Organization vs. Neatness EDITED

I feel the need to post about my "organizational" skills.

Let me preface this entire post by a few disclaimers:

I am organized. I am not neat. I will save that title for my mom and for my friend Karen (and Michelle, and Terri). They are psycho neat. Insanely so. I once spent an entire winter Sunday at Karen's house with all my kids and when we left after dinner it was still freaking spotless. I am constantly yelling nicely and patiently asking my lovely husband and children to CLEAN UP THEIR CRAP. I am constantly cleaning up crap and putting it back where it belongs. Nothing ever seems to get put back where it came from without me either threatening it to be thrown away or me doing it myself. Sometimes I just say that I wish I could toss everything and start fresh. But I love my house so that aint gonna happen. But can we just toss all the CRAP of life? But I digress (what else is new). Back to the organizing thing.

I am HIGHLY organized. I have 4 little kids and 1 big kid (whom I adore to pieces and is the best hubby in the universe...but he and I differ just a tad in what constitutes clean). I have the Dov-man. I work 25-30 hours per week and only have 4 hours of cleaning help per week-which is a heck of a lot more than some people have so I'm not complaining. But if I wasn't organized then I would drown, literally, in both the physical and emotional stuff of life. For me, and organized life=an organized mind. I cannot function without organization. As I tell people constantly, I can do anything with a plan. In one sentence, my friends, that is my secret. plan, plan, plan. lists, lists, lists. Plan ahead, reap the benefits.

So here are just a few of my ways I keep my life organized.

• laundry every day. There is nothing more disheartening, in my opinion, than Mt. St. Laundry, as I call it. I hate laundry-I mean, you do it, put it all away, and then. there. is. more. It's like the laundry mommy and daddy made little laundry babies when you weren't looking. So every morning, even before my coffee, I run downstairs to the scary slasher film basement and toss the load in. The load is the clothing and pj's everyone wore yesterday, plus Dovi's sheets, plus the odd towel that might smell icky. Benjie's more concerned about icky towels than me-so there's usually one or two per day. So for my family of 6, that totals about one load. If I toss it in first thing in the morning, I can generally flip it to the drier right before I leave in the morning at 8, or immediately when I get home at 3:45. Then I fold it while the kids are taking their showers, upstairs in the hallway, and put it straight away. The folding/putting away of 1 load takes about 7-10 minutes. I'd MUCH rather spend 7 minutes every day than one or two hours on a Sunday. I DO do two or three loads on Sunday, because I'm doing Friday and Saturday plus linens. Which brings me to:
• Linens. I change them every other week, not every week. (and don't tell, I just did not have the fortitude to do them last week, so, gasp, my kids are sleeping on three week old sheets. whatevs. they're fine). I despise shimmying up on the bunkbed and rearranging all the kids' crap stuffed animals, so I put it off as long as possible. But honestly, they're just fine.
• Plan dinner in advance. I take ten minutes every Wednesday when I'm planning my Shabbos meals and plan my dinners for the next week. I only worry about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday because Thursday is hot dog night at Casa P (don't lecture me about nitrates. That's the least of our problems in life). So I decide what I'm making for dinner next week on Wednesday. So that way, when I shop, get this, everyone...I buy what I need for next week's dinners as well. That means that I don't need to run to the store every day to buy dinner ingredients. Shocking, I know. But it makes everything so much easier to not be like...hmmm....what's for dinner? At 3 pm. And it keeps us out of the noodles and fish sticks rut.
• I try and not waste time. As in if I need to ________ (cook, clean, set the table, etc), I don't sit down/read a book/etc until I've done it. Because once my butt hits the couch, it's all over, folks. I like my chaise on my couch in my den with my laptop, looking up at my loverly pictures of my kids from Amy, over the mantle I made my myself and stained myself...it's my happy place, and darned if I'm going to get up from there once I sit down. So I don't. Until I've finished. Try it, it works.
• I've said this before, and this only applies to my Shabbos-observant readers, but I set the table/set up the Shabbos candles on Thursday night. There is no better feeling than coming downstairs on Friday morning to a set table. I'm like "ooh I'm the best, look how geshickt I am!" Even if the rest of the house is a mess (which it often is) and the food is not yet cooked (which it often is not), I feel like a rock star with my set table and set up candles. I used to go to the house of a dear friend of mine on Friday afternoons. She is lucky enough to have almost daily housekeeping help. Her housekeeper would set the table every Thursday. I'd go home, feeling all upset that I didn't have a housekeeper to get my table ready on Thursday. But then I realized-I can set the table myself on Thursday! So I do. And I rock. Which brings me to:
• Don't pile crap on your dining room table! You'll feel icky when someone walks into your house and sees a messy table. It's not a good feeling. Find another place to dump it. My crap pile of embarrassment is in my den, on my desk. Holy cow, that place is scary now. Must deal with it. But it's not the first thing people see when they come in my house. I can close it up and pretend it's not there. So also,
• Keep the entry way clean. I have baskets for my kids' shoes. They are supposed to dump their shoes there when they come in. They often don't, but at least, when I yell tell them so patiently and nicely to put them away, they have an easy place to put them. Make the kids put away their backpacks. Often, my kids don't. But I aspire to it. They even have hooks on the basement stairs. With their initials on them. Which they generally ignore. Give them a place to put them, and try to enforce it. I need to get better at this one.
• lists, lists, lists. If you have a lot to do, and are starting to get overwhelmed, STOP! Stop right there from the freaking, and make lists. Make as many lists as you need to until you've broken down your tasks into manageable bites. I break everything down. My mom and sister used to mock me, when Dovi was a baby, for my pre-Shabbos lists. Literally, I would write: Take food out of fridge. Put food in oven. Fill up hot water urn. Take shower. OK, I don't do that anymore, but you get the idea. It reminds me of this book. I've never read it, but that's the idea-break it down and it's SO much more doable. I also love the satisfaction of crossing things off. Whenever I get frazzled, I stop, and make a list. And then I don't sit down and relax until my task for that day is over. By following my lists, I managed to make Pesach for my family of 26 while still working a normal schedule. And without staying up until 2 am. Never did. At all. Can't remember the last time I did that.
• HERE'S MY EDIT-I have one more pearl of wisdom (hardy har har): JUST DO IT. If you've got things to get done, don't sit around talking about how much you've got to do, how much it sucks, etc etc etc. Just get up and get it done. It's amazing how much time we can spend talking about what we have to do instead of just doing it. Get going, get moving, and finish it up.
  
• This is my last one. Don't be afraid to ask for help. I like to do everything myself. But sometimes, it's just too much. Remember last Friday when the asbestos guy unplugged my fridge and ruined all my food for Shabbos and I found that out as I was walking out the door to work, and I had no extra chicken in my deep freeze? So when some people called me and offered me food and help, I took it. That's what friends are for. So I remember that concept when I'm feeling overwhelmed and someone offers to help. There's no shame in taking help. If my friend or relative was feeling overwhelmed, I'd want to help. Heck, I'd be offended if they wouldn't take my help. So when I need help and it's offered (or I need to ask for it!), I avail myself.
  

So that's it, my dears. Like it? All Sara's Great Organizational Secrets, spelled out. Enjoy.

For Shosh

because she's such a faithful commentor...




My cookery for the day:





Mushroom Chicken

Pineapple Chicken

Coq Au Vin

Stuffed Cabbage

Potato Kugel

8 loaves of Challah

Hot Dogs in Dough

Meat Bourekas

Yellow cake

(that's the stuffed cabbage raw. It looks much yummiers and browner now)

Methinks that's all.



Have an easy fast, all Yom Kippur-celebrators...see y'all on Thursday night/Friday morning-when I shall have new cookery pics to share!



Oh and just because they're so cute-my kids are currently obsessed with cleaning-they follow my cleaning lady (Tuesdays are the est day of the week) around the house trying to help her. In the past day and a half, they've used almost an entire package of Clorox wipes...I don't have the heart to stop them-but they seem to concentrate mostly on the front door and my front stoop-yes, they Clorox OUTSIDE my house. Whateva. They're happy.

How to Sabotoge Your Yom Tov Cooking in One Easy Step:

Make Macaroni and Cheese Casserole uncovered in your pareve oven approximately two hours before you plan to begin cooking for Sukkos.

Nice.

I fear

That my blog is becoming boring. Mundane. A blog about nothing of substance. I mean, how many times can you all hear about my freaking basement? or the fact that despite the waterproofing, water got in last night? Do you really care? I doubt it.

So I will give you Dovi substance today. Deep, crappy Dovi substance. Substance that might make you cry. It makes me cry.

The FD family lost another member. This past Friday, October 3, 2008. He was 18.

I did not know him. He lived in California (I think), and his parents never posted on the FD lists that I'm on. They might have lurked, but never posted. So the only things I know about him are that he was 18, has an older brother with FD as well (I can't even imagine that), loved playing Uno, and went to Camp Simcha Special for quite a long time. Dovi's counselor from this summer did know him. I've been harassing him nonstop since I heard on Monday trying to get more details of exactly what happened. Was he on BiPap? Oxygen? Monitor? G-tube? Fundo? I need to know.

Because from what I've heard it's not good. He passed away in the same way that another FD'er that I know did, and I'm sure countless others-this seems to be the new way. They go to sleep and just don't wake up. That's all. No warning. Nothing. All seems fine, then they just don't wake up. It seems that in both cases that I know of (I'm sure there are more), the person in question was a little under the weather when they went to sleep. But nothing alarming-just a bit sick. But they just didn't wake up.

So yet again, Benjie and I have reason to be spazzing out. Is there any way to stop this from happening? Dovi is on BiPap. He's on oxygen. But when it comes down to it, will all this stuff actually change anything? If you want to get all spiritual, no, it will not. When G-d decides it's your time, it's your time. No amount of medical paraphernalia will change that in any way. But it's just so much more...obvious with FD.

My sister in law told me a story of her good friend's brother in law, who went to sleep fine on Saturday night, woke up at 3am vomiting, and is currently in a medically induced coma post brain surgery, and they are praying that he will have little or no brain damage. Now a story like that-it was unavoidable-there was NOTHING to be done-he was a perfectly healthy 30 year old man.

But with Dovi, who we know in advance is so fragile, and his health so precarious, it's easy to play the coulda shoulda game. Maybe if we'd do ________ then this won't happen. Will the BiPap change anything? The oxygen? The oxygen monitor? Or is it all a lesson in futility and we are stuck in this terrible limbo land of not knowing what will be in the morning? Because really, when it comes down to it, so little is known, both about the human body itself, and all the havoc FD wreaks upon Dovi's. Because, frankly, he. is. messed. up. Nothing works the way it should.

So we pile technology upon technology, hoping, praying, that it will work and Dovi will make it and not be one of the unlucky. That he will celebrate his 11th birthday. That he will go to camp next summer. That we will make him a Bar Mitzvah. That he will go to high school.

In the special needs world, there is a great emphasis on planning for when the kids turn 21. Because once they turn 21, benefit/programming wise, everything changes. But for whatever reason, I've never been so inclined to do anything at all. Zilch. Nada. And I think I've figured out why.

I'm just praying we get there.

Epiphanies for today/Not Me Monday

Here we are again...your favorite day of the week...

• I do not absolutely adore nitrous oxide. good. very good. I got a cavity filled with it recently, and let me tell you? I could become an addict easily.
• I do not have the mouth of a 80 year old person who has never had dental care. I have had 3 root canals, fillings in every other back tooth, a gross discolored cap over a broken front tooth (thanks to an unfortunate gym accident in the 3rd grade), and might have to have one of those root canals extracted. And replaced with an implant due to possible root degeneration. Of course now it's hurting me because I know it should. And I have another cavity waiting to be filled.
  
• It did not take me 11 yers of marriage to discover online bill pay. also very good. what took me so long to try it? click click click...paid. It's a beautiful thing.
• I do not live well in chaos. The basement has almost put me over the edge. But I'm trying to maintain perspective. Seriously. It's a BASEMENT. As Benjie said (I hope this doesn't sound awful) "It's not like someone died, Sara. It's a basement. It'll be fine"
• It might be useful to keep track of what order the panels go in the sukkah. As in the 2 foot panel here, then the 2 foot window panel, then the 4 foot door one, then the 3 foot solid wall, then 4 4 foot wall ones, and finally the 3 foot. Why must we write it down? Because evidentially Benjie and I are idiots and we put the darned sukkah together WRONG. Three times. Until we got the correct order. Which is now diagrammed nicely on the sukkah manual. What should have taken 15 minutes took an hour.
  
• I did not get locked into the sukkah. It also might be useful to locate the key for the sukkah door prior to trapping me in the sukkah. The door was locked, and as you all know, the other exit, the side porch, is no longer the side porch but an impassable repository for crap.
• The 4th and final crack in our foundation is not under/behind the staircase to the basement, thus prompting the waterproofing guy to request from my handyman to please RIP OUT THE STAIRCASE to my basement so as to properly waterproof it. Ummm no. Figure out another way. I am not climbing down a ladder to the slasher film cellar basement with baskets full of laundry (no, we don't have a laundry chute). I've already fallen once this weekend (in the sukkah while balancing precariously on a patio chair) and have no desire to break my other knee. I really think there might be something quite wrong. Benjie claims it's just a nasty bruise. But I'm a spaz and get bruises all the time. This hurts much more. Time will tell.
• I most certainly did not forget to call Dovi's Chai Lifeline Big Brother and tell him that no, we were not going to be home for him to come over and hang out with D yesterday. That would've been incredibly rude.

Have a lovely Monday, everyone!

Oh My

So in my counter I can look at the keywords people used to get to my blog.

Here are the most recent. Some of them are very disturbing.

• "happy dance under desk"
  
• "simcha willig". He was Dovi's learning counselor at camp, and I have referenced him a few times because Dovi just adores him. Apparently so does someone else because he is googled at least once a week.
• "blood pressure 139/97" well yes, Dovi's blood pressure was 139/97 once. But why would you google such a thing?
  
• "Comcast remote not working" huh?
• "aka insurance company"
• "office closet" ummmm I have no idea what that references.
• "hillel pittsburgh rosh hashanah" no idea again.
• "child torture, pictures" o.m.g. I am so disturbed by that one. I believe the reference was from when our neighbor gave Shana a strep test at like 11 at night. But YIKES. Is there a way to track this person and report them?

Hope you all enjoyed them as much as I did. Except for the terrifying one.


And here is a picture of the Great Crap Relocation, 2008 Edition. If you've been in my side porch you will understand what you are looking at. Crap. has. filled. the. entire. porch. it is terrifying.



And on to even more terrifying things

(a) the asbestos guy left my fridge and freezer unplugged overnight. Deep freeze is fine. But all my Shabbos food? Destroyed. Yikes. Anyone have any chicken they'd like to share? and

(b) (Benjie doesn't even know this-I forgot to tell him!) One of Dovi's brackets from his braces-the front one-is detached from his tooth and has not fallen out only by the Grace of G-d and by the cute yellow rubber band holding it to the wire. Now when I had my braces (for five years thanks to extreme thumb sucking as a child) I have a distinct recollection of the orthodontist using some type of pliers device to yank those suckers off my teeth. So why are they popping off Mr. D's teeth like they're attached with chewing gum? Anyone?

A Thousand Words Thursday

Still catching up from Rosh HaShanah, so you're getting this!





It was the best of times...it was the worst of times.

Dovi with his BFF Ezra, and Dovi with his BiPap getting ready for bed.