Feeling great!

So, my kitchen has been sorely in need of some loving attention for...well...for a very long time. We'll just leave it at that.

Today it got that loving attention. I did ALL the dishes. Finally. For days, I've been trying to get ambitious and do them all, but I would get one or two loads done, then get tired of it, and more dishes would get dirtied, and the day would end with at least as many dirty dishes as it started with.

But today I put my foot down. Well, both feet actually, because it's hard to do dishes with only one foot on the ground. Um...well anyway, I put my feet down and did ALL of the dishes. I knew that in order to get my kitchen to where I want it to be, I have to do all the cleaning. All the dishes washed, the counters and stove thoroughly cleaned, everything put away or thrown away as the situation demanded. Then I need to force myself into the habit of washing all the dishes after every meal. That sometimes seems to me a bit extreme, since with such a small family once a day should be sufficient. But I have to crack down on myself and set extreme rules so that I'll be sure to follow them. I did this once before (doing all the dishes and all the cleaning after every meal), and it worked for a really long time. I know I go through dish-washing phases, and I am just shoving myself into a clean phase.

So my new rule is that the dishes have to be done after every meal. No exceptions or excuses (unless we're late for Church, then I have to do the breakfast dishes after lunch along with the lunch dishes. Or other times when we may have to leave, and I'll do all the dishes after the next meal. But that's the only exception). So far: the dishes are all washed, and have been since lunchtime, and the kitchen looks great!

So that's how I spent the first half of my day - it took me until after lunch to get all the dishes done. I really wish I had a dishwasher!

When Jeff came home, he told me that the hospital decided not to give him a job as phlebotomist. But he will be hired as a Medical Technician! That's a good thing. It's more doing what he wants to be doing, all that stuff in the lab, instead of just drawing blood. This is different from Medical Technologist, which is what he'll be after his internship and certification. Technician is like the next step under technologist. Anyway he'll be PRN, which stands for pro re nata (I'm really not sure that's how it's spelled, oh well), which means that he won't have set hours or anything. He'll basically just be on call whenever they need him. It won't be a full-time position, because he'll still be doing 40 hours a week with his internship, so they'll probably only have him working 8-10 hour a week. That's fine, it will just be really nice to be getting some money coming in again.

So I got the kitchen cleaned, Jeff got a job, I worked out this evening, and the kids are sleeping soundly. I'm feeling pretty good!