Spring Cleaning Part III: Outsourcing

The top five things couples fight about, in order, are:

• Money
• Sex
• Work
• Children
• Housework

For us? Money - nope. Sex - occasionally an tiff. Work - only when I tell him to stop whining so much (about once a month). Children - ok, this we do fight over, but not nearly as much as HOUSEWORK.

I don't get this. My husband is not the neatest person in the world. I remember being disgusted almost to gagging when I used his bachelor pad bathroom (and no it wasn't his roommate's dirt, he had his own bathroom). His idea of putting his clothing away is stacking it in piles on TOP of the dresser. But, I digress.

Cleaning, who would do it and how it was done, became more of an issue when Goose came along. I worked hard to keep things mostly tidy, but didn't enjoy that as much as cooing at my beautiful baby. Jimmy-John grumbled here and there, but it wasn't until we moved into a house with no dishwasher that things really escalated.

Both of us abhor doing dishes.

Jimmy-John being out of the house most of the day, and the squeakier wheel, meant the task fell to me. The most vivid memory I have of the first two months of Little E's life is the day I figured out how to keep a grumpy 2 year old and a needy newborn happy while actually getting dishes clean. I put the baby in the sling, ignored the growing flood waters at my feet as Goose splashed happily, and sang to everyone. I think I spent at least half of Little E's first year standing at the kitchen sink.

Dishes became THE sore spot in our marriage. Which why I do not use one smidge of hyperbole when I say the best 200 bucks I have ever spent was used to purchase a portable dishwasher.

A year later and I'm still in love. 15 minutes to load, 5 to unload. A pleasant shrring as the water fills the sink. Shiny dry plates. No forks returned to the "dirty" side of the sink by quality control. Oh yeah, and I still love my husband.

By the way, if any one can tell me how to get those ridiculous flowers back into normal bullets, or a numbered list, I'd be most grateful.

Spring Cleaning Part II: A Few of my Favorite Things

I apologize for the delay: I caught the flu the day after Part I, and in the subsequent weeks endured (as a mother not a patient) two cases of pink eye, one ear infection and one overdose of Milk of Magnesia (resulting in a trip to the ER and several blow-out diapers). Most of this also occurred while my husband relaxed in Hawaii. Poor guy. Enough "poor me"; here it is, Part II. Thanks for the nudge, RW.

I may stink at keeping things clean, but I'm pretty good at the actual cleaning - once I get around to it. This post is dedicated to my favorite products and techniques. Mostly my laundry super-stain-fighting secrets! So, get me a cape and teach me to fly. I really do have super powers.

I like to think that my background in chemistry gives me an edge over the average housewife when it comes to getting stains out of clothing. But, it probably has more to do with my mad Google skills than with my chemistry knowledge (shhh, don't tell anyone that). Below are a list of my favorite products and the stain(s) that they remove.

Hydrogen Peroxide: My aunt, a nurse, turned me on to this one. Blood, fresh or dried, can be mostly removed by pouring H2o2 directly on the stain. It bubbles and fizzles pleasantly as it oxidizes away the stain, and the remaining color can usually be washed out by a normal wash cycle. (Chemical principle: oxidation)

Bar Keeper's Friend (oxalic acid): gets out rust. and probably blood (although I prefer H202 for that. The fizzing is really that cool. I suggest bleeding on your clothes on purpose just to experience the joy of it.) Make a wet paste on the stain and let sit for a few minutes. Rinse out, launder as normal. This also cleans stainless-steel wonderfully. (Chemical principle: oxidation)


Isopropyl (rubbing) Alcohol: Takes out ink. EVEN SHARPIE INK. I kid you not. In fact I got red sharpie out of Goose's shirt today. The trick to this one is to get to it quickly and to persist, refreshing with new alcohol frequently. (Chemical principles: solubility and if you are lucky you'll get a little home chromatography show as you separate the ink's components.)


Zote Soap. This is a new addition to my arsenal. A latin soap my sister introduced to me. It removes yellow deodorant stains from white shirts with a little soaking and a LOT of elbow grease. Nothing else I've tried has made a dent in deodorant stains. Plus it smells nice. (Chemical principle: emulsification, i.e. soap)

Lestoil. This is a grease cutter made by Clorox, but it is hard to find. I get it in the cleaning aisle in my grocery store. It's main ingredients are petroleum distillates and pine oil. It is really amazing on grease stains. For some reason I always wash and dry chapstick. Baked in grease is impossible to remove, say most laundry bibles. Not so! Rub this stinky stuff into the oil spots, wash normally, and air dry (repeat as necessary). When the stain comes out you will probably want to wash an additional two times to get the stinkiness of the lestoil out. Pine-Sol may also work for this, as it also contains pine oil (although I think the petroleum distillates do most of the work, in which case - perhaps Goo-Gone?) but I haven't tried it yet. When I do, I'll post an update. Note to self: as amazing as lestoil is, it's probably easier just to check your jean pockets before starting the wash. (Chemical principle: solubility)


When all else fails Oxi-Clean. A few scoops in a bucket full of scalding hot water (more than the box recommends), and soak forever (at least 24 hours). This works on a lot of stains that have even been through the dryer. Baby food bananas (amazingly difficult to get out), baby poop (also amazingly difficult to remove), tomato sauce, chocolate, dirt, and any unidentified stain goes straight into this. (Chemical principle: um, duh? oxidation)


I hardly use bleach. I don't think getting a stain out of a t-shirt is worth ruining the jeans I'm wearing, which is what inevitably happens. I did like the bleach pen for a while, but I ran out and haven't been bothered enough by it's absence to remember to look for it at the store. (Chemical principle: once again, our friend: oxidation)

Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser. I'm just getting to know this product. It's a melanine foam stick that essentially scrapes stains off walls and just about everything else. Crayon on the wall? No problem. I really like this for cleaning cabinet fronts and my dining room walls which get very gross from sticky hands and flung food. I don't use it on the big bumps - like dried oatmeal - it tears the eraser, but all the other goo comes off a lot better with the eraser than with a regular rag. I would recommend buying the name brand product. The Target brand fell apart a lot faster than Mr. Clean. I also do not like the new double-sided sponge. It's a gimmick to put out a new, more expensive product. It was more difficult to use due to the hard interface and fell apart faster.

What's the "Magic"? Melamine is a really hard substance (think melamine countertop). It's still hard when made into a foam, the hard strands are just really tiny and have a lot of air incorporated into them, making the sponge itself soft and supple. When you rub the wall, you are literally scraping off the crayon. (A more detailed explanation is found at How Stuff Works - one of my favorite websites). Just, um, don't give it to your kids as a teether, ok? (Chemical principle: abrasion)

I love all these products for emergencies, but for every day cleaning, most things can be done with water, baking soda, and vinegar. Use water and baking soda for almost anything, vinegar for mirrors/windows, baking soda followed vinegar for clogged and/or stinky drains, etc. I even bathe my children in baking soda baths.

Keep it as simple, keep it cheap, and keep it green. Unless you washed your chapstick (again).

Spring Cleaning Part I: An Exercise in Futility

The cherry blossoms are past their peak. The coats have been stowed away. And the Easter Bunny is hopping into town. Spring has arrived. In spirit of the season, and because I have been giving this topic a lot of thought lately, I've decided to do a series on Spring cleaning. Supposedly, this series will have 5 parts...but I'm famous for unfinished projects, so I'll just be happy if this really is a "series" and not just one announcement post!

Cleaning has never been a favorite past-time of mine. Ask my mother. I grew up in a house that I remember being almost invariably immaculate. Except my room, of course. I don't remember my mother spending inordinate amounts of time cleaning, but considering she had six kids, I probably just wasn't paying attention. But as an adult, I've studied my mom a little closer. She never stops cleaning. When she comes to visit, she walks around with a wet rag in her hand wiping surfaces. I can always expect my stove to be sparkling when she leaves. I've tried to imitate her, but I think I'm a hopeless case.

I believe my mom is naturally neat; she definitely didn't learn it from her mother. (I love you Grandma! But you gotta admit, cleaning is not your forte!) I, however, am naturally disheveled. If you've ever heard me relate a story orally, you know that even my thought patterns are naturally garbled. While this has been a source of mild annoyance to myself throughout life, it never bothered me enough to put serious effort into reforming. Then I got married, had babies, and became a stay-at-home mom.

Suddenly, a good portion of my job description included cleaning and keeping things organized and running well. With one baby, I could still fake my way clean. But with two, I drowned in mess. In the fall of 2007 I began serious work on changing myself in this area. By looking at my house, you'd never know it.

This focus on organizational improvement was sparked by two factors. The first was a general feeling of disorder and lack of control after having my second child so close to my first. The second was a talk given by an LDS church leader Julie Beck. entitled "Mothers Who Know." I know, those of you familiar with the talk - I can already hear your collective groan. For those of you who aren't: This talk was given by the church's women's group general president and talked about the qualities a mother who has a testimony of Jesus Christ should exhibit. The inclusion of orderliness as a quality sparked quite a bit of controversy among women and overshadowed the main point of the talk which was that mothers should not let anything take priority over or distract them raising their children righteously. I recognized that I was lacking in that area, and that improvement would benefit my family and I decided to start making a concerted effort to change.

This endeavor has been one of the most challenging and frustrating of my life. While I'm OK at cleaning, I really, really suck at keeping it clean and I suck even more at getting things organized.

I've identified specific tendencies that contribute to my disability. I'm a pack-rat, for instance. My basement isn't enough to tempt Oprah to spotlight it for a voyeuristic public, but it is full of things I'll probably never use. Darkroom equipment. A fondue pot. Awful wedding gifts. I'm also highly distractable. This translates into random objects being placed randomly and thoughtlessly around the house. A diaper on the kitchen table. The TV remote on the clothes dryer. I even once filled a glass with a beverage and then returned the same glass to the cupboard. It took me twenty minutes to figure out where my milk was.

I have made strides. I've donate pounds upon pounds of unneeded items. I've made lists to keep me focused. I've tried to cut down on the attempts at multi-tasking, following one task at a time to completion. I'm not even close though. Change hurts.

And, ironically, over the past year and a half, I have found that I have often allowed developing a talent that is intended to bless my children distract me from the greater needs of my children. I remember once telling a friend when my first child was still an infant, "I could have a cleaner house, but I like playing with my daughter more." I still feel that way, but somehow I have a problem living true to those feelings. Pressure to present a face to the world, my husband's dissatisfaction with the house, and my own stress of unrealized goals tend to take precedence. I guess I have created a new fault that now needs attention.

I Dropped the Ball

Some of my more regular readers will notice that my most recent post regarding the soccer ball has been deleted. My reason for deleting the post is as follows: While I do not provide my name or any personal information on my blog, many of my readers are family and friends and therefore are familiar with my "secret identity." It would not be unreasonable for the person who was mentioned in the post to find and read the post and recognize herself. I did not think I made any disparaging remarks about her in the post and didn't fault her for her opinion about the ball; however, as comments came in I wondered if the tone I intended came across effectively. As I consider the person my friend and hold her in high regard, I did not want her, or anyone else, to feel badly about the discussion on the blog. After receiving counsel from my husband, I decided to delete the post. I appreciate the frank and honest opinions given by those who commented. (And I'm keeping the ball.)

Look Ma, No Hat!

I am up way too late tonight. I am going to regret it early tomorrow morning. But, for now, I am enjoying life. ALONE. I love, love, love being alone. No Myers-Briggs test needed here; I'm 100% introverted.

The trouble is: I'm also a mother of two small children, who evidently love me too much to be out of my sight for more than 10 minutes. My three year old pleas every night for me to lay next to her bed until she is sleeping. When (not if) she wakes during the night, she makes the sojourn down to my bed. Consequently, my private time is at a premium.

I love my husband after the kids conk out, but hanging with him doesn't give me what I need, that being pure solitude.

So, the only way I can get that is if I get up earlier or stay up later than everyone else. I tried the earlier one yesterday. I fell asleep at 7pm, while putting Goose to bed, and so getting up at 6 was easy. But, Goose's radar is too good. She who had been sleeping in until 8am, got up at precisely 6:13. I was angry. I was surprised at how absolutely angry I was. I tried to convince her it was still night - she said "but you are awake, so it is morning." I opened the door and asked her if the sun was up. No answer. Go to bed with Daddy please. She went...and returned within five minutes. My day was destroyed.

Why do I need the alone time? I'm not exactly sure. I find it interesting that at other times I feel too lonely and crave the companionship close friend. I can spend hours on the phone with a sister, for example. I'd like to say that I need the alone time to be productive; to get a project completed or a book read. But the truth is, it doesn't really matter what I do, as long as it doesn't involve interacting with other people.

I'd also like to say that it allows me to gather my thoughts or ponder important issues. Sometimes that is what I do while I'm alone, but it isn't the reason I need the alone time. Sometimes I think about absolutely nothing.

I do know that it helps me recover my sense of self. Having little monkeys hanging from me all day tends to blur the lines of where I end and they begin. Judged by their lack of bathroom privacy etiquette, I think they are confused by that too. Being alone allows me to explore my own feelings and thoughts, or lack thereof, without reference to anyone in my immediate surroundings. That's invaluable.

Being alone is the only way I can really truly be relaxed. I don't know why this is true. I feel it shouldn't be. I, of course, put on pretenses for some people, but not for my family and close friends. Do I? Perhaps I do. In every relationship I wear a hat of some sort: the needy friend in one instance, the giving friend in another, the obedient daughter, the submissive sister, the list goes on. I change a little of who I am depending on who I am interacting with at that moment. It's all true to myself, but presented differently to each person. It is only when I am alone, perhaps, that I am wholly myself.

Letting my hair down

I've been threatening to do it for months. Every morning I get sick of the power struggle. I've tried everything: bribes, threats, gentle persuasion, reverse psychology. Nothing works.

So I did it.

I chopped Goosie's hair.

Pixie short.

I'm still in shock.

Goose is overjoyed.

She's been begging me for months to cut her hair short. "I want hair like Daddy's and Little E's!" she'd plead. "You are a girl," I'd reply, "You have girl hair - like Mommy."

Now, I've never been a girly-girl myself. I don't wear much make-up. I live in blue jeans. I'm more excited about going hiking than a trip to the mall. But, I must admit, I have long had imagined a cute little girl in brown braids skipping along side me on those hikes. Doing up my daughter's hair was my one girly indulgence. Goose hated every second of it. Usually, I could only manage to get a brush half-way through her tangles. When she did allow me to put in pony-tails or braids it was only so she could imitate a favorite cartoon character's do (Uniqua, I told her, wore two curly pony tails, and Tasha wore two "knots"). As soon as the desire to make-believe passed, the pony was ripped out and the hair looked worse than when we started.

All logic told me I need to chop the hair; she wanted it, it looked terrible most of the time anyway. Still, I told myself, I wasn't ready to relinquish control. And then I knew I had to do it. This wasn't about her hair. This was about what kind of mother I was going to be. Was I going to spend my life imposing my own preferences (on trivial matters) on Goose, or was I going to give her control over her own life, respecting her choices? A hair cut isn't permanent; a bad decision in this arena only lasts a month or two. I realize she is only three, but isn't that old enough to know she'd rather not go through the torture of hair-brushing every day? Could I be big enough to let go of my little girl with braids fantasy?

I took a deep breath and weilded the scissors.





I almost cried several times during the process, but I reminded myself of all those perms I endured as a child, an imposition of my mother's will for my hair, how torturous there were: they burned my scalp, pulled my hair, and smelled to high heaven. I knew I did the right thing.

When Goose saw herself in the mirror for the first time, she grinned from ear to ear. "Now I'm LITTLE E!!!" The role she's been dying to play forever. Finally, she's got the right "do" for the part.

Insomnia: an epidemic.

The rain fell lightly. It was a peaceful and warm evening. The theater performance had been well done, although as often is true, it did not do justice to the book it was interpreting. I leaned on the railing of the complex's central fountain mulling over the conversation I had just had with an old friend and contemplating the machinery propelling the fountain's giant wooden sculptures - two rustic canoes - in large arcing paths.

"Sarah!" I heard from across the courtyard, "Come on, we're staying."

The rest of my party had been sent as envoy into the complex's overpriced eatery to assess its worthiness. Either it had met whatever expectations the selected body had or they were just to lazy and hungry to initiate a search for a better landing spot. I sat down to find my mother had already ordered for me.

"I got you the slice of pizza."

Terrific. An ethnic restaurant, a menu filled with exciting culinary adventure and you order me the pizza. Thanks Mom.

I blink. I sit up. It is dark. I'm in bed. The phone is ringing. A thousand relatives are critically injured or dead in the next ten seconds as I fumble to the phone.

"Hello?"

No answer.

"Hello? Hello?"

No Answer.

I wait a moment, straining to hear any commotion or sobbing on the other end. Nothing. I hang up.

Check the clock: 3:30.

I return to bed my mind still imagining the news I almost received: We just found your sister murdered. Your sister and her entire family were killed in an auto accident. Your sister is in a coma. (I have a lot of sisters to worry about). Your brother is missing. Your father had a heart attack.

My imagination for morbidity seems to be unfettered. I remember the story I had just told my husband hours before: As a child I had feared to wear a particular t-shirt of my mother's to bed. It was a church youth camp shirt which had been silk-screened to read "Heaven Can't Wait". I feared the kidnapper that lurked outside my window every night would strike the night I wore that shirt and interpret the text as an invitation to "off" me. I laugh at myself.

Still, I lay blinking in my bed. Perhaps my inability to sleep now is related to my falling asleep at 7pm while "helping" my 3 year old to sleep. I feel little pang of guilt as I remember that last night was Valentine's Day and I snoozed while my husband watched something as enthralling as "Legend of the Seeker" on TV. My guilt quells as I also remember the night before this one I spent mostly awake catching vomit from aforementioned 3 year old.

My 3 year old cries out and starts down the stairs. She has lost her baby. Her baby is laying on her pillow. I crawl into bed with her until I hear the deep breaths and feel the involuntary muscle twitches that signal her sleep state. I slide out of bed and head to the computer. Ever since I introduced my children to YouTube and Starfall, I have been competing for screen time with them. I promise myself I will take the uninterrupted time to write in my blog and not check my email or facebook.

I check my email. I look up flights to Hawaii. My husband is going to Honolulu in April for a conference. Two of my best friends are going the week before for fun. I feel like I should not be left out. My anxiety over knowing I probably will be grows as I think about arguing my case in front of my one-man jury. I curse our tendency toward financial prudence and lack of independent wealth.

I hear a squeak from my other child. It is now 5 am. He needs to go back to sleep. I need to blog. I ignore him. He quiets down. I write. He starts calling for mama. I write. He calls, ever faithful. I write. 5:15. Mama. I write. 5:30. Mama. I write. Coughing from the daughter. Mama. My daughter's door opens. "Go lay down with Daddy." "But I'm hungry." Mama, poo-poo, Mama. I sigh. I post. 5:45.

Author's Note: I apologize for using the dream devise. It felt a little cliche. But, it was really the way it happened. And I wanted to practice describing the vivid scene I had just dreamt. The only thing that didn't happen just as described was the last comment by Little E (Poo-poo, Mama.) That happened last week. Also at 5 am.
P.S. The youtube link is one of the kids' favorites.