I Love When My Kid is Sick - In A Non-Creepy Way

I literally had a conversation last weekend with a fellow parent, a dad even, and we agreed that when our kids are sick, we kinda love it. This isn't some psychotic creepy love of sickly children. We just love when they really need us. They want to just snuggle and be calm. They ask you for what they need, there is no time or energy for a tantrum about anything, and they are crazy sweet. So I don't love when my child is sick in like a Munchausen syndrome by proxy way, but more like, they finally slow down and just chill with you.

This is my Sunday, and on days like this, which I'm fortunate enough end up on weekends more often than not, I get a lot done around the house but also get time for myself to reboot. She's allowed to literally watch endless television and the dog is happy cuddling all day with someone. 

It's so funny how things work out. Usually when she's sick I go into panic mode of "I can't miss work!" But, I actually can. At my current job I'm lucky enough that I never get punished for missing work. It's pretty refreshing. Friday I just felt off and was allowed to leave work early. I literally got everything important done before I left. Everything else can usually wait and I feel so appreciative for that.

I cleaned most of the house and it's 11:15AM on a Sunday. I'm already back in my pajamas after a quick grocery store run before my husband had to go to work. I went through all of my daughter's toys and got rid of a bunch of stuff she didn't need. I reorganized a bit. I purged some stuff. I may even go through her clothes and rotate out some things today. I have some sewing that I've been neglecting also.

It's weirdly refreshing when you have time to tackle things. Of course I'll leave steam cleaning the floors last because that I just an annoying job in my opinion. However, it's nice after the week I had to have this kind of day today.

The next week has a few different kinds of anniversaries for our family and can have a lot of emotional baggage, but I'm going at them with all the positive vibes. It's so weird how after everything this weekend, and feeling so ill, and now having a sick kid, I'm somehow in this freakishly optimistic mood. Like I'm just not worried or stressing, but just happy that things are coming together.

I've made it six months of posting and Friday marks the first day I actually missed. I'm proud of that and even though two more posts will be missed shortly here, I still am impressed with myself that I haven't lost out to anything else. These are important moments. Truly. 

So, with laundry to fold, purging to do, bathrooms and floors to clean, I go forth onto this Sunday ready to rock. 

The 9PM Too Tired To Post Post

You thought I forgot? I've been out all day and immediately came home to mom chores. Weekends are rough. I'm too tired to be all artistic and poetic. But I will have a real post after I scour my house tomorrow. 

Rained Out Beach Plans Mean Overdue Relax Time

I booked a lot of things for this weekend. Today was supposed to be church and beach but we got a crazy thunderstorm that killed off the beach plans. Time to improvise!

This weekend brought waves of feelings of being overwhelmed. Between end of year and teacher appreciation stuff, job hurdles for my husbands, and plans having to be rearranged, things got heavy fast and all I can do is keep trying to stay positive a la "Just keep swimming."

I can only control so much, however I can also only handle so much. What a wonderful line that is. So on a Sunday afternoon, I had a moment where I wanted to diatribe it up and complain. I wanted to write about the struggle in all my exhaustion and vent it all out. But, I decided, why feed into it more?

Sundays are supposed to be a peaceful reboot time and in the midst of the chaos, here I am, still chugging along. My daughter and I are chilling, watching Netflix and embracing a lazy day after the thunderstorms. I had high hopes for a beach day but we can't always get what we want.

I even managed to only dust and do laundry as opposed to scour the house. Weekends are hard, and I don't even mean that sarcastically. Weekends are rough. You try and squeeze so much into so little time and then you realize you have to rally to watch Game of Thrones. It's quite a life.

For now I'm counting my blessings amidst the unknown and embracing as much as I can within my sanity. This week may have some heavy subject matter as I will be divulging all the things. Hang tight readers and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Weekends Go Too Fast - A Haiku

Weekends go too fast

Chores are done, house is calm

Laundry folded, laundry clean

Haiku writing is so weird

I'm really exhausted, I need carbs

Walk the dog, feed the dog

I should try more another Haiku

After I am rested I can try

Rest, reboot, take care of yourself

Weekends go too fast

Saturday gone, Happy Sunday

Short post, finished post

It Ended Up Being A Baseboard Day

Every weekend I clean. A lot. For many hours. Sometimes just Saturday. Sometimes I span it over two days, depending on my energy level. But every weekend I clean, like it or not.

After horseback riding lessons we got home and I had a small lunch type situation and then started my mental checklist. A friend who recently moved away left us an obscene amount and strange array of leftover cleaning supplies. I had slowly been using them for random things around the house, as I usually do vinegar based things and have some weird aversion to the smell some cleaning products, bleach especially.

I found an all purpose cleaner and looked down and realized...it had been a good month since I did the baseboards. I saw one particular spot that was completely gross. And then it began...and it ended up being a baseboard day. 

I can only speak for myself, but have to ask, does anyone else loathe doing baseboards? I have this weird wave of emotions and hilarious thoughts as soon as I start the task. It goes from, "I immediately regret this decision," to thoughts like, "oh my gosh, how gross are we living?" 

I start and I'm like, "Hey this isn't that bad." But as I progress I'm like, "Ugh why did I even start this? Well I already started it so I have to finish now. How did dirt get there?" Before you know it, I'm internally having a full on conversation with myself, and therefore have entered crazy town. 

I was cleaning the baseboards thinking of writing this blog and how, you have to get in all these weird uncomfortable positions to clean them, and reach all these weird angles. All of the sudden, then I wonder, why do we even have baseboards and why did I arrange the furniture to make this so difficult? Again, cleaning the baseboards becomes some weird internal philosophical conversation. It's so strange how my mind wanders when I'm doing cleaning tasks.

Cleaning the baseboards is gratifying and annoying all at the same time, and I totally wish it were less exhausting, but when I'm done I feel that amazing sense of accomplishment. So I'm bending and squatting and conforming and scrubbing, all to clean the dog hair and every day life of the spot that buffers the wall and the floor. All the while my daughter is scurrying around clearing her messes and getting ready for a play date.

I finally start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and then hit that mental wall about the rest of the things I need to clean. There's a huge part of me that gets a sense of pride knowing that I'm the one who does the bulk of the cleaning in my own home. My husband has recently been a huge, huge help and even the kiddo pitches in from time to time but mostly it's all me that keeps up with the chores and maintenance making the house a home.

Of course I dream about having a house cleaner and not having to spend my weekends cleaning, and if I ever had room in the budget I would spend it on freeing up my time in that way, but I also like knowing when I cleaned what and with what supplies. I think it's more of that control in the chaos thing that I live by. I love knowing there are certain things I have full control over, no matter what else is going on in my life. And cleaning arranging is one of those easy things to manage.

I always sleep better when I have a clean house. I can start my week successfully knowing that kicked butt at home ownership and did all my necessary chores. I also feel better mental health-wise knowing that I keep my house tidy and the filth minimal. 

So today ended up being a baseboard day. And in some ways that was not at all what I had in mind. In other ways I'm glad I decided to get that done so it was one less thing for me to do tomorrow or next week. There will always be a to-do list. The husband will always have a "honey-do" list. There are times to kick back and ignore the chores and then there are baseboard days. Whatever your Saturday brings, I hope you get that sense of accomplishment too!

Menial Tasks Are All Me

Am I the only person who loves being given a specific, albeit menial task, just because you know exactly how it should be done, and why? Maybe I am, but there's a certain sense of accomplishment that comes with it's completion, and I am all for it.

I love a good spreadsheet or "search and find" task. Any form of organization makes me feel useful. Watching the hours pass as I type or enter data makes me feel calm. Maybe that's completely pathetic and lame, but I'm always up for a good mind-numbing to do list. 

I like the kind of work where you can't completely daydream but it also doesn't require complete and utter concentration with full attention. I hate being bored or feeling lazy and useless. I hate having to worry about selling things or selling people on the idea of me selling things to make money. I labor much better under the agreement of you pay me, I do the work and it goes both ways.

I've seen this menial-happiness come and go with my jobs. In my nanny days I always wanted to find fun things for us to do, make play dough, read books, craft, go on adventure walks, watch new kid movies and I always tidied up at the end. I loved having control of all the fun kid plans. With my first retail gig at a medical apparel store, I loved reorganizing the displays and even counting inventory. I liked ordering the different styles and patterns of things and entering things into the system. 

At the one restaurant I worked in, I always liked organizing the cash station so I could be more efficient. But when I worked at Massage Envy there was lots of merchandise to arrange, and we had to situate who went into what room when, which was like a weird version of Tetris. I got really good at it by the time I left. 

Jobs where I don't have those things, I get really anxious and I don't do well, or so now I have discovered. When I worked at HSN overnights from home, the things I liked most, were against the "rules." Like I knew that the little old ladies that called me at 1AM to spend their pension on gaudy jewelry just wanted someone to talk to, I also knew that this would allow them to buy more as the conversation went on, but we were to stick to the script, keep the calls under a certain time barrier and move them along. I didn't get into it.

My other two jobs in between then and now, came with more than a few unpleasant attributes, they may be part of my book someday. But now that I have a legit office job with Alison-friendly tasks, I actually like helping do weird things like taking a country club address book and typing almost 900 lines into excel to make mailing labels for my boss and his wife. It doesn't bother me I just put on some good tunes and go!

Even at home, cleaning and arranging don't bother me because I know the task at hand. And then I earn my lazy TV time later in the day so it's easy checks and balances. I think there is a weird comfort there.

Don't get me wrong, I've never turned down a job, because I've always needed to work to like, pay bills and stuff, but we've all had less-than-awesome jobs. Not every job will use our skills to their fullest advantage. We barely use our own potential and abilities to the fullest. 

I can edit, write and spreadsheet like nobody's business. I learned how to research and collect data with my degree! It's not always easy but it always has results, and there's something in there that gives me gratification and keeps me grounded.

I'm learning that I've become very good at tuning out the chaos. My personal world has been somewhat manic until recently. It's been an emotional train-wreck at times. I've seen and even felt it affect me at jobs, both negatively and positively depending on the circumstances. Sometimes I have weathered it well, and other times it's been pretty destructive, especially when I'm working in a position that doesn't allow me to use my best attributes productively. 

I will help with any menial task. Stapling flyers, printing and filing, organizing and ordering supplies, typing, emailing, and researching, BRING IT ON!

I find comfort in routines and feeling control of the tasks in front of me, and I think this is telling in terms of my circumstances. I've been coming to terms with and processing a lot emotionally lately. What I'm working on most is my acceptance that I can't control the actions of anyone else, but just my reaction to what they put in front of me. I can't force ANY relationship to go the way I want to. Not even a mom friend, not even my relationship with my own child. My dog doesn't even always listen to me! But I can control my acceptance of the things in front off me.

This is a daily reminder and struggle. Constant mantras being muttered and internal sorting out of how to deal with all the feels! Because when I go to bed with my new and epic early bed time routine, I'll sleep better knowing I'm okay with how I reacted or with not getting my perfect idea of something, because I did my data entry like a boss, I released some updates faster today, or I came up with better social media hashtags. Little wins are a big deal and anything menial is mine!

Here's to Monday and I'm headed back to my menial research and spreadsheet action. 

Birthday Hangover and Super Bowl

We survived the big birthday! And I think my daughter has a serious hangover from partying too hard. Today we even had a little more birthday mania with a trip to Build A Bear, excuse me her FIRST trip to Build A Bear courtesy of a friend. Her mind is effectively blown.

Me? My house is a glorious mess and I'm in one of those weird calm states where I know I just can't do too much about it so, bless my mess.

Now we kind of just await the game. Football for me has always been more of a social thing, rather than like, something to watch. In high school girls go to the games to hang out with guys and meet up with their friends and talk. In college you were supposed to support your college team because college football is weird. I went to one game.

For the Super Bowl my reasons are threefold: Junk food, commercials, and halftime show. Sure the game is fun too but let's be real. It used to be beer/food but things have changed a bit in my old age, so here we are.

The birthday hangover has been rough, I'll admit. She's been pretty cranky and sensitive today but with my dad here and a visit to church, she's been a little less crazy. Birthdays are a big deal and she's still reeling from all the fun.

I've tried to explain the Super Bowl to her a few times but I lack any non-lame way of explaining it well, perhaps because to me it's an excuse to gorge on Doritos and laugh at commercials instead of an actual sporting event.

I've always admired real football fans who get into it but the only sport I ever truly got attached to was Tennis and a little of Basketball. Basketball I LOVED to watch in high school. It didn't hurt that 2 of my cousins were basketball stars in our county so I got dragged all over to cheer them on. It was so fun.

Tennis I actually played well and I'm not a sporty person by any imagination. Football was just the thing that happened before the dance and a place to find guys.

So on Super Bowl Sunday while I'm surrounded by family, many things I should be doing and no energy to do them, I'm kind of joining into the Birthday Hangover mode and just chilling out. My daughter is currently bug catching with her dad and I'm listening to my pug howl over my shoulder and some random neighborhood dog he can't even see.

I'm ready for the game and for more family time for sure. Enjoy the game! Drink responsibly and have a great weekend. Thank you all again for your patience as life catches up with me and feel free to email me and comment on requested topics and fun entry ideas!

I Live For Lazy Sundays

I think most moms would agree with me that life is just way too busy. Any single chance that I have to curl up in bed, watch too much TV and decompress, I'm there.

Sundays are often filled with church, which I do enjoy, but it's a total of 45 minutes to an hour drive and means rushing in the morning to rally the troops. I rush Monday through Saturday, because Saturday we have horseback riding lessons, and I'm the one who gets up first, gets everyone up and going and make everyone stay timely. 

So if we can stay home on a Sunday, I want it filled with "sleeping in," unlimited cups of coffee in bed, Netflix, and a big old breakfast. This just doesn't happen enough. I will admit that if I could force every Sunday to be this way, I would but life happens before my big breakfast needs.

I grew up in the church. My dad was a Presbyterian minister. Most people end up surprised when I tell them that because once I moved in with my mom when I was 16, we never went to church. The only gathering place we hit up with any kind of routine or reverence was the mall.

And then when I moved back with my dad I was an angsty teenager with no desire to feed my soul with anything that wasn't Taco Bell, girly alcoholic beverages, and junk food. And my dad never forced me to go to church. Especially in my formative years.

To make things weirder, I spent a good 10 years in Catholic school because my mom went there and it was one of the best schools in the county so off I went. Catholicism was intense honestly and I don't think I ever really understood all of it, which got me into trouble in religion class. Even thought I got all A's, when I asked too many well-thought questions I was quickly silenced. 

But, back to Sundays. My husband wasn't raised going to church at all. Our first jobs we had in Florida, the only day the place was closed was Sunday, which quickly became our only day to sleep in, do anything together and reboot before another work week.

So lazy Sundays became a natural thing to us. It is, after all, the day of rest. And now with life so busy, it's a day I very much appreciate being slowed down when the time is right. And this morning was one of those perfect opportunities.

It started pouring down rain about 6AM and my daughter crawled into bed with me with a stuffy, yucky nose and said, "Mom do we have to go to church this morning? I don't want to be coughing on the other kids." Although we don't have much of a winter in Florida, this is our one cold week and yesterday was tolerable but cold rain? No thank you. That's why I moved far away from Oregon.

She just wanted to chill and binge watch Netflix and I just wanted to not rush to be anywhere. Eventually I mustered up the energy to hit the store for big breakfast necessities but other than that I've been hiding at home all day.

My daughter made a fortress from a cardboard box. I've done 4 loads of laundry. I've reorganized the pantry, cleaned some cupboards, and I might do party favor prep for my daughter's birthday next week. And the weather is perfect for all the snuggles. 

These days are so few and far between I love to bask in them when I can. Life seemingly never slows down and we're always too busy, so when days like this come around, I say no to "obligatory" things and "we should do this, that" or the next thing, and just try and enjoy each other. I'd call today a success. 

Happy Sunday readers! Back to the grind tomorrow. 

 

"It's Not Even Worth It To Take Time For Myself" - Another Mom and Me Too

I literally was having an Instagram Messenger conversation with another mom and we were talking about a meme she posted about being too tired to do things and commiserating with one another. I've written about this subject on multiple occasions, but it bears further discussion in my opinion.

I usually feel like, not only is it frowned upon, but it's not even worth it to take time for myself. It has been my personal experience that whenever I indulge in some "Treat Yo Self" time, I come home to something worse than when I left. If I go get a massage, which happens once a year at best, I'll come home to some crazy mess. If I get a manicure or pedicure, hubby gets a migraine and I'm stressed about finishing the cleaning he couldn't. Sometimes I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I suck at relaxing in general. I could most likely easily be diagnosed with ADD but I just feel like there is always something I need to be getting done. And I always have a million little projects on the Pinterest board of my mind! So when I get "me time," I either immediately have some weird form of "buyers" remorse or feel like I pay for it in other ways later.

For me, "me time" usually involves a workout because that isn't selfish it's self care, right? But now we see all these other self care methods like, face masks, manicures, pedicures and of course the Parks and Recreation spearheaded movement of "Treat Yo Self" which is just an excuse to buy a bunch of stuff you want for yourself. Man, I wish I could pull that off without feeling so badly about it right after.

In the grander scheme I do genuinely feel like taking time for myself isn't worth it. I don't know what it's like to be bored anymore and any time for just me to indulge in any "me" ways could be much better spent cleaning something or making some kind of progress of some kind. I often fantasize about what I would do with a day off with no plans. My husband immediately taunts me that it could never happen for me so it's an impossible dream. I over-plan and schedule everything.

Sometimes I wonder if there were no alarms and no responsibilities or obligations for a whole weekend, just how long I could sleep. And I think as moms we are tired because we constantly fear it's not worth taking time for ourselves, so we just keep running and running. We stay up late to watch too much TV, to eat what sugar and treats our kids can't have, and to do things without interruption. We get up early to beat the kids to stuff so we can get a head start on productivity. And we constantly rearrange everything to make sure everyone and everything else comes before we do. 

It can feel insanely thankless at times. You think of all these things you do and then people ask, "How do you do it all?" And the answer is you don't. We are our worst critics and we always feel we fall short. For instance, I have a clean house, a good job, and we finally have affordable health, dental and vision insurance and aren't up to our ears in debt. But I'm not involved in Luna's school like at all, and also, her one extra-curricular activity is on Saturday mornings and that's it. 

So again, it's not even worth taking any more time for myself than the gym because we have so much else going on. We do socially childless things maybe twice a month and I even try to keep us home as much as possible for chill and reboot time. 

I will admit during a crappy personal time I went through a selfish phase and was out too much and just on my own agenda and everything in my home life suffered, and I did too. But still, it pains me that most mothers feel this way. They feel like taking time for themselves just makes everything else worse and if they do they really won't be able to keep up or make up for it. I think the worst part of those feelings is, they are partially true.

We will never gain the lost time back. If we take a night to binge-watch Netflix and miss a sporting tournament or activity, we never get it back and we miss kid moments. If we don't wake up at 5AM and workout, we never get that workout back. In some senses, the whole "there's always tomorrow" thing is a bunch of crap that we can't even afford to buy into because, tomorrow will open a whole new kind of busy!

There will be more chores tomorrow, more mess, more dishes and more stress when we could just do it today. My husband gives me such a hard time about not leaving things until the morning. I always say I can sleep better just knowing it's done, which is true. I hate dreading a chore or list of things to get done, when I could have made some progress or done what I could the night before. It's a "blurse," a blessing and a curse.

My thoughts are this: let's strive to find even 5 minutes to ourselves for anything. Five minutes alone with a cup of coffee, a book, a couple songs or a walk! We can build from there and maybe learn how to give ourselves a little more time, and then feel it's worth it! Moms feel plenty of "unworthyness" feelings from all over, but some time for ourselves is not only okay but, we DESERVE IT. 

I won't wax on about it being "necessary," but I will speak from experience that it is helpful. A few minutes that are my own can completely turn around my mood and in turn, my entire day. So figure out ways to "Treat Yo Self," for just you, and no one else. Mine is a cup of fancy coffee on my way to work from my favorite coffee shop and then walking the dog alone a couple times a week. Feel free to post yours and share your self care methods. I want to know you're taking time for yourself because you're worth it. It's worth it. We are all worth it! Make that your mantra!

"I Just Cleaned That!" A Mother's Memoir

Does anyone else feel like this is almost just their constant state? Work, kid care, clean up, tidy up, sleep, repeat? I feel like I'm always cleaning, always need to clean or I totally just cleaned that so how is it filthy already?

In this day and age with technology and limitless resources for things, I still feel like there aren't enough hours in the day. I don't care how "organized" I try to be or how many lists, videos or ideas I pin on my Pinterest, it doesn't make them happen. And also, I spend way longer pinning things to my boards than I have ever spent completing a real Pinterest task. I would assume I'm the only one who does this but they have too many Pinterest fails for me to feel like the sole person who is guilty of this.

This past year, which was mentally just completely defeating for me, I realized how much the tasks of cleaning and grocery shopping were just engulfing all of my weekend to the point where I was just so depressed and tired. Friday nights my daughter had demanded a movie night where she watched a RedBox on our large living room TV and I would clean the house after doing the grocery shopping. It became like a race almost, and this huge challenge. By the end I just lost steam and wanted to curl up in bed. We'd be up until 10 most nights by the time I finished so as to get it all done fast to better enjoy the weekend. 

I tried to plan and budget, budget and plan. It was so much to deal with. And then recently I discovered Wal-Mart Grocery Pick-Up. I know, I know. Wal-Mart is evil and blah blah. Here's the thing, we used to shop exclusively at Winn Dixie but their general product quality dropped. Then we switched to Publix, my favorite supermarket but, I don't care who you are, it's expensive. I tried BOGO shopping at Publix but then I ended up so obsessed with the deals I got carried away and didn't actually meal plan. We had enough Ketchup for a year though! Total score!

Finally I looked at how much we were really spending on the items we went through like no tomorrow in this house: bread, cheese, snack type foods, milk, chicken and ground beef or turkey. These were all just so much cheaper at Wal-Mart unfortunately. And grocery pick up was effortless, you pay online and they load up your trunk. Now, I still go to Publix for all of our lunch meat, our produce and many of their signature items (hello all bakery items), but the Wal-Mart app and pick up are my go to. I especially love that it shows me how much I'm spending so if I'm getting carried away I can be like "Okay that can actually wait a while, I don't need it THIS week."

My husband or I are able to pick up at Wal-Mart whenever and I go to Publix every Friday on my lunch break and am able to keep all the cold stuff in my fridge at work for a few hours. Then I'm not already exhausted and agitated when I get home. This was a game changer honestly. 

I don't care who you are, navigating a store with children is maddening. You forget something on the list. You tell yourself to remember something and forget that too, and then the child talks you into $20 worth of crap you don't even need just to keep them quiet. Or they have to stop and pee and you forget what aisle you're on. Going by myself is like a vacation, yes, I'm that cliche.

And cleaning? If I could afford a house cleaner, I would have one, but currently I can only afford myself and sometimes the help of my husband. This past year I bought myself one of those Robot Vacs as a Christmas present to myself when it was $50 cheaper than I'd been stalking all year. I saw a friend with one and she has 2 dogs and her house was so clean. I was like whoa, did you JUST clean? She showed me this thing and I was sold.

We run that thing daily and not only is the floor less gritty, it cuts my floor cleaning time in HALF each week and picks up all remnants of child and creature. I've also had more help from daughter and husband in terms of tidying up, which makes all the difference because I am always tired, which I may have mentioned in previous posts.

And I hate when you have people over and of course, you've scoured your home in preparation and they're like "I don't know how you do it all!" I know that's meant to be a compliment but I always want to say, "Yeah this is all only because I let you into my house, normally we live like gorillas and there is crap everywhere."

My house is wonderful clutter. School papers, receipts for who knows what, SHARPIES from my husband, the chef's, kitchen, food wrappers from daughter and husband and dog things. Depending on how late and how tired the husband is, clothing often ends up strewn on one or both couches. There are small blankets and random stuffed animals everywhere. My dining room table always doubles as a craft space, paint place, and area to sprawl ALL THE THINGS. We don't even actually eat there very often. Maybe twice a week on a good week.

Keeping up with everything can feel so...unending and laundry truly is the "Neverending Story" of adulthood, but cleaning, working and chores are just a part of life. I often remind my daughter that we are the ones who keep this place clean so don't trash it. Don't just toss something on the floor that could easily go in the trash.  

I think we let these parts of life bog us down. The "have to's" end up burying us alive and it all feels so heavy. I'm not an organized guru, I just caved and found something that worked for what we all wanted and needed. Sometimes schedules get crazy and money gets tight and it adds more stress, but again, par for the course. Everyone has their little luxuries and "treat yo self" moments. Mine are the RoboVac and a cup of $4 coffee each week. Other people have house cleaners or Shipt. I have Wal-Mart pick-up and lunch time Publix runs. 

Every week I still need to clean. Every week we still need food, but navigating the "I just bought that," "I just cleaned that," moments successfully and not stressfully make all the difference. Feel free to email me what works for you!