Do This: You'll Feel Better

I've been brain-storming a series I can work into this blog.  What I've come up with is sort of a self-help section.  I find that there are certain things I do that make me feel better.  Usually they involve cleaning, cooking or some type of domestic chore, and so I'm going to work them into a weekly segment titled "Do This: You'll Feel Better."  Maybe, just maybe, I can inspire you to do them, too.

Here's what kind of suggestions you won't find here:
-  Take a long hot bubble bath with candles, while reading a book and listening to Michael Buble'.  
Let's be real!  I'm a mom with four kids and a husband.  Every best intention that could ever go into taking a long bubble bath is ruined by them needing just "one little thing."  Child bangs on the door, "Dad said not to bother you, but I just really need to know where my green sock is, because I want to wear it in three weeks and I can only find one, and not the other, and if I don't find it tonight we have to go to the mall and find green socks, because I'll just die if I can't have them on the day I want them.  Dad never knows where my stuff is.  Mom.  Are you in there, mom?  I heard a splash.  MOM? Dad, I think mom is drowning!  I'm going to get the key and unlock the door."
Bath Over...I'll revisit this idea in 18 years!  (side note:  My husband is not incompetent.  My children are.  End of story.)  

-  Book an appointment at a salon and have your hair & nails done, and get a massage
Oh my, I wish I could say that this is what you should do.  I would love to do this!  I, on occasion, have had a pedicure.  I get my hair done (like three times a year).  I've had three professional massages my entire life.  But, I can not imagine having them all done in the same day.  Ain't no every-day-mom got the time, or money, for that.  I would bemoan the money I'm spending on this, as it really should go to (insert child's name) new shoes/winter coat/boots/sports uniform, etc., etc.  One day, I will post this. You know, when our budget is limitless, and my friends are in the same boat.  I don't see that changing any time soon, and I don't want different friends.   

Okay, so here's the one big thing I did this week that made me feel better, and it will make you feel better, too.  I cleaned my refrigerator.  That's it.  Maybe this isn't a problem for you.  And, bless you if it isn't - but I probably don't know you, relate to you, or like you.  Keeping the fridge spotless is usually last on my weekly to-do list.  But, I was looking at the crusted milk on the top shelf, and the crumbs settling in comfortably at the bottom of the fridge, and all the other stuff in the middle, and I just couldn't take one more day of living in this type of squalor.  So, right before I needed to start dinner (I like projects, but I may not be good at the timing of these projects) I started pulling everything off the shelves, tossing things that I didn't even know we still had, and wiped, scrubbed and re-arranged everything neatly back in.  A half hour or more past when I probably should have started dinner I had a neat, clean and fresh smelling fridge.  So, pick a day, or make this a project over several days (one shelf at a time), and clean out your fridge.  Don't forget the shelves in the door.  It's amazing what ranch dressing does to that area, and you don't even realize it.  Replace the opened containers of baking soda that you put in there two years ago, because you read somewhere that you were supposed to do that.  Do it all.  I promise, you'll feel better.  I kind of like opening my fridge now and peaking in.  And, just as all well-intended people do, I promise myself that it will never get that bad again.

Clean fridges make me feel better...I promise you will feel better, too.  Who cares if dinner is a little late that night.  Make them stare into the fridge until they praise you for your efforts before you feed them.  It's character building....