Stay-at-Home Plan of Attack

Today after dropping Abby at school we took Lizzy to the pediatrician for her arm injury follow-up, to the drugstore for the Awesome Power of Children's Ibuprofen (doc said to make a Big Huge Deal of said Awesome Power to encourage her to use her arm, because it's 30% pain and 70% fear) and some melt-away diphenhydramine to pack in Abby's bag for her Brownie Scout trip this weekend, and home for lunch and job-hunting.

I got the good news while we were out that I have an interview scheduled - at a place I'm really interested in working - for Wednesday the 25th, and that a LinkedIn connection has referred me for three jobs at another place I'm interested in. So in spite of last week's slow-moving job listings, I'm feeling pretty up about things here and back in the life-organizing mood. The weekly Rx-strength Vitamin D probably didn't hurt any either - I take them on Mondays.

The house is a little bit of a wreck, due to job-hunting blues and the apparent inability of every adult in the house (including me) to Get Things Done when Lizzy does not nap during the day. At least more than the usual round of dishes and tidying. It's been one of those things where we were maintaining at "basically-tidy", but the mere thought of trying to actually organize more than the kids' room (which we've been keeping up pretty well since they got their new bed) makes everyone want to cry. And, being us, when it's time for people to come over (like for Friday Night Games, for instance), we clean the living spaces and close the door on the master bedroom.

My mom (Lizzy's sitter) is out of town and my husband (the Other Adult in our house) is in class after work for two weeks. So I'm playing Single Parent, which I have done before (with only one kid, but for two years) and can do again (phht - two weeks is nothing).

So the master bedroom has a few things that Do No Belong. Most notably flung tags from new clothing, used dryer sheets, and eight empty Girl Scout Cookie cases (yeah, those in the picture. Still on my bedroom floor). Few of my books are actually where they belong - they're on the shelves, but in no particular order. I hate that. And that's not even counting the other half of my books, in our storage unit, which I have not seen for a year and a half or so. It's making me crazy. So I got organized and this post is serving as my list to myself - it's the best way for me to Get Things Done - to make and maintain a bulleted list or two.

Bedroom:

• Sort the clean laundry into (three) separate baskets for folding
• Fold the laundry (one, two, three)
• Remove the Girl Scout Cookie Boxes
• Ditch the trash
• Organize the books
• Dust
• Vacuum

Other rooms:

• Usual maintenance stuff - cooking, dishes, tidying, dusting, garbage. Recruit older kids (my own plus Kiki) to help in exchange for Treasure Chest Picks
• Laundry (Lizzy can help for Treasure Chest Picks and color-sorting practice)
• Usual job-hunting stuff
• Using the freaking Wii Fit as more than just a scale!

When Mom is home from her vacation (assuming it ever stops raining):

• Go through storage and divide into groups of keep, sell/donate, ditch
• Rotate books and toys between storage and house
• Organize Lizzy's stuff (impossible to do with her here; she immediately wants to play with whatever I'm organizing)

The job I'm interviewing for on the 25th does not start until mid-June. If I get it, there will be three weeks of Gramma-home-but-Jenn-not-working to get some of this accomplished. Wish me luck.