Optimistic Mondays – Halloween

It’s just around the corner, and I will admit that Halloween is one of my LEAST favorite holidays. I don’t usually get dressed up. I can’t stand the creepy, crawly, icky stuff. For example, spider webs strung across the railings, headstones covering the front yard, and body-less limbs hanging out of car doors. They just give me the creeps. It’s so dark. I like cheerful and happy things.

But as a mother, I’m trying to see Halloween with new eyes. I love the cute costumes for the kids. I love how I can’t get my daughter to take off her princess dress.

I also love the fun food that comes with Halloween. There are so many creative people out there, always coming up with new ways to have fun with food. Here are a few cute Halloween treat ideas: Fun with Spiders, and Frankenpops. There are so many fun ideas out there; they’re changing the way I think about Halloween.

So, what’s my LEAST favorite thing about Halloween? The candy! All that candy, just hanging around, waiting to be eaten by who? Me!

My FAVORITE thing with Halloween? The candy! All that candy, just hanging around, waiting to be eaten by ME!!

Next week’s preview: Weigh-in day at the scale! (I’m already nervous.)

Happy Monday!

Optimistic Mondays – The Kitchen Floor

I love to live in a clean house. However, cleaning house is not my favorite thing to do. I don’t thrive on it. It’s not what I do when I’m stressed, or mad, or need a distraction. Sometimes I wish I was the type of woman that, when faced with a problem of some sorts says, “I have to go clean something.” But I’m not.

It’s a necessary evil for me. My least favorite place to clean is the kitchen floor. But it’s exactly that same kitchen floor that drives me the most crazy when it’s dirty. I can’t stand walking across the floor in socks or bare feet, and having something stick to the bottom of my feet. Or the sound of crunching cereal as I grind a piece into thousands of little dust particles.

To properly clean the floor, it takes several steps. I remove all the chairs around the table, putting them in the living room. Next, I sweep the floor. I’m always amazed at the pile of crumbs I end up with. Yikes!

After sweeping, I get out the swiffer. It’s shocking how much this can pick up. I just swept for Pete’s sake! Then I finally move onto actually mopping, down on hands and knees. At least I have knee pads, to save my poor knees from the tile floor. Once again, I look into the bucket upon completion, and can’t believe how dirty the water is. Three steps later, I’m done.

Wonder upon wonder, I feel a deep satisfaction putting the chairs back around the table, and knowing I don’t have to worry about stepping on something that will stab into my foot. At least not for about another hour, when the kids get up from their naps.

But, as always, there are wonderful things about scrubbing the kitchen floor, and for cleaning the rest of the house, too. It’s a great way to get some exercise. I’m usually sweating before I’m done, and I can feel my stomach muscles are tight too. One of my arms was holding up my body weight (weight lifting?) while the other one was scrubbing. Lifting chairs = more exercise.

In addition to the exercise factor, having a freshly cleaned house just makes me feel good. I love walking from room to room and seeing my progress, knowing I accomplished something that day. And even better, is when my hubby gets home and says it looks really nice. That makes it all worth it.

So go and clean something. It will make you feel wonderful!

Happy Monday.

Optimistic Mondays – I Love Laundry Day!

For most women out there, Laundry Day is not something to look forward to. Some women have one day a week, and spend the entire day doing every batch of laundry, one after another. Other women like the “one load a day” approach. Both seem to work, depending on your personality and schedule. I’ve gone down the middle of the two, and have Mondays and Thursdays as my laundry days.

Like most women, I don’t really look forward to doing laundry. Starting it is no problem. Even switching the first load to the dryer, and putting in the second load in the washer goes smoothly. But after that, the trouble starts. Putting clothes AWAY is my downfall. I usually don’t allow myself to unload the dryer without the intention of putting the clothes away immediately. I don’t usually have a stack of laundry on the bed, waiting for me to get to it. A good reason for that is from last week, when my daughter tried to help me.

So if I don’t have time to put the clothes away, they just sit in the dryer. Hours later, I’ve only got 1-1/2 loads done. While I intend to have it all done before my husband gets home from work, instead we get to listen to the washer and dryer run during dinner.

But there are some things that I do love about laundry day. I love the fresh smell of the dryer vent outside our front door. If I have any visitors on laundry day, I always have comments about how good it smells. I love the warmth of the freshly dried clothes, if I put them away right when the dryer gets done. I love the fact that I now have an option of what to wear the following day. And I love being able to stay in my pajamas all day, and blame that on the fact that I have no clean clothes to wear, because it’s laundry day.

Happy Monday!

Family Blog

I've decided to separate this blog into two. This will remain the place for me to ramble on about anything I find interesting, in the hope of keeping my two readers entertained. I've started a new blog that will be my family blog. There, I will post family pictures and the story of what we are up to. If you're interested, you can keep up with us there.

Sorry for the craziness. This will meet my needs better. And after all, it's all about me, right?

Optimistic Mondays - What I love about being cold:

I like to think I’m an optimist. I don’t like to hang around with negative things, including negative people. I avoid any kind on contention, as though it’s a plague. One of my favorite quotes is by the previous President of the LDS Church, Gordon B. Hinckley:

“My plea is that we stop seeking out the storms in life and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that as we go through life, we ‘accentuate the positive’. I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment and endorse virtue and effort.”

A new idea came to me, inspired by my “I love Mondays” post. Each week, I plan to post a positive spin on something that has a bad reputation (at least for me). I start this week with feeling cold.

I love the fall. I love the colors of the leaves. I love the fall décor. I love the smells, and the food that are characteristic of fall. I love the cooler weather. Okay, so I don’t actually like being cold. But I do like what I get to do and enjoy when I feel cold.

I love to go walking outdoors, in the crisp mornings of fall. It’s refreshing to be able to get some exercise, and not be required to shower after.

I love to wear my ugly purple slippers around the house all day, if I want to, because the tile floor is too cold with out them.

I LOVE hot chocolate. It’s like a warm hug, from the inside out. And it’s CHOCOLATE! Need I say more? And if that warm hug isn’t quite enough, I love to wrap myself in a warm, soft blanket. Now, combine the two, add in a good book to read, and I’m in heaven.

Happy Monday!