Mommin' It Up!

April 24, 2009April 23, 2009

Housekeeping – FAIL of all FAILS.

When I saw that the Parent Bloggers Network was having a Blog Blast sweepstakes on the subject of housecleaning, I had a nice little chuckle at my own expense. Seriously, this is one of my terrible life failures. I am messy. I have never kept a clean bedroom. My husband calls my car “the rolling trash bin” because it is always full of stuff. And I hate, hate, HATE housecleaning. I am 31 years old (shut up Emily), can I really change NOW??

I like to keep a clean house – I just don’t like to be the one who keeps it that way! I don’t really have any cleaning methods or a cleaning routine. I do the dishes when we don’t have any more utensils, do the laundry when no one has clothes to wear, and sweep the floors when cat hair dust bunnies start flying through the air. Or, when I have company coming over. Then, and only then, I panic and clean like a banshee!!

I am not exactly the world’s best housewife!

It’s not that I’m lazy – I swear. I just HATE cleaning. Hate hate hate it. I am definitely lacking in the motivation department.

Just so I can lay my shame wide open for you all, please enjoy the current state of my dining room table:

What?? Don’t judge me!

The person in my house who is actually good at cleaning is my hubby. He is very meticulous. Too bad he works 55 hours a week so I can live a life of leisure and doesn’t have time to do all the housework too! Seriously, though, he really helps me out a lot, especially with the dishes and the laundry on weekends. And when we have a birthday party or company to clean for, we always clean together, and that make it more fun! One of the cleaning products that we use when we clean is Pledge Multi-Surface, and I have to give my hubby credit for discovering it! He started out using it for his electronics, and then we started using it everywhere in the house. It works great on all surfaces.

To help those who need a little cleaning intervention, Pledge Multi-Surface has a new site coming in May! Go there now to download a $2 off coupon (did someone say COUPON? Holla!), and when the site launches in May, you’ll get to see five bloggers (not me, oh how I wish!) get a cleaning intervention!

In the meantime, if any of you want to get together and do a cleaning intervention on ME, my door is always open. When there isn’t a huge pile of hot wheels and train track blocking the entry way, that is.

January 16, 2009

When Savings Lead to Giving

This weekend I’m taking part in a blog blast sponsored by the Parent Bloggers Network and the Quaker Oats Company to spread the word about their Start With Substance campaign to donate up to one million bowls of oatmeal to those in need! Check out the Start With Substance Website to see how YOU can help make it happen!

Quaker has challenged bloggers to write about how our families have helped others or will be helping others in 2009. I’ve written (approximately) a million times in my life about how couponing has been a blessing to me and my family. But one of the things I love most about couponing is that it’s allowed us to be a blessing to others. Before couponing, we didn’t have resources to just give to people in need. Now, while we still may not have wads of cash to give away, we can meet material needs with all the extras I get through couponing.

Take the blood glucose monitors pictured above, for instance. I get these for free with coupons and usually “make money” on them via rebate or CVS ExtraCare bucks. No one in my family has diabetes, so we donate them to our local non-profit Hospice. Their patients use them only a short time, and since these items can’t be re-used, re-stocking them can be costly. Last year we donated about 15 of these, and this year as you can see, I already have a stack ready to take over there. I believe they do very valuable work there, and I feel great about donating to them.

In 2008, because of couponing, my family donated hundreds of dollars of toiletries, cleaning products, and hygiene items to local women’s shelters, church efforts, and just individuals that we or friends knew of who were down on their luck. These items can mean a lot because you see, food stamps only buy food. They won’t buy paper towels, diapers, or Lysol. I’ve given deodorant to a grateful mom of three stinky teenage boys and a bag full of makeup to a twenty-year-old girl who couldn’t afford to buy it for herself and was overjoyed to get it, and diapers and wipes to a family at my mom’s church who took in the THREE young kids of a relative who was too busy doing drugs to care for her kids. I can be generous, giving away what we have because I know through couponing, I can always get more. But the people I’m giving to can’t.

It’s so fun to be able to make someone’s day with the little things. And the beauty of it is, of course, that it’s not costing me money out-of-pocket, that more often than not I’m able to turn my drugstore shopping into a profitable venture. So everyone wins, needs are met, hearts are blessed.

That’s what coupons can do for ya! What’s not to love!? When savings lead to giving, it’s a beautiful thing.

And just to keep it real, I need to let y’all know that this post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by The Quaker Oats Company. If I win, HUGE party at my place, and you’re all invited. So, ya know, cross your fingers!

January 9, 2009January 8, 2009

Putting Away the Loot

Christmas is past (by fifteen days), a new year has begun, and I’m…stuck in a living room with twice as much crap in it as it had before. You see, my problem with the post-Christmas clean-up isn’t putting away the tree, the ornaments, or the stockings. That’s a snap.

(Because my husband does it.)

My problem is: Where do I put all this new STUFF? Specifically, all my kids’ new stuff. Like, the FIVE new board games Joshua received:

Or Sophie’s new posse (it’s a real tough bunch. You do NOT want to mess with Soph and her crew):

And then, there are the toys that are actually more like pieces of furniture. Exhibit A, Joshua’s (Christmas dream come true) Fisher Price GeoTrax set:

Exhibit B: Sophie’s Leap Frog learning table (which she adores!):

I’m throwing a baby shower for a friend of mine Saturday (if she doesn’t have the baby today. ‘Cause she was having contractions all day Thursday. Squeeze those legs together Megan!), so I am sitting here pondering where to put all of this new stuff that Santa brought, cause really, everysinglecarfromcarsmovie and all of Sophie’s posse are not invited to the shower. Aside from just throwing it all in the kids’ rooms until the shower’s over, I don’t have a clue!

My post-Christmas clean-up? It’s still not done! But it will be by Saturday! How about yours? What’s your biggest Christmas clean-up hang-up?

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By the way, this post is part of a Blog Blast sponsored at Parent Bloggers Network and Right@Home. I like to visit Right@Home to print coupons for some of my favorite SC Johnson products (like Glade candles. ALSO Emily’s favorite.) but the site also has great cleaning and organization tips and yummy recipes too! I’m headed over there now to see if they can solve all my problems for me, and you should too!