christina williams

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Cleaning Made Simple(r)

I have such a love/hate relationship with cleaning. I love a good, clean home. But I hate doing all the work. Especially when I can't organize my cleaning tasks properly. When was the last time I cleaned out the fridge? That floor sure looks dirty; I swear I just scrubbed it yesterday.

It seems like forever now that I've been trying to come up with a cleaning schedule that works for me. I try one thing, get distracted or annoyed, then give up and move onto something else. Leave it to Martha to do all the thinking for me. I just found all these nifty checklists on her website. She's got it all covered: from daily chores to weekly and even seasonal cleaning. And since I'm such a sucker for a good checklist, this may just work for me. Now if I can just manage to work all that cleaning into my schedule, my uber-clean mother will be oh, so proud.

So tell me, what's your most-dreaded cleaning task?

Mine's the fridge. I dread cleaning the fridge.

On a totally unrelated note: I just want to thank you all for your kindness and your thoughtful comments yesterday. It's not often that I get down like that, but really...how lucky am I? I am so glad I have such wonderful people in my life who can help pick me back up and nudge me in the right direction. Thank you! I'm feeling much more like myself today. :)

photo from Martha Stewart.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Sick, Tired, and Scared

So far this pregnancy, I've kept pretty cool. I haven't been a teary-eyed mess, like I was last time. Until now. The moment my third trimester hit, I fell apart. Now I spend everyday hopping back and forth between being sick, tired, and scared. So please pardon these self-indulgent ramblings. Hopefully once I purge all of this, my blog (and my world) will soon return to the happy, pretty place it usually is. But for now:

I'm sick.

I'm sick of unsolicited advice. If I want to know what you, personally, would or would not name my baby, I'll ask.
I'm sick of being the bad guy: setting limits, dishing out punishments, etc.
I'm sick of being compared (indirectly, or otherwise) to other people. Especially other pregnant women.

I'm tired.

I'm tired of working my butt off as a mother, but only getting my work noticed when I screw up. "We're out of milk." or "Why don't I have any clean clothes?" etc.
I'm tired of hearing about my size. "You look too small." or "Wow! You've really popped out in the last couple weeks." Well, which one is it?
I'm tired of the haters. When you criticize me, or my parenting skills...such as,"You'll never be able to handle two kids," you're just feeding my worst fears (see below). And I don't think anyone needs or deserves that.

I'm scared.

I'm scared I won't love Baby as much as I love H. {yes, I know this is normal, and somewhat ridiculous...but it's still very real for me at the moment}
I'm scared H will feel like I don't love him as much once the baby comes. {Also normal, but very real for me}
I'm scared to have two kids. I'm scared I won't be able to handle it.
I'm scared of change.

So that's that. I realize that some of these things are just real-life normal motherhood kind of things that will never go away. Like milk and laundry. And others are exaggerrated by my raging hormones. But it always feels good to be completely honest about how I'm feeling and what I think. A girl's got to speak her mind sometimes. And that's just the way it is.