Hi everyone, Mod R here.
All the Things Ilona Andrews are still happening in the background, soon to be unveiled. Several of you wanted to know if we’ll get the reveal for the Guess the World post and we are *so*, so close you could smell the house fire…oh, oops, is that too much of a hint?
Late November and December is a very full time at Casa R, between birthdays, anniversaries and upcoming holidays. In preparation, I’ve embarked on a process of house cleaning and organising.
Are you ready for this?
According to the internet “It takes around 1.5 hours to clean a one bedroom home with one bathroom.” Aaahahahahahahahahaha. ::wipes tears::. My flabber is GASTED.
It doesn’t help that I’m going through a hardcore insomnia episode- only 3 sleeps till Christmas seems very literal at the moment- but I’ve been cleaning and organising for a whole entire week!
Please tell me I’m not the only one who moves in slo-mo.
Once I finish (please, it must end sometime ????), I will have to decorate, and mid-November is such a weird time for it.
Are you Team Fall/Spooky November?
Or Team Winter Holidays November?
If it’s not too early for Winter Holidays, it means I also need to go shopping because I donated all my winter decorations in a fit of KonMari organising. Turns out my executive dysfunction cannot be trusted on what does and doesn’t spark joy for hours on end. I don’t even know the trends, if anyone has inspiration pictures or themes, show and tell in the comments please!
Speaking of house cleaning, with the Sweep of the Heart release coming, a reminder that any official giveaways will only be announced and held here on the Ilona Andrews website. Neither Ilona, Gordon, nor myself (Mod R) will use social media messaging to contact the fans or to solicit money. No money will ever exchange hands for a giveaway. Please be vigilant of email farms who steal/ sell your email and data, even if they use the Ilona Andrews name.
Who cares about trends? Go see what you really like. I’ve got holiday decorations that my Mother and Grandmother used. I like them and put them out each year. You do have to have to plan for storage for them between holidays.
And I have had professional house cleaners that only take 1.5 house cleaners that ouly take 1.5 hours to clean a house. You usually have to go back and clean after them.
Way back when, as a working mom of children with busy schedules, I decided life was too short to spend my very limited free time cleaning the house. We hired a cleaning service and considered the money well spent. My kiddos knew the service was there to CLEAN, not to pick up after them – if there were things on the floor in their bedrooms, the cleaners didn’t go in.
Now I’m retired and have creaky knees as well as a Labrador that sheds his weight in hair annually. I still think the money is well spent, and I still pick up before the cleaners come. As for that ridiculous internet estimate, if the grandkids have been here, just the picking up can take more than 1.5 hours!
Team nothing November, because I try to get all of my shopping/crafting done by Thanksgiving so I can get a tree and decorate on Black friday and then just bask in the peace of the season rather than stress over getting everything done on time. Now, granted, I’ve never actually finished everything by Thanksgiving, but I do get a lot of stuff out of the way 🙂
Also team nothing November, because December marks the start of my slow season. I can start getting things done then (other than regularly scheduled items and emergencies).
I don’t do trends. Battery operated “candles” with light sensors go in each window, so they turn on and off automatically. That will probably be it for this year, because the rescue pup is not quite out of the inappropriate chewing item stage yet, and the family Christmas will be celebrated elsewhere. While I normally enjoy having people over, this year I can use the downtime.
check out paperbag snowflakes! super pretty and easy to do, and simple to store for next year! I saw it on thekwendyhome on insta and fell in love!!!
Try looking at Epbot.com. She and her husband are DIY who also post pictures of Orlando Festival of Trees. Her current project involves what she called a Hobbit tree.
I can’t get through a closet in 90mins. Don’t get me started on the boy’s bathroom. Wait, I should. I think things are approaching the singularity in there.
I lost the holiday spirit when the kids moved out. Haven’t decorated in years and honestly don’t miss something I can’t share with them. So I tend to theme my house around nature and change things up a few times a year during deep cleaning ( which takes me several hours per room… at least.) My eyebrows introduced themselves to my hairline when I saw the 1.5 hour description. Then laughed at the flabber my gasted description! Thank you for that!
My girls are both in their 40s now, but when they were kids and sharing a bedroom at the place we lived the longest, we would do what I called dynamiting their room. Everything except the furniture went out into the hallway and then we vacuumed and (if they wanted) moved furniture. Then I sat down in the hallway with two different-colored trash bags.
I would pick something up and ask whose it was. Then I would ask of the owner, “Keep, trash, or donate?” Keep was put away wherever it belonged, trash went in one bag and donate into the other.
Delivered pizza was frequently involved at some point.
It worked, and was a lot more fun than any other method I ever came up with.
I’m a “winter holiday as soon as it’s cold” person. Tree is up (but only a small one in a flower pot as I have a new kitten), candles are on timers, fairy lights are lit, and garland is hung. Tree ornaments go on slowly til Christmas.
I would add those diy paper stars but I don’t know if I’ll get to it this year.
When I had to decorate my brother’s place for Christmas in one day, I bought cheap wreaths and greenery, fairy lights, tinsel, and red bows. No tree. It still looked festive.
danslelakehouse recently posted various options for Christmas tree themes if you want to check those out.
On the insomnia front: hard crossword puzzles or sudoku work for me. I have to exhaust my brain when it won’t let me sleep.
Loved the “my flabber has been gasted” so much!
I’m team… both… my autumn decor comes out with my spooky season decor and then stays out after Oct 31st, but Winter Holiday stuff starts been put out slowly up through Thanksgiving and then boom! All autumnal stuff goes away and Walkin’ In a Winter Wonderland becomes the theme of my house.
Read some blogs on decluttering, and started cleaning my office. Found 2003 receipt from Circuit City from 2 moves ago. Took it (and more) with me from California to New Jersey to Colorado because I was too lazy to clean. Fantastic!
We have simplified holidays over the years since the kiddos are officially adulting. We have our “Winter Family Dinner” and that’s it. An evening of food and games. We do a small gift swap, with a $50 limit. Everyone only has to buy one gift for the dinner. That’s all. No pressure and no one goes broke. We throw a lot at birthdays I will admit. but I don’t hate holiday season anymore. I mostly ignore it.
Deep breath.
Simple is better, because people matter more. So let the cleaning happen. And then be purposeful as you find what to decorate with. I am fond of the Colonial Virginia Christmas look (link below), because it is easy to implement. The rule of thumb is one candle in each front window, and one wreath on the door. It makes decorating more about creating a space to invite than distracting with a spectacle.
A fun option, if you think you can get away with it, is miniature rosemary bushes. You can get small starter plants and set them as small Christmas trees around the house. The fragrant aroma creates a good seasonal feel, and the plants are potted so they won’t die and shed in a few weeks.
In keeping with that Colonial theme (now you’ve got me going…), You could always make a couple kissing balls. Before everyone hung fake mistletoe, there were kissing balls. You take an orange, poke it all around, and then insert a whole clove in each hole. Run a needle through the top, threaded with ribbon, and hang it high using the ribbon. The rosemary, orange, and clove scent is distinctive and specific to that Christmas season. And yes, if you stand under the ball, you have to kiss. 😉
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/da/e3/0c/dae30c2ce89ea399171aa4d0406610c8.jpg
Oh, the orange studded with cloves is called a pomander in England, I had never heard of its mistletoey function before! Thank you 🙂
I wish you well in cleaning, organizing, and decorating.
I am currently trying to clean and organize our own barns and home, while helping 2 children and their families clean, renovate, and move their homes.
One daughter with her husband and 3 children moved into our guest house, but dang they have a lot of junk. Every box is a miscellaneous box and half the stuff in each box is flat out junk. I am spending 3 hours Wednesdays helping them de-clutter. I refuse to move that mess again.
A son who ran 3 medical laboratories was suddenly out of work when the owner of the lab retired, tried to give the labs to son, and was ousted by a group of nurses who had secretly opened up a lab and taken the clients while paperwork was being transferred. That son, with his wife and baby, are renovating their home in Palmdale to rent out while they put stuff into storage, move in with us while Aaron finds a job in another state, and then move.
We will probably all move, and rent out these two houses with 4 barns at the same time.
But in the meantime, holidays.
I always feel like cleaning goes much faster when I listen to an audio book or podcast but still have to set aside a full day to do it properly.
Have you come across Diane Yannick’s review of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up on goodreads? You should look it up just for the giggles haha.
Hope you are able to ditch the insomnia and go back resting well.
Oct 1 to Halloween is fall and spooky decorations. Halloween to Thanksgiving is fall/Thanksgiving decorations. Christmas is allowed from Santa’s arrival in the Thanksgiving parade (or First Sunday of Advent if that ever occurs before Thanksgiving) until Jan 6 (Feast of the Epiphany). People are allowed to practice carols earlier but no Christmas music may be played in stores, etc earlier than Thanksgiving under pain of eliciting “bah humbug”.
Christmas is the only one really decorated for in my family and we (immediate family) have fallen away from that since (as the smallest and furthest away from the cluster) we were always the ones traveling.
Thank you, mod R for the post. Good luck with house cleaning.
My canine assistant, Titan, is very assisting. If he thinks it’s a keeper, he removes from trash can and carefully buries under my Rose of Sharon bush in front yard. Sigh lunatic knucklehead pup.
Have a great holiday season.
Bitte Inkeeper auf Deutsch übersetzen.
Ich lese eure Bücher so gerne.
Danke.
Hallo Elisabeth
Die ersten drei Bücher können Sie auf Deutsch lesen https://www.amazon.de/s?k=ilona+andrews+dina&i=stripbooks&crid=TWNNLBG2HWVN&sprefix=Dina+Ilona%2Cstripbooks%2C57&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_10
Die Autoren kontrollieren die Buchübersetzungen nicht und können nichts dagegen tun. Wenn Sie möchten dass die restlichen Bücher übersetzt werden, wenden Sie sich bitte an den deutschen Verlag.