What I've been up to...

Happy Saturday afternoon, everyone! Can you believe it's already September?! I can't! Every summer month of 2017 felt like it ended after two weeks—and I didn't like it! Ha ha.

Before school began, I sincerely wished I had at least 21 more days with my babies at home (when they weren't with their friends), but my wish wasn't granted. #sosadface! My three darlings went back to school 10 days ago, and I've been in denial ever since. I just wish they could stay home with Greg and me forever, but that's not going to happen. That said, I'm utterly grateful for the excellent schools they attend—in one of the best school districts in Utah! We are so blessed to live where we have access to such great education!

So, what I've been up to these past few months is varied...yet the same. I'm sure I sound like many other stay-at-home moms during their summer vacations. My little family and I greatly enjoyed our summer break! We loved staying up late and sleeping in! We loved not having a schedule that we had to stick to! Well, I was teaching piano every weekday, so I wasn't completely off the hook, but our summer days were pretty darn awesome!

We didn't do a whole lot of adventuring, but we did get to go on an extended family vacation (thanks to my generous mom) to the incomparable Sun Valley, Idaho! 🌞 It was a (mostly) marvelous experience, but there were a few instances where I struggled with the sometimes lack of communication between my extended family members and me.

Yet isn't that always how family vacations go?! 😄 Don't we all have these grand ideas about how our vacations will be sheer familial bliss? Yet when reality hits, we remember that everyone is imperfect with their deeply-held likes, dislikes, and opinions?! Yes, that is exactly how family life is miraculous: we all somehow come together, despite our differences that are as vast as the seven seas!

I've also been a piano-lessons-teaching machine! It shocks me to write that I'm now teaching piano to 24 students(!)—including my daughter! Yay! My youngest son is taking a break from piano, but he should be back to it shortly. So I guess I'll be teaching 25 students(!) very soon!

Yes, piano lessons are keeping me very busy. Even though I "only" teach piano for two-and-a-half hours a day, Mondays through Thursdays, one-and-a-half hours on Fridays, and a half-hour on Saturdays, I am totally wiped out when I finish teaching! It's definitely a tiring endeavour as I have to be on-my-game 100% of the time! Yesterday when I was so utterly exhausted after a long week, I mistook an "e" half note for a "d" half note and incorrectly told my student what to play! Yeah, I had to quickly correct my mistake, and my student probably thought I was nuts! 😆

I've also been trying my best to keep up with my growing children. If I'm not shopping for their food, I'm shopping for their clothes, or shoes, or school supplies, or, or, or...the list goes on and on! Interestingly (and going along with the theme of my growing children), my little family is at the point where Greg and I don't really have to help out very much with homework anymore! We'll still have random projects where our kids will ask us a question, but for the most part (in terms of homework) they're fully self-sufficient! It's a strange feeling, for sure!

Paying our endless bills seems to take up a good chunk of my time, too. Each time I think, Oh, yay! I don't have any bills to pay!, something unexpected will pop up—every time! Ha ha. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love paying bills, but it's just time consuming to make sure Greg and I are current on everything.

I'll never stop being grateful for my first fully real/grownup job in a finance department! I learned so much from my time there! I learned about creating Excel spreadsheets to keep track of bills and purchase orders, and creating budgets, and allocating money to/from cost centers. There's more, but I won't bore you. 😉

I'm also grateful to my parents for helping me see that we should try our very best not to use credit cards unless we can pay them off immediately that next month when the bill is due. Greg and I don't always perfectly follow that advice because we've had legitimate emergencies in the past where there was truly no other option other than to charge our credit card. But we always try our very best to get our credit card balances back to zero as soon as humanly possible. I don't think we've ever carried a credit card balance longer than six or seven months (at the very most), most are paid off the month they're due, or within two months.

But I digress...

I've posted fairly frequently on Instagram this summer, but it's a pretty tiny snapshot of my life compared to everything that goes on. Yes, Instagram is still one of my happiest of happy places ever! I absolutely love Instagram! I'm sooo grateful for the connections I've made there, and for the beautiful pictures I get to see. I get inspired by my Instagram peeps every single day! 😁

I've also been able to workout a lot more lately than I have in the past year! Yayayayayayayay! Fankle still gives me painful grief, but I'm continually working through it. I'm progressing ever-so-slowly every day, and that's what matters!

I'm so excited because I implemented a new laundry system at my house this past week! I'm seriously jumping for joy at my new inspiration! So, for nearly twenty years (next week!), I've been the laundry queen of the Peterson household. You see, not only do I love serving my little family, I'm also very picky about the way our laundry is done. I won't settle for anything less than very clean, great smelling, nicely folded clothes! Yet my desires for a well-dressed family has taken a huge toll on my free time—i.e., no time for blogging! 😢 I've spent quite a bit of time each week doing laundry.

With the addition of so many new piano students—and still trying to keep up with everything a mother and wife needs/wants to do, I was feeling the time crunch worse than I have in years! And yet our family totally needs the income I receive from teaching piano lessons—it's truly not an option for me to quit...unless we want to downsize and move again, which will not happen! We are here to stay! (Unless something randomly "hits" us out of the blue...)

Thus, I decided to stop my laundry insanity and quit being such a sweet laundry lady for my family. The good news is, I have zero guilt about it, so I know it's the right thing to do! Ha ha. My husband and children aren't thrilled with my new system, but they know they totally hit the jackpot with me doing their laundry for 19+ years, so they didn't complain when I gave up my crown! 👑 Hahaha. Greg helped out with our family's laundry many times over the years, but my persnickety-ness mainly kept him away (I don't think he minded!)...until now! 😆

I bought a few extra square laundry baskets from Walmart to make this system work. I wrote my family members' names on 4x6 blank note cards and taped them with strong packing tape on the laundry baskets—under the handle areas.

Each of my family members now have two big laundry baskets—one for whites and one for lights/darks. I've situated the laundry baskets on and under my laundry table in the basement for easy access.

I still separate and wash all of my family's laundry because I know the best settings to use on our washer and dryer—plus, we need to wash/dry full loads to save energy.

Once our laundry is dry, I separate it into each of my family member's baskets. If I easily see two socks that match, I'll pair them up, but otherwise, I try to divide/separate our clean laundry as quickly as I can into the appropriate baskets!

Obviously, I fold my own laundry and all the household linens, and put them away. But for the rest of my little family, they're on their own!

I can't describe how liberating(!) it is to not have to worry about folding all of my family's laundry anymore! I've cut my laundry time significantly! Yay yay! Happy day!

I've told my family it's their choice what they choose to do with their laundry. I make sure everyone's clothes are clean (As long as their clothes are in the hamper they'll get cleaned; if they're on the floor, they'll stay dirty until they're put in the hamper!), but they know they have to put everything away themselves.

It's been interesting to see who decides to fold their laundry and put it away, vs. who likes to keep their laundry in a basket and hastily hunt through it in the morning—or at night when they're ready to take a shower! Ha ha. I just laugh to myself and joyously think, "It's not my problem! I've done my job so I can rest easy!"

Just as a reminder, I very happily chose to fold and put away my family's laundry for all those years—no one forced me to do it. I'm sure I could have implemented a less-time-consuming system years ago, but I chose not to. I'm also very happy with my decision to quit providing that laundry folding/putting-away service!

Lastly, I've been listening to and watching so many great talks, speeches, articles, and podcasts while working around my house, and I shared them on Pinterest! So if you want to check out the amazing speakers and uplifting subjects I've enjoyed, check out my Pinterest page! *And please remember that I don't receive any sort of kickback or payment from you visiting my page—I'm not sending you there for any reason other than I want to share all of the goodness I've found! #fulldisclosure! 😀 I spent quite a bit of time pinning today because I felt all of it was soooo important! Thus, it would make me super duper really happy if someone out there benefited from my sharing! 😁

With that, I must end my blogging for today. I hope all of you readers are enjoying this glorious weekend! Now, go hug your loved ones and tell them how much you love them, and how important they are to you!

P.S. I'm totally praying for Houston. I have been utterly shocked at the devastation people are enduring there. I can't even imagine how deeply their hearts are hurting! 💔 My heart so goes out to all of them! 💖 That said, I absolutely love what my church and its members are doing to help out—we truly love serving and helping our brothers and sisters! 💛

"UPDATE: Church Encourages People to ‘Just Serve’ Hurricane Harvey Victims

First Presidency offers organized ways to volunteer in relief efforts"

"7 Ways You Can Help with Hurricane Harvey Relief"

Hello, Your Dustiness!

One of my regular household jobs I had as a little girl was dusting. Even though I was given either a dust cloth or a feather duster to get the job done, I dreaded dusting on Saturdays. I detested both dust catchers because I found them both incredibly, well, dusty!

Even now, I can vividly remember moving all of my family's trinkets and picture frames off our many shelves, tabletops, piano lids, speakers, etc., trying my best to encapsulate the dusty dust. Yet no matter how hard I tried, there was inevitably swarming dust where I had just cleaned. To me, Saturdays were a never-ending, sneezefest! Eww, gross!!

Thus, as a happily married woman, I determined I would never use a dust-spreading feather duster or dust cloth. Instead, I used a hand-held vacuum attachment with soft bristles on the end (do you know what I mean?) to rid our residence of dust mites and skin cells. :)

My vacuum version of dusting worked very well until 2013, for that's when my handsome husband began working from home. It became apparent that I couldn't just vacuum whenever I saw or felt the need. I had to ask my eternally-on-a-conference-call husband, "Do you have a conference call starting soon, or can I vacuum?"

Greg tried his best to accommodate me, but I finally realized that my vacuuming-at-my-leisure days were toast! Thus, when I actually found a moment to vacuum during Greg's rare non-conference-call work time, I used my noisy time wisely and vacuumed our floors. The only problem was, during Greg's quiet work time, I rarely got to the dusting (vacuum style), so it was put on the back burner until I could find time to do it...which usually took months to get around to.

Yes, our house became quite the dust hatchery. I was always slightly embarrassed when people came over and saw our layer of skin cells everywhere! Eww, that sounds so disgusting! Thankfully, it wasn't all that bad if I turned off the lights! Ha ha. Who knows, maybe no one ever saw our dustiness? Oh, who am I kidding?! Of course they saw it! :)

Anyway, a few weeks ago I decided I had had it(!) with our dusty palace. I thought, "There has to be a better answer! I've got to get rid of this dust in a quieter way, but I refuse to use a dust-enhancing feather duster or dust cloth!"

I suddenly remembered when we lived in Colorado that I went through a Swiffer Hand Duster phase—their ad campaigns were pretty convincing! But I also remember feeling less-than-satisfied at their results because I couldn't apply enough pressure with their floppy duster, and the dust seemed to linger—even though there was much less dust than before. That said, I felt desperate to clean our dusty palace, so I decided to see if there were any new quiet dusters on the market.

As I walked down Walmart's cleaning aisle, I happened upon the dust-cleaning section. I read all the boxes carefully to help me choose. I suddenly realized there was a store version of disposable floor dusters that could work as hand dusters too! Yippee! Feeling optimistic, I bought a large box! *Please don't think me a fool for not discovering this dusting tip earlier, for I was perfectly happy with my vacuum-dusting! :) (And yes, I shop at Walmart because there are certain gluten-free brands only Walmart carries for the price we can afford—it's one of the four stores I frequent.)

I was a bit skeptical at first, but when I tried hand dusting the first time with the disposable floor duster cloth, I was amazed at its effectiveness! Not only did it remove the dusty-dust, it held it under lock and key! I was thrilled to internalize that the dusty memories of my youth would no longer haunt me! Yes, I would finally be free of PTDD, i.e., post traumatic dust disorder! Ha ha. I also realized I didn't need a large dust cloth for my chores, so I spent quite a bit of time cutting each cloth into fourths—which makes them last even longer! Yay for inexpensive cleaning!

Don't laugh, but I literally danced from room to room (squealing now and then), dusting every dusty item in sight! Okay, I didn't get to everything because I ran out of time, but I've been dusting regularly and quietly catching up for the months of dusting I missed out on.

It's practically nonsensical, the tremendous joy those little disposable dusters have brought me! My heart is so light knowing I can dust any old time I desire without interrupting Greg's conference calls, and the dust won't fluff all over my house! Gone are my sneezing days of yore, and the PTDD that accompanied my dust-shifting attempts! (You know, because back-in-the-day, I really only moved the dust around from one shelf to another!)

I definitely classify this happy little box under "Momsanity"! :)

So, thank you, Walmart (I can't believe I just wrote that!), for your lovely, sane-inducing disposable dry sweeping refills (I had to include the proper name)! You have cured this previously traumatized dust queen of her PTDD! I truly and highly recommend these happy cloths to anyone wishing to have a dust-free palace of their own!

P.S. I'm not being compensated in any way for my write-up of these happy little disposable dust cloths. Yes I have Google Ad Sense on my blog, but again, I've only "made" $1.54 for my blogging efforts! (It only shows up in my Ad Sense accounts—I haven't actually been paid yet.) I just had to clarify that for my own satisfaction so you wouldn't think this was some kind of advertisement. Thanks for reading! :)

P.P.S. I categorized this post under "decluttering" because these dust cloths have most definitely helped me declutter the dust in my home! :)

How Safe is Your Food? How Clean is Your Kitchen?

Tonight I went on a Google Quest (I coined that phrase! As far as I can Google, no one else has said it previously! Yeah yeah!) because I wondered if my chrome shelving unit in my kitchen was safe for storing dry, canned, or packaged foods.

You see, my lovely 70s kitchen doesn't have enough cabinets to store all of my dishes, small appliances and food. Plus, we don't currently have the funds to redo our entire kitchen, so I lined one of my kitchen walls with two chrome shelving units. One is wide, one is very skinny! They're your basic Target-brand chrome shelves (I totally love them!), but they aren't NSF-certified. Thus, I wondered if there is a safety issue in storing my family's food on them??

These are not my shelves, this is a Target photo. My shelves are jam-packed with a lot of food and a few miscellaneous kitchen items. :)

As you might guess, I'm a little nervous when it comes to food safety. I'm already very concerned about avoiding gluten cross-contact, so I didn't want to add to my family's food problems with metal-shelving-contamination too! Ha ha. Thankfully, when I did umpteen Google searches of chrome-shelving-safety, I couldn't find anything on the dangers of using non-NSF-certified chrome shelving units. Yay for that good news! :)

After researching, I've come to the conclusion that it's okay to store dry/canned/packaged goods on metal shelving units as long as they aren't rusted or corroding. I'm guessing it's okay to make your own shelving units out of wood, as well. By the way, be sure not to store any chemicals on your food shelves or anywhere near your food. (*Please don't sue me for my statement if something goes wrong with your food storage—I'm not an expert. If someone else knows of information about this topic, please share.)

All of that said, I will state that I absolutely feel it's best to use NSF-certified shelves if you can. I was just curious about the safety of my chrome shelves that didn't have the nifty NSF stamp on them—did I need to buy new NSF-certified ones? I'm really happy I don't have to buy new shelves, or transfer all of our stuff onto said new shelves! Whew!

While perusing many documents I found on food storage safety, I came across a gem of a jewel! This 97-page PDF, "food PROTECTION TRAINING MANUAL", is authored by New York City's Department of Mental Health and Hygeine. Here's its opening paragraph,

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has the jurisdiction to regulate all matters affecting health in the city and to perform all those functions and operations that relate to the health of the people of the city.

I read most of the manual (I couldn't help myself, I wanted to know more about food safety!), but skimmed some parts of it. Granted, this manual is for commercial/public food establishments, but the PDF shares great tips for keeping all kitchens and food storage areas clean and free of unwanted problems—which ultimately leads to safe food and healthy people. Thus, I had to share—and I highly recommend reading it! :)

I think every kitchen (and food storage area) in America should be as clean and safe as any public food establishment in New York City—ready to be inspected by employees of The Inspector General's office at any moment! Ha ha. But really, if we expect restaurants, cafes, diners, food trucks, grocery stores, etc., to be so clean and safe, why would we expect anything less from our own homes?! I mean, most Americans spend more time eating at home than anywhere else! Well, maybe not everyone. I'm assuming a lot of people eat-out for most of their meals. Because of my children's celiac disease, my family eats 99% of our meals at home—or when we do eat away from home, our food is from our kitchen.

Full disclosure? When I wrote that previous paragraph, I was totally thinking of myself. Yes, my kitchen has been known to hold dirty dishes for a few days in a row. Don't get me wrong, I'm so completely safe when it comes to food preparation (and my dishes are always perfectly clean when preparing food), but kitchen cleanup is a different story. (See my post "Downton Adrie" for illumination.)

I can pinpoint the cause of my kitchen-cleanup habit back to when I was working through hypothyroidism after my daughter was born. I was simply too exhausted to finish the dishes after making dinner. I would get around to doing the dishes when I finally found the energy. Throw in the fact that, at one point, my husband and I had three children ages four and under, and we moved 11 times in 16 years of marriage, and you have neglected dishes in our kitchen. And it became a habit.

Don't blame my husband for our dirty dishes problem, either. For he was busy working 10-14 hour days and getting his Master's degree (he almost finished), and then his MBA (he graduated)! He did the dishes whenever he could. Yes, we were busy and worn out!

These days, our kitchen is much improved! :) It's clean more often than not. Yay us! But, would it be ready at a moment's notice if The Inspector General knocked on our door? Not always. Thus, I'm going to make a concerted effort to clean our kitchen after every meal. I refuse to have OCD tendencies about it because I know there are times when life happens and the dishes will simply need to remain dirty for a while, but I will do better. :)

Lastly, here's another great article on food safety "Safe Food Handling Fact Sheets" by the United States Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service. It has numerous PDFs that will pretty much answer any question you might have about food safety.

The good news is, I'll continue being thrilled with my space-saving happy-shiny Target shelves! I'm relieved knowing I'll sleep soundly tonight, for I won't worry one little bit about my family's food safety! :)

Downton Adrie

Cleaning. You won't find that word and I hand in hand very often. Don't get me wrong, I'm an excellent cleaner when I want to be, but is cleaning in my nature? Is cleaning a part of my innate (defined as: inborn; natural) being? No, it's not. I'm a very clean person—hygiene and clean-clothing wise, but do I have the desire to endlessly clean things (houses, garages, basements, cars, etc.) like some people do? No, I don't.

For me to want to clean my home, I either need to be bothered by the mess, or have people coming over for a visit. Yes, people are a great and positive motivator for me! I'm the complete opposite of Scrooge! ;) All I would need to do is have a party once a week and my home would be spic'n'span clean all the time! Yeah YEAH! :)

I really do try to be and stay organized—and I'm so much better at this than I used to be, but again, is the continual and incessant act of cleaning in my nature? Nope, it's totally not!

I have to make a conscious effort every day to focus on what needs to be cleaned/organized, otherwise I'm perfectly happy to just let those messes lie. And no, I most definitely don't have ADD or ADHD. I simply have zero desire to be structured, regulated, scheduled, etc. Cleaning checklists are complete torture to me!

I don't wake up thinking of my endless list of things to be done. In fact, a list like that doesn't even exist in my world! Ha ha. Instead, I wake up thinking of all the fun I'm going to have that day!!! I honestly have a rough time pulling myself out of the Adrie World happy clouds and getting busy.

That said, after a little bit of internal convincing, I can absolutely do everything that needs to be done—and I'm very successful at cleaning/organizing when I put my mind to it, but again, it's simply not a desire of mine.

If I had my way, I'd have a housekeeper and a cook! Hey, while we're at it, I'll take a yard care company, chauffeur, and personal assistant, too! Ha ha.

Thus, I was so happy to read this article, The Psychology Behind Messy Rooms: Why The Most Creative People Flourish In Clutter, from Elite Daily:

"Consider this from Albert Einstein, 'If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, then what are we to think of an empty desk?' 

"Einstein wasn't alone. Mark Twain, too, had a cluttered desk. Perhaps even more cluttered than that of Albert Einstein. Mark Twain was one of the most imaginative minds of his generation."

I LOVE that article because it pretty much explains my entire life! Just ask my parents and siblings how clean/organized my room was back in the day. To give you an idea of their answers, my maternal (step) grandfather nicknamed me Missy Messy! You could also ask my darling little family if our home is always perfectly clean. I'll give you a hint: it's not!

*While writing this post, I came across two additional great articles that made me feel so much better about my situation—I highly recommend reading all three articles I've shared in this post!

• NY Post: Modern Moms Looking for Perfection in All the Wrong Places

"We want to be better than our parents; we want to give our kids more than we were given. There’s an instinct in every parent (we hope) to try to give our kids everything. 

"But 'everything' doesn't have to be living up to some picture-ready ideal you saw on the Web. 

"You’re not going to be Gwyneth Paltrow, creating kid-friendly meals out of quinoa and kale. 

"Actually, Gwyneth Paltrow wouldn’t be Gwyneth Paltrow without all the behind-the-scenes cooks, drivers, personal assistants, photographers and editors. 

"And real perfection happens when you aren't looking."

Amen to those words—especially the paragraph about Gwyneth, for it is so true! I know that article isn't so much about cleaning, but I believe perfectionistic tendencies in cleanliness is also a problem for modern moms. We've got to make every minute count with our families and friends, and not be overly concerned with our homes looking like a spread in Architectural Digest! Oh, AD is so lovely—I love how its photos soothe my soul! *For illustration purposes, please check out AD's stunning slideshow of Villa Cetinale!

• Today.com: Dirty Secrets: 11 Ways Having a Messy House is Normal When You Have Kids (This article is pretty darn funny!)

"We’re all in the same boat. I won’t look in your dining room if you don’t look in mine."—I love those words! :)

Granted, my home is so much cleaner than when my children were younger. Although, now it seems my family accumulates messes of the clothing/shoes/homework/technology/bathroom accessories sprawled-all-over variety, instead of the toy clutter and sticky little-kid messes of our past. I'm grateful Greg and I are on the other end of the messy spectrum.

When all is said and done, the best motivation I've found for me to want to clean and organize my home is—don't laugh—Downton Abbey! For some reason, whenever I watch Downton, I have an intense desire to make my home beautiful and immaculate—it's the strangest thing! Thus, I pretend my life is Downton Adrie! I know, I'm so silly! I also know that technically speaking, I should probably call it Adrie Abbey, as an abbey is a building, not Downton—which is a town name. But I like the way Downton Adrie sounds, so I'm keeping it. :)

To really let you into my psyche, let me share this tidbit: After watching Downton Abbey, sometimes I'll pretend I'm the housekeeper for my home (like Mrs. Hughes), and I've got to make sure everything is neat and tidy before the Lord and Lady and their guests return! Other times, I'll pretend I'm the Lady of our house (like Lady Mary) and I expect everything to be lovely and pristine for when our other friends of the nobility come to stay! Ha ha. Either way, creating Downton Adrie has totally helped me in my clean-home pursuits!

This is the first time I've straightened my hair since 2011! But don't get used to it, I'm not interested in taking 40-45 minutes to straighten my hair every day.

Seriously, don't laugh at me!! Okay, you can chuckle, but not in the mean way, okay?! ;)

In matters of homemaking, I always refer back to one of my favorite teaching moments of our Savior, found in Luke 10:38-42:

38 ¶Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. 

39 And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. 

40 But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. 

41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: 

42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

I completely understand that His words aren't a free pass to guilt-free messiness, as we've been told time and again in the scriptures to keep our homes organized and treat them like a temple, as it says in D&C 88:119 Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God... Yet, our perfect Savior's lovely words (in both of those scriptures) give me permission to continue spending my time researching spiritual things—without feeling guilty that my house isn't immaculate every minute of every day, and that makes me very happy. :)

*Here are links to some of my favorite spiritual-knowledge resources:
Holy Scriptures
Ensign articles
General Conference talks
Mormon Channel programs
BYU Devotionals and Forums
BYU Idaho Devotionals and Speeches
CES Devotionals
Women's Conference talks
BYU Education Week
LDS books

In the end, my spirit, knowledge, wisdom, memories, experiences, and spirituality are the the only things I can take with me when I leave this earth. Thus, I'm trying my best every day to grow spiritually and increase my knowledge and wisdom of everything. Even though I know it's impossible to know everything, I so love trying! And thanks to our amazing access of ever-improving technology, I'll continue to learn spiritually while simultaneously doing my best to make my home a happy, healthy, peaceful place on earth where my family loves to be.

P.S. Feel free to use my Downton Adrie idea: just put Downton before your name, or anyone else's name that needs motivation to clean their house! It works wonders! Ha ha.

Updated 11/15/18