Recipe for a Clean House

November 27th, 2013 | Posted by Alison Spath in Motivation - (5 Comments)

I love to live in a neat and tidy house, but naturally-neat-and-tidy I am not.  Items collect on our dining room table, clothes gather on furniture, colored pencils and drawings scatter like plastic bags in a windstorm.  In a perfect world I would stay on top it of regularly – but the reality is that I get behind and end up needing to devote time to picking up and cleaning.

I feel like the Slobbiest McSlobberson to admit this, so I take comfort in messy house memes because it leads me believe I am not alone.

Messy House Prayer

This outdoor pool is one mile from our house.  A house that we’ve lived in for almost four years and we’re just now getting our butts over there to take advantage of it.  It even meets the “Three C’s” (that I just made up) – Close, Clean and Cheap.  Don’t ask me what took us so long, I have no idea.

Outdoor Pool

Dressed to Clean

August 6th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (1 Comments)

It’s Saturday morning.

It’s been a long week.

Translation: I’m cleaning today.

But first!  I need to say good morning to my cup of coffee, my laptop, Barbie and a Fashion Fairy Tale Easy Reader, dress up shoes that should not be on the table in the first place, a broken slinky and a pink knit snake named Hissy that are all about to be trudged back upstairs to the playroom in a moment here.

Coffee First

Get Motivated

When it comes to getting motivated to clean house, getting dressed to clean is an amazing trick.

I love that Phyllis Diller quote:

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.

Messy Playroom

I feel like this quote gives me permission to not clean up because, meh – why bother?  The toys just keep raining down anyway! Might as well just shuffle through the piles until the mom toy plow comes through to box it all up to donate, right? Right.

So thanks for that one Phyllis – mega time saver and guilt reliever to boot.

Fall Back…

November 7th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (12 Comments)

Fall Back

…into the leaves, that is. Oh yeah, clocks too.

Now that the last of the leaves are on the ground, I’ll agree to rake.

Last Leaves Finally Fallen

With a little help, of course.

Help Me Rake!

(And I mean a very little.)

Who needs cardio when there’s yardio? Today’s work out left my yard looking very N.E.A.T. Unfortunately I can’t say the same thing about my hair.

Raking

Yard work today was a family affair. Two up front and two in the back.

Group Effort

Signs

December 16th, 2009 | Posted by Alison Spath in Breakfast - (15 Comments)

When my knees start to hurt on my runs, that’s my sign I need new running sneakers.

When the waist band of my jeans starts to feel a little snug, that’s my sign that I’ve been a bit too heavy handed with the nut butters.

And when my house is a mess, that’s my sign that we’ve been really busy.

[Notice there is no picture of my disaster of a house here? Yeah, the lack of photography was no accident.]

A NEAT Morning

November 20th, 2009 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (11 Comments)

Given that yesterday was our Stay At Home day, I decided to take the girls car seats out of the car to wash the covers. Upon removing the Britax Beasts, I discovered they were harboring a small community of broken crayons, cheerios and Kashi granola bar crumb fugitives.

So this morning instead of running past the car wash like I do day after day, I thought my carseat-less vehicle could use a little quality time with the vacuum before I spent a half hour reinstalling the seats.

Internet Fubar

August 19th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Morning Craziness - (14 Comments)

Today’s workout was CANCELLED thanks to spending the entire morning troubleshooting internet issues. I’m feeling really pathetic right at this moment.

No official workout but I do sort of feel like I got a stairmaster workout considering the number of times I’ve been up and down the stairs, basement stairs included. We’ve got all matters of hubs, switches, modems and routers on all three levels of the house – and I’ve gotten to know them all quite well today.

The first line of support, my Network Admin (Zak) was helpful but distracted. That damn pesky job always getting in the way of what’s “really” important.

Monday Mess

June 15th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Breakfast - (4 Comments)

Today’s workout can be filed under: ohmygodwhatthehellhappenedtothishouse?!

You know it’s been a busy weekend when the house is a disaster on Monday morning.

I knew a rest day was in order when I wasn’t pumped about my run yesterday. Even though I was glad I ran after I got going, my reluctance was also my sign that it was time for a day off.

I swapped today’s work out time for an hour of getting caught up house work and then another hour catching up on emails and cleaning up my desk. Around 8 I felt hungry enough for breakfast.