1. Try and recover Apocalyptic disaster that was my house.
2. Try not to cry.
My house, was quite simply, THAT bad. With the kids being sick so much and having to get picked up from school early and my son being grumpy with teething and super destructive my house looked so awful it depressed me. And I had a broken vacuum that didn't want to suck up anything until I could get some duct tape, so it was NOT a fun time. Between the house and just general monetary stress, it was a pretty depressing time for me.
This week I ended up breaking down cleaning chores by day as I tried to recover the house as much as possible. I ended up having to pick kids up early a couple of days due to hives or the weather or other issues, but for the most part I was able to get the house semi-recovered. I still have some of my over-sized dishes that don't fit in the dish washer (like cookie sheets) that I have to wash and put away, but at least I can find my kitchen counters again, which is a definite improvement and the upstairs and downstairs is vacuumed, which is definitely better than it was.
The top sprayer of my dish washer started working really cruddy this week and I finally figured out how to unclip it to check on it and found the gasket is half gone on it, which means the top sprayer is going to continue to work cruddy until we can afford to get a replacement gasket. I'm figuring between this and my daughter being a real pain about playing with water in her room no matter the punishment that is dished out, it is time to go with my dad's old saying of, "Why would I buy a dishwasher. I helped create one." Basically, dish washing is now going to be on the nightly chore list for my daughter and hopefully it might get some of the want to play with water no matter what worked out of her.
This weekend, for me, was a weekend of firsts. For the first time I had to figure out how to light my furnace as the temperatures have tanked hard here and our pilot light suddenly has decided this last month to randomly go out and need to be re-lit. My husband was at work and so I finally managed to get the furnace cover off, read the directions and had the furnace lit in under five minutes. I felt pretty good about that as being mechanically inclined is usually not part of my general make up.
The second first I ended up doing this weekend was I replaced my first ever jacket zipper (seen above). My daughter's winter jacket had a really miserable tongue on the inside of it that was too long and not stiff enough so it would get caught in her jacket constantly. I was always telling her to be careful and not force it, but, of course, she decided to force it yesterday and got the zipper jammed up good. My husband decided to take over on trying to fix the problem and ended up ripping out four zipper teeth in the process.
I was not happy, at all, but we ran by Jo Ann Fabrics and picked up a zipper and I went home, got busy with a seam ripper. Being VERY careful and observant on how the previous zipper had been installed I got the new zipper installed in a few hours. The zipper size on the jacket was a really weird size (right under 21 inches) so I ended up cutting down the zipper and then I hand sewed in the top of the zipper to be sure everything would fit okay and filled in the topmost teeth of the zipper with thread, once again by hand, to create a new "zipper stop". It worked great, thank goodness, and the benefit was that I could move the zipper pull out of my way as I worked by keeping it up and out of my way on the part of the zipper that I was going to have to cut down.
Since getting a zipper replaced at a seamstress is about 40.00, I felt good that I was able to do this task. Sure, it is not as perfect as if a seamstress did it, but it works and pulls smooth, so I'm happy.
Anyway, onto the goals for this week!
1. Continue to work on Christmas gifts (making progress!)
2. Mix up some spice mixes (I'm running low on my favorites)
3. Continue to clean the house, especially get the kitchen detail cleaned in preparation for Thanksgiving next week.
4. Find turkey brining bucket so I know where it is for next week.
5. Pull out Christmas decorations from storage.
I move them inside early so that they come up to room temperature before I have to worry about putting them up. This way, too, I have a few weeks to find them as they get dispersed around it seems. And it's cold, so making this a general goal works for me.
6. Put Halloween decorations into storage for year.
7. Finish getting caught up on laundry and put laundry away.
8. Dust ceiling fans.
9. Polish wood furniture.
10. Breathe and try not to panic about money.
It's counter productive and is just going to give me an ulcer eventually. I need to try meditation.
11. Work on mending, especially the socks.
12. Clean mirrors and windows.
13. Dig out gravy mix to donate to school for Thanksgiving baskets.
Every year my daughter's school gives away a few baskets to needy families. I try to donate at least one thing a year.
And there you are. Some of my goals for this week. Do you have anything you're working on this week?
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