As much as I would like to start out this entry with the positive notes from yesterday, I must purge the negative first. Lately I have been having the feeling that everything has been going too well: The air conditioner hasn't gone out in my car (or apt for that matter), the computer hasn't suddenly stopped running, we are all in good health, the tv and ps3 are still going strong, and I have been able to take care of all my current items on my running list of things to pay for in july/august. I
was looking forward to having some "extra" money for the month! Nope. That extra money is going towards the speeding ticket I got in Irving yesterday...
Why was I in Irving?
Last night was Alton's belated birthday celebration with friends! We went out to
Bosses Pizza for dinner- it was compared to
Mama's Pizza, but hands down, Mama's is better. After pizza we went to see the batman movie, which I thought was great and heart-warming. Yes, heart-warming. Happy birthday Alton!
Earlier in the day, I laid out by the pool with Amy and did the all important speed cleaning with Meredith! What is speed cleaning you ask? I know no one asked because all of you who read this have probably heard my advocation of speed cleaning, but I will divulge anyway. Speed cleaning can be done alone or with a friend. So, I first initiate a speed cleaning session via text with the appropriate friend, (in my case, Meredith, because she is always usually up for a good cleaning!), and if they say they are busy the appropriate thing to do would be to continue on with the plan of cleaning, but typically this causes a sigh of relief and a "that was close!" moment. If they agree to the session, we then usually establish a cleaning timeframe; usually about an hour, maybe an hour and half or more if we have company coming. My apartment REALLY only gets a good cleaning when we have visitors, but I try to maintain the general chaos between visits with speed cleaning. We usually decide which room we want to start with first and more often than not start texting a leisurely conversation to postpone the inevitable. We then establish a timeframe and a room, usually capping it at 20 minutes, because any more than this and you experience the sitting on couch for a minute to watch the Glee dance dream sequence set to 80's music, thinking those precious 3 minutes of pop are not going to make a huge difference. They do! You don't realize how much you can get done in such a short amount of time! In those 20 minutes you clean as quickly and efficiently as you can, choosing carefully what you can clean that will give the maximum results! When I was a kid I would pile everything on my bed and race against the clock, pretending it was a time bomb and if I didn't get everything cleared off within a certain amount of time the entire city would be destroyed (or something equally as traumatic to mankind). I'm not sure why they always trusted me with the safety of the people, but about half way through I usually decided I was ok with not finishing. Anyway, yet another reason why the timeframes should be short. After the set timeframe has ended we text each other about the results and praise one another for our accomplishments. This interlude should be brief, as to not get caught up in each other's self destructive tendencies. We then choose the next room and establish a timeframe, and keep on this until the hour is up. I usually leave a 10 minute timeframe at the end to rush back through and finish up anything that was missed, or sometimes use that time to do the dreaded sweep/dust chore. To keep this up between speed cleanings I try to do a nightly 15 minute cleaning before bed, which makes a huge difference! This method is also great to do on your own, but not as exciting and hard to get motivated. Good luck with your cleaning endeavors! To hear about Meredith's never ending battle with domesticity, check out her
blog!
Other than cleaning, since I have last updated we have celebrated Alton's birthday as I mentioned, celebrated my grandparent's anniversary, celebrated Meredith and Dan's birthday, got to have a Courtney and Daina day of hanging out like we did in the olden days, (although now there are children in the mix :) ), had a visit from Paul's cousin, had a visit from Paul's friend, and Cameron and her family came to visit for Baby Bennett's baby shower and general TX time- they are moving back to Texas in about a year, by the way! So excited! Coming up is Stefan's graduation next weekend, Mom and Dad's anniversary, Paul and my's 5th anniversary, my birthday, and Paul's birthday! I'm sure I will have more drama to update soon.
Today my plans are to make a master to-do list of all the things I keep putting off, tackle the bedroom, (which I conveniently left out of our speed cleaning session because I dread it), and chat with Staishy about all the family gossip and general goings-ons of our exciting lives! Love. It.
Happy Anniversary my dearest. It has gone by so fast, and I am looking forward to the next 100 years with you! :)
