Everything in its place...

DISCLAIMER: Before you get the impression that no one in my family does ANYTHING, let me set that straight right away. We have a lot to do, it's just that some things are more important to me, than to others. Things do get done, and done better than when I was a stay-at-home mother. At least the dishes do get washed each day, meals are cooked, clothes are washed. It's just the little extra things that a "woman's touch" adds. Things that don't occur to men, as a general rule. That may sound sexist, but at least in my home, the menfolk don't seem to understand what organizing, and deep cleaning are... and on with my ranting.

An ex-coworker of mine and I finally got a chance to get together at her home. I had taken pictures of her backyard when it was just dirt, and she finally got it finished. It was pretty, although I'd envisioned something quite different. I had envisioned green grass, she had flagstone all over the yard with ground cover planted in between. She hates grass, she has spent the past couple of years trying to kill it. A cat has been visiting her yard, you can tell by the muddy pawprints on the wall. My friend lives in an HOA and LOVES it. She thinks it is the greatest thing (I think they are horrid). She says she is going to find out whose cat that is, and REPORT it. Anyway, she was saying she comes home and spends most of her time sitting at her porch table outside. Her house is immaculate. She made a comment about "everything in its place".

I found myself feeling a bit envious. I mentioned on my days off that there is so much to do that I could work from morning 'til night for a year and never be finished. It is overwhelming to say the least. I have learned from reading various "get organized" books that you really have to take little bites and just stay with it, exercise consistency! I was doing "FlyLady" stuff before I even knew what the Internet was. FlyLady is based on Sidetracked Home Executives written by two sisters named Pam Young and Peggy Jones. I started doing S.H.E. back in 1988. And I'm still not organized!!! Well, that's because I've tried again and again and again. Now I've come to believe that getting organized just won't happen for me.

I mean, I used to get my hopes up that THIS TIME would be the time, that I'd get organized and STAY organized. But it takes SOOO much effort and time to even get things in order. So now, when I make the kitchen spotless I just try to keep it that way for as long as I can get myself to do so. That thing about 21 days to make a habit? Doesn't work for me. I usually can't make it to 21 days, but the times I have, I get sick and tired of it by then.

Anyway, I just wanted to detail my day yesterday.

4:30am to 8:00am Mostly this time was spent figuring out how to download the .qif files from the various institutions that deal with my money, importing the files, reconciling accounts, etc. I needed to find out where "the money is". I figured it out, we're in the hole, but it will be okay due to money coming in.

8:00-8:30

1. Watched an episode of Amazing Stories on Sci-Fi

8:30-9:30

1. Milked our primary milker (who gave me 2 pounds)
2. Fed the turkeys and cows
3. Raked out the turkey pen
4. Filled up the cow and turkey water containers

9:30-9:50

1. Took a break, sat with LJ until he fell to sleep (he whines and cries when he is tired and wants to be held until he falls to sleep.

9:50-10:10

1. Internet break

10:10-11:10

1. Gathered Wednesday and Thursday's eggs. 38 eggs, luckily it is still cold enough out that it is like they were refrigerated. This really got on my nerves because the eggs should be gathered at least once daily.
2. Cleaned out one nesting box. There are three nests in the main nesting area. The design is flawed -- the lid opens, but the chickens stand on it and poop, and when you open the lid, the poop falls down into the nesting box. When it rained the other day, the nesting box apparently became soaked and so today when I started to fish out the crap in the nest, I discovered there was a 2-3 inch layer of wet straw, hay, dirt, etc. I have asthma and can't do too much dust. I had taken an Allegra earlier, anticipating allergic reactions. So I pulled my shirt up over my nose and mouth and used a hand shovel to scoop out the debris.
3. Bagged up three feed bags with the debris from the turkey pen.
4. Picked up the empty baking soda boxes that were just tossed on the ground weeks earlier.
5. Milked our herd queen, since one side of her udder looked really full and the teat was really big. The baby can't latch on when her teat is that big, so I milked her out. She gave me 1.5 pounds. That's not a whole lot -- but for her, it's pretty good. The milk will be for LJ.
6. Walked down to the cows to see if their "old hay" could be used for nesting material. It is so awful and MOLDY. So I didn't want to make the hens nest in that. I picked up dried hay that was around the cow's bales of hay and that had blown from the corral for the strip nests for the hens. Some of the hens use these nests, but the main nesting box is much more popular.
7. Blocked open the main nesting box so it could air out and dry out. I still have two nests that need the crap dug out of them. Dh told me where the dust masks are, so I will do one or maybe both nests today.
8. Walked the yellow square plastic soap container full of nest debris to my garden and dumped it there.

11:10-11:45

1. Went inside, went back outside to get an old beat up plastic trash can that I'm going to use to recycle aluminum cans. No one here can (okay WILL) recycle, but I'm determined that now that I have more time off, we're going to. Because I'm going to do it myself, and prove that it CAN be done.
2. Mashed all the aluminum cans with my foot (about 2 dozen).
3. Cleared the area in front of the china hutch (which doesn't have china in it). I cleaned it last weekend, but of course during the three days I was away from home much of each day, people dug things out of the hutch and left them on the floor, and made other such messes in that area. I am a pig, and live with a bunch of pigs. It would just be nice if ONE of us wasn't such a slob.

11:45-12:35

1. Strained my kefir grains, put them into new milk. Poor things, I forgot them in the cupboard. Have been forgetting them lately.
2. Filled the ice cube trays, which are always empty. I'm the only one that seems to know how to fill them back up... (grrrrr).
3. Processed the milk (it is supposed to be done within minutes of milking, but since it was to be used for kefir today, I just let it set until I got around to it).
4. Cleaned milk cooling pail, which sits in the milk fridge. The water has to be removed frequently, at least twice a week or it becomes stale (starts stinking, okay?). I am the only one that knows how to do this, also. If I don't do it, it won't get done. Anyway, ice cube trays being full of ice are necessary to milk processing, so it was lucky today that the milk was going for kefir, since it doesn't need cooling.
5. Soaked the eggs, then rinsed and dried them, then cartoned them.

12:35-2:00

1. Threw hay, brought LJ with me so he would be tired and take another nap when we got inside. Intersperse in the day, little trips to take LJ out to potty.
2. Lunch. I made some leftover chili, with cheese. I also had white spaghetti with butter and garlic. I'm trying to avoid white spaghetti (regular cheap store brand) because it is so processed. But I was hungry for it, so I had some.
3. Watched some television. Another episode and a half of Amazing Stories.

2:00-3:05

1. Tidied up the livingroom so I could vacuum (while my oldest son made his lunch).
2. Washed two loads of dishes.
3. Washed the bread maker -- the little thing that goes round and round on the bottom gets dough stuck under it, and we can't seem to get the thing removed to clean it properly, so it has to be soaked for about 24 hours. I made rye bread last weekend, and so it ended up soaking from Monday, all through the week until I tended to it myself today. Another thing no one else seems to be able to do.
4. Wiped the stovetop and counter to the right of the stove. This is another chore no one knows how to do. If I don't do it, it will not get done. Trust me. It is aggravating that no one seems to notice the debris on the counters...
5. Tightened the handle on one of my pans. Yep, you guessed it. I'm sure if I didn't tighten the handles, then eventually we'd just use the pans without handles.
6. Wiped off counter on the left side of the stove.

3:05-5:30

1. Began cooking. I made Enchilada Sauce from scratch. I use the recipe from La Leche League's Whole Foods for the Whole Family, the 1987 edition. And guess what? That particular page has gone missing. I keep the book safe inside a gallon ziploc bag, but on occasion someone removes it from the bag, and I then have to make a point to give the book a new bag. It is spiral bound; you find your recipe and then PLACE THE BOOK BACK INSIDE THE ZIPLOC BAG. This protects the book from further wear and damage. So I went to the 'net to see if I could find this recipe, I could not. Then I decided to see if by chance I had placed it on my favorite recipes webpage. Thank God, yes I had.
2. I made cheese enchiladas, and chicken/cheese enchiladas for my dh.
3. I browned some broken up pieces of spaghetti to make spanish Rice-a-Roni. I had some leftover brown rice from last weekend's meals. That turned out really good.
4. I had taken some frozen pinto beans from the freezer to make refried beans.
5. I also discovered that freezer was thawing out, and finally dh called back and told me it was unplugged. I had checked that, but not every extension cord connection, and missed the one that was plugged to a different extension cord. We have to use several long extension cords to get anything done around here. HEY, I just realized! Dh and ds can use their new generator now, instead of stringing cords all over the place.
6. I used the stick blender on the pinto beans, that works GREAT!
7. I wiped the remaining counters.
8. I washed the dishes I'd used to make the enchiladas. The only thing I didn't get done was sweeping/mopping the floor. I'll do that today.
9. Threw hay for the goats.
10. Milked Little Stupid. I should have gathered eggs once more, but didn't.

5:30-8:00

1. Dh and I left for town. Dh and ds had just arrived home about 5:20. I had to make two pickups (I am paid $15 each), so we had to go to one town 15 miles away, then another one that is 25 miles from there. Then it's 22 miles back home.
2. We did a bit of shopping at Walmart. I bought a plunger for MY toilet. I seem to be having problems with it flushing properly of late.
3. Picked up a couple of items at Home Depot.
4. Purchased gasoline. There is a three cent discount when you "swipe your card" but I don't have a card, I use my phone number instead. The machine told me "See Attendant" so I went to the attendant and he said they aren't set up to use phone numbers, you have to have a card. So I huffed off, immediately ticked, and told dh. He was all mellow, "Okay, we'll just do it next time." I told him, "No, I don't want to get gas here." So he was okay with that, and was putting the gas cap back on, and then a lady getting gas next to us gave us her card. She said it is her second one and we could have it, since she has another, and one on her keychain. I thanked her and told her I didn't have to throw a hissy fit anymore.
5. Drive home for 30 minutes.

8:30-9:30

1. Ate dinner.
2. Had a small portion of some Breyer's Cherry Vanilla ice cream.
3. Spent some time on the Internet

And that was it. Into bed for me. I slept in this morning, until about 6am. I think this blog shows the time that you started writing. I could be wrong. I will see when I publish it. (I actually started typing here around 5:30am. I was not typing every minute).

So was that a really busy day? I think it would be in comparison to my ex-coworker.

Until next time. P.S. I'm really falling in love with the puppy, and was crying on Tuesday morning and all depressed because we shouldn't keep him. I'm thinking of buying one of those Internet books that you can download as an e-book.