Wednesday 28 March 2012

Autism Awareness Auction! April is Autism Awareness Month!

I want to start this post by explaining why I chose to take part in this auction which is donating it's proceeds to The Autism Society of America.  I have been a long time facebook friend of Kat's Kreations.  Recently the boy of her 17 month old boy/girl twins was diagnosed with severe autism.  Her girl twin will be formally assessed on April 18th.   Kat made the decision to put together an auction in which 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Autism Society of America.   As soon as I saw this, I wanted to help. I quickly began planning what I could donate to the auction.

Now as many of you know, I am a Canadian business, so you may be wondering "What does the Autism Society of America do to benefit Canadians who are affected by autism?"  I was wondering the same thing, so I decided to contact the Autism Society of America. While the Autism Society of America's main goal is to be advocates and help provide services for individuals living within the autism spectrum in the United States, people from other countries also choose to become members of the Autism Society.  The Autism Society of America is a great source of the latest information on research about autism and current issues that affect people living within the autism spectrum.   They send out a quarterly publication to members called the Autism Advocate.  The quarterly magazine offers a diverse collection of the latest issues in autism (e.g., education, environmental health, therapies/interventions, adult issues, caregiving, etc.), Autism Society news, personal perspectives of families and individuals living with autism, and tips from parents and professionals.  A gift of $40 to the Autism Society of America gets you a membership which gives you benefits including access to a community that provides comfort and essential information to families living with autism, and their quarterly publication, Autism Advocate.

This auction will open April 1st and end April 22nd.  This is just in time to kick off Autism Awareness month.  Please, if you can't bid or donate, share this auction for autism awareness!  Do what you can to help.  You will be helping a great cause!

Wednesday 14 March 2012

I Believe I Can Fly!

Before I had kids I used to clean my house like a crazy person every Thursday.  I would vacuum under every piece of furniture, including the fridge and stove, steam mop, and thoroughly scrub everything in the bathroom.  Now that I have 2 kids I've been... well.... busy.  Too busy to spend a whole day cleaning, or move furniture when I vacuum.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and along with that comes the all or nothing attitude.  Why vacuum if I can't even do it properly?  I started slacking big time and got into a horrible cycle with my dishes.  I would let them pile up because I just didn't feel like doing them.  Then I'd have to do them once we made every plate we owned dirty and no pots or pans left to cook with.  I would spend an hour just doing dishes.  By the time I was done, I didn't want to wash another dish anytime soon, so the same thing would happen again.  It really was vicious.  And of course I felt that if the dishes weren't done I shouldn't clean anything else because you have to do the dishes first.  It made me feel disgusted with my house, and in turn, myself.  It was embarrassing if someone would stop by unannounced.  I didn't want anyone to know my dirty little secret.

I was doing some random googling one day, and I ran across something called flylady.net.  Someone had commented on an article (I don't even know which article or what it was about) that the only way to clean in her books was the flylady way.  Now these weren't the exact words, I didn't take note of them at the time because I didn't realize that their comment would be the start of a major life change for me.

It all starts with something as simple as shining your sink.  Yup.  That's it.  The first baby step is to shine your sink.  It makes you feel pretty good about yourself to have a shiny sink.  It inspires you to push farther.  So I did.  Now, after a week of keeping my sink shiny, I also get dressed every morning and even put shoes on.  It's funny how wearing shoes can keep you focused.

Shiny sink
 I decided that keeping my sink shiny and clean for a whole week deserves a special treat.  My sink was looking so great that it made my soap dispenser pump look terrible.  So I turned to Pinterest.  I found this great tutorial to make your own mason jar soap dispenser.

New soap dispenser!

Much more "me" than the plastic pump bottle that the soap came in.

I know this is just the beginning.  My house is looking better and better every day thanks to Flylady's simple baby steps and daily routines.   If you are feeling overwhelmed with house cleaning and you are living in CHAOS(can't have anyone over syndrome,) you should definitely check it out.