Laundry Lazy?

(Note: The baby gates we use to keep the youngest out of the older kids' rooms takes the paint off of the door jams, and I have no idea why Dh's sweatshirt is hanging on the linen closet door. I just stumbled upon this sitting there.)

I think you can figure out which member of my household this bad habit belongs to......leaving the laundry in the basket......by process of elimination......

I had the 2 older kids (I have 3 and the youngest is 3) time me on how long it would take to put these towels away. It took 45 seconds to put this basket of towels away, and I had to briefly fix up the contents of the linen closet so they would fit, and I had to refold 2 of them and walk a bib into the baby's room - 45 SECONDS!

I should have taken a picture of the pile in each room of our 4-bedroom home, but this one should be sufficient.



It doesn't take long to put laundry away at all. Unless you are walking it upstairs folded, then there is really no reason to put it back in the basket once folded. Just fold it, make the piles according to drawers and person, then pile it up according to drawers for each person, and take 2 stacks at a time and put them directly into the drawers. THE FOLDING IS THE HARD PART - YOU HAVE IT BACKWARDS DEAR! (talking to my husband -- oops! Did I give it away?)

Lack of Time and Focus....

Well, I had to skip creating any new blog posts in lieu of tending to all that Christmas entails. I jotted down numerous notes on new ideas and topics, but things are still going.

The day after Christmas, my husband took our 3 children to his mother's house for 3 days. Exciting stuff. I organized and accomplished much on my To-Do list--stuff that I need to get done to place myself onto the top of my priority list for a change, guilt-free. See, I cannot just do it knowing that so many other things require my attention, so the solution is to put things just so to avoid this line of reasoning.

Hubbie brought the kids home Sunday night. He complained that he didn't feel well and my oldest expressed the same. As I unpacked the luggage, I noted that he had packed all 3 of their toothbrushes together in the same baggie - you just shouldn't do this on a good day, no? Just thought he and my oldest had eaten something bad because nobody was actually "sick" and it was past their bedtime when they arrived, I ran their toothbrushes under very hot water, thinking it would be sufficient. It wasn't long before my oldest vomited first in the middle of the night and DH started with the "other end." From there, my 3-y/o joined them so that Monday was an extraordinary day to say the least. Tuesday, nobody was up for eating still and only the youngest was still having the hind-end issues. My daughter, with the sweet tooth of all sweet tooths....although she said she felt fine, she did not eat anything nor drink much over the last couple of days, including sweet stuff, so I knew she was out of sorts, but at least she didn't spew anything.

Hubbie kept apologizing that now I was running around like a headless chicken, cleaning this and that, wiping up this and that, comforting all, offering fluids of all sorts to each whatever the special request might be. I told him that I was only disappointed in 2 things....1 that neither he or his mother had the sense to move the 3-day visit after discovering she was having diarrhea, and 2 that he put all those toothbrushes together like that and probably had them that way throughout the visit.

I was as careful as I could be, but despite that I now have the GI bug, albeit less in severity than they. There just isn't any way to avoid it at ALL costs when so many are running around with the same virus. However, they are all up and about and arguing tday so I asked DH to not go to work today. I slept most of the day away bundled up, despite not having a fever. It's really the first time that everyone here has caught such a bug - wow, does that keep you on your toes. DH and I have discussed, off-handedly, what is it that prevents your tummy from accepting that which is not causing a problem, to make it literally pump out the contents in order to empty it? Not fun and feels totally different as an adult than I remember it as a 10-year-old. lol.

So, instead of sharing some cute stories over the past week, I sit here completely unmotivated and not very creative. Upping the quality of the posts I'd like to share in the New Year is a goal of mine, whether I decide to divide my blog into many or find a way to learn how to organize this one the way I would like it to appear - that's the organization freak in me....I don't like these 3-column deals...I want categories. lol.

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Our 12th Wedding Anniversary......

Okay, so a little background.....my hubby is terrible at gift-giving.....well maybe not for every gift, but hearing me drop hints and even directly pointing out the item I would love to have, he seems to miss the mark.

I should've realized this would be a lifelong issue throughout our marriage the moment he proposed with the ring that I had specifically said "No, I don't like that one. In fact, I actually hate that one." when he took me shopping. lol.

Again, after becoming a mother, I pointed to a mother's necklace that was different from the one everyone else was getting at that time.....he got me the one everyone was getting at the time.

A couple years ago he bought me the past, present, and future ring that I wanted, BUT he added a bunch more little diamonds all around the main stones - it now looks like a cocktail ring - not my style. It was obvious how that happened, despite my specificity with him on that one, as I later met the jeweler when I took him out shopping for an anniversary gift a year later - that man was a pure salesman and didn't like it when I told him he shouldn't try to talk people into something other than what they were after because they wind up with an unhappy spouse like me. lol.

I'm just a balanced and simple person. I don't like abstract, curves, waves, or tons of little diamonds scattered about in my jewelry - straight lines and balance is what I need, clean. Can't get anymore specific than that, or can you?

Anyway, we just celebrated our 12th anniversary. We've been together for 18 years total. We were talking and I said "Maybe we should just stick to that old tradition that lists items made of paper and woods and such for gifts, or maybe even go with the newer, more updated version. He said, "What could I get you made of paper? Paper lingerie? A paper airplane? Is plastic one? You could wrap yourself in cellophane and I could wear a condom!" @@@ I think we'll be sticking to whatever floats his boat at that moment, as his options for a crack at the traditional gifts appear to represent a bigger challenge for him! He may be clueless when it comes to gift giving and what I like or dislike, but he is definitely my best friend and I'm glad he's mine.