The doctor wants me to take it easy until the birth, so I guess some of those activities to induce labour, like walking, is off the table as an option. Can I also remove cleaning (smile)? Also shopping for Christmas presents will be online, so I suppose I should start doing that, fortunately I have a small family, although 2 family members have birthdays close to Christmas. If I send hubby to shop for his family, then I only have to purchase gifts for 5 people for 7 occassions (10 occassions if I include my in-laws).

Today's to do list:

1. Complete the thank you cards (yah, it's been on my list for 3 days)
2. Finish the composting and recycling (it's collection day)
3. Check the light in the garage, hubby thinks it's on some setting that it's not shutting off automatically
4. Vacuum upstairs

40 Weeks + 2 days

Very early this morning I thought I wouldn't be writing this post today, but alas falso alarm and here I am. I asked hubby to work from home today since I was up all night (OK until 4:30am) with labour pains, seems the hot shower at 4am helped ease the pain, relaxed me, and I fell asleep sometime between 4:30 and 5am.

Today's list:

1. Shower and dress
2. Have breakfast and coffee
3. Clean the kitchen
4. Finish the thank you cards (I went shopping yesterday instead for b-day and xmas prezzies)
5. Pack the maternity clothes
6. Find my knitting books (I did clear 2 boxes from the office/dumping ground, but didn't find my knitting books)
7. Go to my weekly doctor's appt and find out a few things, like the last possible day she would induce me, so I can look forward to a maximum length of time.

Update: The doctor will be inducing me on Thursday November 25, although she thinks I'll go into labour on my own early next week.

40 Weeks + 1 day

Well I'm 1 day overdue. I was thinking last night I should come up with ideas to occupy and reward myself while waiting for baby to arrive. I was thinking of blogging my daily list of activities, but that doesn't necessarily include a reward. Here's today's activity list though.

1. Dress, make-up and hair done
2. Have breakfast
3. Start the beef stew in the slow cooker for dinner
4. Clean kitchen & shine the kitchen sink
5. Have coffee
6. Try to find my knitting books so I can finish the baby blanket and baby sweater I'm making (this may take a few days)
7. Put some maternity clothes away
8. Put the remaining laundry away (hubby had to bring it upstairs for me)
9. Finish writing thank you cards for shower gifts - just 5 more to go

I'm thinking one of these days for a reward I would like to get a pedicure.

40 Weeks - Due Date Arrives

Today is my due date. I'm not yet in labour, and I don't think it will be today.

I started reading FlyLady.net today, the baby step to a clean and organized home on day one is a shiny kitchen sink. Well baby step number 1 is actually "a shiny sink" but since all the pictures are of a kitchen sink, I'll just be doing that.

Since I'm not in labour yet, and feeling a little motivated to do things other than sit around and watch TV, I've put together a little to do list for the day.

My to do list:

1. Eat breakfast
2. Shine the kitchen sink
3. Put away 1 basket of clean laundry
4. Shower and dress
5. Have a coffee
6. Dry hair and put on makeup
7. Apply for government maternity leave benefits
8. Apply for work top-up to maternity leave benefits - turns out this one I can't complete until I have proof of #7 being completed.

Bonus Items:

1. Fold and put away another 2 clean baskets of laundry (it was done last night to take advantage of the cheaper electricity rates).
2. Clean master bathroom tub - just in case I go into labour because apparently a warm bath can help. It's just getting down on my knees and leaning over the tub with a huge belly to do the cleaning that is daunting.
3. Take clothing donations to the donation box (maybe I'll do this at lunch time if I go pick up a lunch).
4. Put some of my maternity clothes into a box for storage (the ones that don't fit or are no longer appropriate to the season, like my shorts and Capris).

Updates:

The main list is done, and I even gave myself a manicure!

House Keeping

An hour ago I was telling hubby that I appreciate that he swept and dusted the dining room yesterday and I'm sorry I didn't tell him then. Also how I wish I could keep the house as clean as my mother did, but I'm not that kind of woman (yet) and perhaps my eyes are now more critical than they were as a child to young adult, it's not until I had my own home that I started noticing. Although my apartments were cleaner than this, although I think in part I kept my mess and disorganization confined to my personal living space and not the common areas which helped alot. Anyway, I've been feeling lately not only do I eat like a pig, I live like one, so I've decided to add a daily cleaning challenge to my kick the pig blog. Today's shall be cleaning the master bedroom and bath, which will include doing the laundry, although since hubby's downstairs I'll take it down, he can do the switching.

Promised Before & After Pictures

Ahh, ladies here they are the promised pics, bigger if you click on them:

The Basement Bedroom

Before

After (yes it's a slightly lighter colour, I was going to do it the same colour as the living room, but it ended up problematic around the door frames for the closets, so I tried to match the original colour)

The closet in the basement bedroom with the gift area for Laura (left side only, right side is Laura's wonderful odds and ends solution, I have tape, lightbulbs, pest control, power bars, and child safety electrical outlet plug covers in mine. Looking for more items to fill it).

The living room for Chrissa (so she can see the Ikea rug) , you can see where I'm in the process of finishing this blog on the left there :) well not me obviously, I'm taking the photo, but the laptop and water bottle.

Today I've actually been hanging a lot of pictures, like our wedding pic you see in the living room above. Most of them are gifts we gave each other for various anniversaries (dating and wedding). Monday is our second wedding anniversary, we'll be going out to dinner tomorrow, but seeing, framing and finally hanging a lot of these beautiful momentos (2 of which hubby drew himself) has made me feel rather sentimental and romantic today.

Sunday Funday

(Updated with rug pic below for Mrs. Happy)

So this morning hubby and I went to Ikea for breakfast, and we picked up a rug for the living room. Drake, like a lot of little ones, wanted to explore the new item before hubby and I had finished placing it down, so imagine us moving the rug around with an 80lb golden retriever on the rug. Eventually I did put him outside for 5 minutes where he barked to let me know hoe thought it was unfair that I tricked him into going outside by going out first myself. Hey, whatever works, and I didn't pretent to say hi to Soup, the neighbours dog who sticks his head under the fence to say "hi". They are digging holes under the fence to one another, but I think they've reached some roots or hard earth, because they haven't dug any deeper for about 6 months, and it would need to be pretty deep to get Drake or Soup under there. Soup is about 10 pounds less than Drake, but a better digger, he's husky and black lab.

Anyway, have about half the room in the basement back together. It's painted and the bed, side table, lamp and phone are back in. I do have to empty out the closets and hang some shelves and decide what else is going back in there before I take a picture. Hopefully later today I'll update this post with pics. In the mean time to avoid doing the work, I think I'll start the story board with the old pic :)

Hahaha, Drake's doing the baby thing with his rope toy where he lies on his back and holds the rope in the air over his mouth and chews on it. That's one of my favourite things he does. :)

It's beige (seisel like) rimmed with dark brown. When I take a pic of the basement bedroom, I'll also take a pic of the living room so you can see the carpet there.

Cleaning Day

Today is cleaning day, and hubby is going to help me clean at the same time that I am cleaning. We've never done cleaning at the same time (or at least the same amount at the same time), so I'm wondering how we'll do it. Often I tend to break it out using Julie's 10 minute regime. i.e. I'll do something for 10 minutes. Here's what I have:

Tidy every room (bedroom, master bath, kitchen, dining room, living room, TV room
Sweep (kitchen, dining room, living room)
Wash Floors (3 bathrooms, kitchen, living room, dining room)
Vacuum (2 stairs, 2 halls, TV room, bedroom)
Clean 3 washrooms
Clean kitchen counters and stove
Dust (living room, dining room, TV room)
Vacuum furniture in living room and TV room
Wash laundry
Wash walk out window (muddy paw marks)
Wash front door (muddy paw marks)

I'm tempted to get started with the bathrooms and washing the 2 doors while hubby sleeps, but maybe I'll go ask him how he wants to clean first (by floor or by task), then I can get started on mine. Well hubby's too sleepy to respond, so I guess I'll just pick. I think I'll go by task. Usually when he helps he sweeps and mops, I hate vacuuming, and it's kind of like sweeping and mopping, so I'll leave him those three things and get started on the rest.

I shall begin with tidying.
Tidied kitchen, cleaned kitchen, cleaned bathroom, cleaned front and back doors, dusted dining room. THis took me 2 hours, and hubby actually did the dusting part. Now I'm taking Drake for a long walk while hubby does the washing of the floors.

So the main floor is clean, I might do the bedroom and bathroom while getting ready to go see my in-laws. Then that will be all for today most likely, but it will just leave vacuuming, the basement and laundry to do.

Today's Goals

I figured I'd better blog about my daily goals or I'll never get it all done. So today's goals are:
Eat healthy
Walk Drake (the dog)
Sand Basement hallway
Replaster where needed
Resand the newly plastered areas
Prime the basement hallway
Clean up the TV room
Take a picture and post the TV room for Chrissa
Empty the basement bedroom so it can be painted too
Empty the laundry room of stuff from the TV room and get it organized
Move the one dresser from the master bedroom to the basement and use for storage.

Here are before pictures of the hall and basement bedroom:




Progress Update
Walked Drake
Finished first round of sanding and vacuumed
Took pics of the TV Room, which is in the basement and I painted last week, you can also see the new desk we bought last month.

View from the back of the room (standing beside the desk)



View from the front of the room (standing in front of the TV)



View from the doorway (so you can see the desk better)

DIY: Painting

You know, I like painting, I like the sense of accomplishment, however, what I don't like is the rest of it. For instance, to actually get started painting you have to move furniture, prep the walls by filling holes and dents you made while moving the furniture, sand it, prime it, lay the drop clothes, tape off things you don't want to paint, get the painting gear out (cans of paint, brushes, roller, cloth for wiping up mistakes quickly) change clothes. Then you can get down to painting. Afterwards, there are the washing the brushes, pickup the drop clothes, move out the painting gear. Once dry there are touch ups to bare spots, fixing where you might have laid the ladder for a second and it left a black mark on the wall, touch up the trim and ceilings where you got a little careless (i.e. tired from painting), dust tables, vacuum behind that furniture you haven't moved since the last time you painted/moved/rearranged the furniture. Might as well organize while doing this and not put back stuff that doesn't belong there.

I'm currently at this second round, where you do touch ups and paint the trim (yes I do that last, many people do it first, makes no difference to me because I end up having to redo, even if taped once I've painted the wall). So I suppose I should get down to it, although first I'm going to walk the dog again and pick up those pina coladas :)

Woohoo, it's finally happened

Yes ladies, after almost 2 years of marriage, it has finally happened. Congratulate me! I finally have my china and crystal put away in a dresser :) It's safe and accessible :)

Today I received another partial delivery of my bedroom furniture. Now let me explain how my china got put away in my bedroom furniture. The dresser doesn't fit in the bedroom, but I wanted it for the day when we lived somewhere that it would, so we bought it. Well it just happens to match my dining room table, so it's in the dining room and now filled with my china, crystal, and soon linens :) Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!

Tomorrow's organization goal is to tidy up the room downstairs prepping it for it's final organization when I get the last of the bedroom furniture.