I think some of my cleaning habits are pretty brilliant. Or maybe totally compulsive. But mostly brilliant. Such as separating the dirty cutlery in the dishwasher basket as you fill it. Do you know how much less time it takes to put it all away when you’ve already separated it?! At least 2 minutes less than when it hasn’t been. Imagine what you will be able to get accomplished now that I have shared this trick.
I happened to be at my sister’s when I was writing this so I snapped a photo of her basket of MIXED cutlery. That is one disgraceful mess. And she will be separating all that for at least 2 extra minutes once it’s washed. This kind of wasted time is why world peace gets back-burnered, people.
Here’s a laundry trick you’ll love. I used to just do the kids laundry together in one big load. But now they are getting bigger and so are their clothes (that will always happen) so I usually just combine mine in with theirs and make it a 2 load job. (Steve does his own laundry. I know, ladies... don’t even look at him—he’s MINE.) Now the problem, I soon learned, was that the first load was full of halves of sock and jammies sets, some of this and some of that and zero organization. I am nothing without my obsessive methodologies, people! You really want to know how I do it, don’t you? First load consists of pants and anything that goes on a hanger; second load is for undies, socks, shirts and jammies sets. Here’s the why part. Pants fold up quickly and I don’t even have to fold the hanger stuff. I carry it all up, hang up the dresses and shirts, stash the pants (super quick) and wait for load number 2 wherein all socks and jammies sets are conveniently together! Then I fold them and put them in neat little piles according to the individual to whom it belongs. Then I bring the basket upstairs and usually empty it out around 5 days later.
(Did you want to know this much about my laundry system?)
(Also, sorry if I just bored you to near-death.)
I’m scared to tweet. I’m supposed to start using Twitter to build my author platform. I don’t know what to tweet and I don’t really understand Twitter in the first place and hash-tags and re-tweeting and I don’t like learning new things. I am the type who keeps the same cell phone until it literally falls apart or is no longer compatible with contemporary technology simply because I don’t want to have to figure out a new phone. That’s where I’m at on tweeting. But FINE I will do it. (And then wonder where it has been my whole life. Like Facebook and Spotify. And wine.)
“Are you supposed to have that chicken?” This falls in the category of things you sometimes have to yell from the kitchen door out at kids in the yard. I would explain this one but would rather hear what you might be imagining. (Kindly leave your musings in the comments section below.)
Trader Joe’s is awesome and I already knew this but I forgot for a while and now just remembered again. I have been thinking about how my grocery shopping methodologies (yes, of course I have a methodology for that, too—did you really fathom that I didn’t?) will need to change when we move. I do not like the primary grocery store in the area to which we are moving, but there is a Trader Joe’s about 45 minutes away. I figure I can go there every 2 weeks and do some bulk shopping and fill in on alternating weeks at the stores closer to home. I was always concerned that buying my full shopping list at Trader Joe’s would blow the budget. But it really didn’t! And organic apples for .79 cents a pound! .79 cents! I am a total convert.
(I just read that back to myself and almost died of boredom. Do you still have a pulse? If not, get someone to hit you in the chest with those electrified paddles they use on Grey’s Anatomy until you hear a beep beep beep. That’ll be your heart coming back. And sorry about that.)
We received an ungodly amount of candy for Easter (which is kind of ironic). We ate some and saved some and some I had to put in the trash in order to stop eating it. This unfortunately did not entirely stop me from eating it until I threw something gross on top. Even then I considered just rinsing some peanut M&Ms off under the faucet. I am proud to say I didn’t. But mostly because Steve came home and I didn’t want to explain why I was rinsing peanut M&Ms off under the faucet. (I should have waited until he was busy and then I might have gotten away with it. That’s what I’ll do next year.)
I wish you the happiest of Thursdays!