New Idea: do 10 things you don't want to do

Today I am going to try something new. I will try to do 10 things I don't want to do in order to do something that I'd like to do. Now 10 things may be a lot, but I'm thinking that some of them could be small things such as call for a doctor's appointment. The main thing that I don't want to do has to do with (as usual) paperwork. There is a pile of things "brewing" in the kitchen in a box and I haven't sorted through them yet. I have been dreading doing that. But why? It's only paper! This morning I already accomplished one task, I did a quick-super quick, clean of the refrigerator, tossing out a few almost empty containers. I have already gone to the gym. However, I am still in my gym clothes. So into the shower I go, and then from there, to tackle the paper in the kitchen. After that 8 other tasks? Or should I consider the paper thing 10 because there are more than 10 items. We'll see how ambitious I am.

Back Pain Obstacles

Last night, after carrying in a heavy bag of groceries, I felt sciatic pain hit. At the moment, a mom came to pick up her child, (she had never been in my house before.) The house was in an okay state-but I knew my bed had not been made, also the kitchen was cluttered (but clean). As I struggled to have conversation, the pain became intense and 5 minutes later I was in bed for the night nursing my back. I was thinking of all that had to be done and hoping someone would pick up the slack. Today had already been planned and I knew I was going to have a visit from a different mom and I didn't want to be unprepared. By sheer will I got out of bed this morning at 6:30 and showered, got dressed, picked up my room, went downstairs, made coffee, put dishes away, okay I didn't do laundry, swish and swiped the bathrooms, and a bit later, vacuumed. It was good enough and I could invite my guest inside with confidence and even gave her a tour. No, not perfect, but good enough. She happens to be an expert in decorating, so I had her take a look, and she gave me some fine ideas.

The Real Me

Can you see the real me? I picked that as my title one because it is by the Who and one of my favorite old songs, but also because it applies to my topic of the day. Just this morning, I transferred the contents of my old and fraying pocketbook which is WAY TOO SMALL into a new bag that I purchased last MARCH. That took 9 months and pretty much sums up my personality, and some of my problems. The main reason I never did this before was fear....that I would lose something. You see, my bag is always with me. And I'm not one of those people that changes my purse with my outfit. No, you'll see me with the same bag at Halloween, and the 4th of July. The bag I have been using for the past (2?) years was never meant to be my permanent bag. It was much smaller than my bags in the past and didn't have enough room for my things. If my phone rang I could never, ever find it. It would require removing my wallet, etc. and digging underneath pens, receipts, sometimes making me panic because I thought it was lost. But even though the pocketbook caused me a lot of anxiety, there was so much in it! I didn't want to transfer all that crap to a new bag, but I didn't want to leave out something important. But this morning I couldn't take it anymore. I decided to move the important things and just leave the rest in the old bag. And...it may just stay there forever or until a few years pass and I can just toss everything knowing it's obsolete. Last year I did buy a coupon organizer which was great-but it didn't fit in the bag so sometimes the coupons were organized but not in there. I knew that last time I tried to get by with a smaller bag because I was trying consciously to carry less. Well, that turned out to be a mistake. But I did make myself suffer for a long time. So-there you have the real me in a nutshell-a bit neurotic, fearful, indecisive and able to express it all.

Emotional states and cleaning

For the past few nights I didn't sleep well and had dreams my car was being stolen. I'll have to look up what that means, but anyway, I woke up this morning and my routine was off. After dropping off littlest son at bus, decided to tackle one thing which was my room. I made my bed and put some clothes away. Then I went to the gym. After that I knew I had to pick middle son up early from school for appt. so I couldn't get into doing anything. Because I was worried about him getting braces, it kept me from accomplishing anything. When there is "emotional clutter" then my other clutter does not get taken care of. Now it's Friday evening, and I have to leave this house at 6:30. Between now and then, I'd like to make a dent....vacuum, clear clutter from the main area and swish and swipe the two downstairs bathrooms. I also need to cook dinner. Let's see if I can do that.

Encouraged? Inspried?

In my last post I discussed perfect houses. I visited one last night. I would have been happy to spend the rest of my life living in that house, it was so beautiful. Not only was it beautiful, but it was comfortable and warm. 3 kids lived there, and there were sweet reminders of them (photos, mementos) but absolutely no clutter. Luckily, I had anticipated this and done a mad dash cleaning effort in my own house in order not to feel that I was returning to a dungeon. (note: my house is not a dungeon...I'm exaggerating) But I do have things hanging around the living room which is the first area you see, such as rubber bands, which obviously do not belong there. What can I say, my lovely child went on a rubber band shooting kick a few weeks ago and I'm still digging up the remainders of that. The house I went to was beautifully decorated but not "fussy" at all. It had lovely window treatments, nice colors on the walls, the kids' rooms were cozy. I can get inspired not discouraged, right?
Well, onto another subject, today I went in the basement and threw out 2 bags of stuff, like coats with broken zippers and old sneakers that had absolutely no right to be in the house anymore. I even swept the laundry area floor of the dryer lint!

Talking to Myself

Today is my "day off" but not my day off. It's 12:00 and I've gone to the gym and gone shopping. That's good, but the rest of the day's chores loom in front of me and I have to keep up the self motivation. After I return from the grocery store with the bags, I always sit in the car for a moment, dreading the act of removing the bags from the car, bringing them in and putting everything away. I actually have to say to myself "you can do this!" It seems like such a small thing and such a lack of energy. I have to make a dish for tomorrow night's party, make dinner for tonight (have to start early because I want to finish the chili in the slow cooker) The sunlight is shining today and it makes me see smudges and dust everywhere. I seriously don't know how the average person keeps up. What is the secret of those with the always perfect home? I need to know!

Today's Goal

Strange that the last time I wrote I mentioned the kids rooms. Today my mission is to get into the downstairs kids' rooms and sort them out. I want to remove things from under their beds and vacuum, as well as remove things from the drawers that they don't need.
I also need to rub smudges and fingerprints off all upstairs surfaces. Perhaps I'll update when I do these things. The trouble is I don't really want to do those things on a beautiful fall day like today. But I must.

Motivation? Where art Thous?

Ok-It has been a while since I posted here. The urgency that took hold of me in the summer has been fading a little. I like being back in a work and school routine which in general keeps me calmer and keeps the house more sane. My 3 DS's continue to litter the house with socks and dishes. My new dog litters the house with clumps of fur and dust but she's so cute I don't really mind. My DH does his "jobs" around the house (garbage, recycling, outdoor work) so things are in a routine of sorts. There is the nagging feeling of unfinished rooms which is keeping my kids rooms from being something I can be proud of. Matt needs a decent closet. Jake needs a desk. I can't blame them for the state of their rooms without that. Troy could use a new dresse and everyone needs blinds.

Calm Before the Storm?

Today has been a day of marathon laundry. This is so I won't have any down in the basement in case of flooding. Or if my power goes out, I'll have lots and lots of clean clothes. Amazing how many loads I can do, when it includes towels, sheets, and dirty soccer clothes twice a day. It still takes me an inordinately long time to do things which bothers me. I have been rescuing my living room on a daily basis from a build up of fur dustballs that have entered my house since we got a new doggie. She is very clean when you pet her, but definitely creates a whole other dynamic of vacuum needs. Other than that I have been serving up meals and snacks non stop, and although I've been keeping up with the kitchen it is far from magazine worthy. My motto today is I'll do what I can to keep the rooms as clutter free as possible, in case we have to light candles or move about in the dark. Starting now I will move as fast as possible for the next hour to accomplish this, and then have a cup of tea and start making lasagna for dinner. I hopefully will report back soon on my progress.

mommy martyrs?

I couldn't believe I had this thought, googled it, and apparently the term really exists. Flylady has a saying about "housework blessing your family" and one of her rules is "don't nag." The theory is, that others will follow by your example. If the sink is clean, someone won't put a dirty dish in it, or if the counter and table is clear, someone won't leave stuff out on it after cooking. However, I have boys living in my house. 3 sons and a husband. Often some other friends as well. It's not like when I was growing up with 3 sisters. We instinctively would help our mom. Or if there was a large party, we would each have a task to do. It felt normal and natural to be doing that. I don't know if it comes as easily to sons. If I specifically ask for something to be agreed to by the older 2. The younger one tends to fight me on direct orders feeling no particular need to participate in keeping the house in order. I have always done it, not perfectly, but to the best of my ability. Now that I am focusing more on order and living the "organized life" I find there can be days where I literally do nothing but "clean up" after myself and others. I could seriously stand in the kitchen all day, first cooking, then cleaning, then shopping, then putting away, then doing laundry, then putting it away, then sweeping, then repeating the process for each meal. Those are the days I am so dying to just get out of the house and be working because the house doesn't get like that if no one is in it all day. I go back and forth with that kind of thinking and the kind of self talk where I tell myself to be grateful be grateful that you have the things you have. I am grateful, every day, for the things I have. But can I still complain once in a while, and even philosophize about what is wrong with that way of thinking? That way of thinking can lead to a dull mind. A dull mind where I would have nothing to talk about, because I haven't done anything all day but straighten without really getting anywhere and listen to my own thoughts. I can entertain myself with my own thoughts at times because they are so far reaching and funny. In my mind I've written a thousand books. I have written self help books, non fiction novels on various topics, humorous pieces, children and young adult novels. All in my head. None of these things have ever seen the paper for there is always some excuse-I don't have the perfect laptop, or I'm not good enough. Someone else may have already stolen the idea as it pops into my head. Like my mommy martyr article/book. There's already a website with plenty of info. on that topic. More later

Doing Things You Don't Enjoy

There are many times I feel inadequate. One time I went to a class birthday party for my youngest. I was supposed to bring ice cream. That was easy, all I had to do was purchase it and show up. Someone else had been assigned fruit. She brought 26 beautiful plastic cups of fruit, each one covered in plastic wrap, and served with a decorative toothpick. The lovely fruit salad included cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. Now if I had been assigned fruit I probably would have just cut up the fruit in one big bowl and then served it. But now that I have seen what one mom did, It made me see the possibilities. What am I getting at here? Sometimes when I see what other people do, and what they take the time to do, I feel guilty that I don't do those things.
What should I have done today? I decided I had to do something productive around the house, so I dusted the living room and threw out stuff that didn't belong in there. I don't dust all that much, although it's on the list of flylady tasks, I just never seem to do it-that should be one of my new habits, it really doesn't take that long. I am confounded still by paper and magazines. Last year I didn't get magazines at all and I missed them. Then I subscribed again and now I have too many. DH has too many Sports Illustrated magazines (they come every week) and maybe I should just pack them up and put them in his work bag. What about flyers from the grocery store. I mean what does the normal person do with these things. Just where are they supposed to sit for the week that you might need them? Really, I want to know.

Living LIke an Orgznized Person results week 1

I tried to write this earlier and got some kind of warning that there was an error and it might get deleted. Even "google" gets disorganized once in a while. At least it warned me to save, but I didn't listen. So here I am a few hours later to post the results of week one. I decided that instead of moving from thing to thing I would complete one task before moving on to another. The two things I worked on this week were the kitchen, and laundry. Promptly after eating each meal or snack, I would put everything away, wipe up, load the dishwasher, wash any pots used, etc. Then I would sweep the floor of any crumbs. For laundry I would bring up the load, sort and put away, taking the time to go into each room to do this. The good news is my kitchen was consistently clean and seeing it that way made me more obsessive about doing things right away. Also, there was barely any laundry to do today because it was basically all washed. This week I am going to work on menu planning some more. I also want to report on the results of shopping at a warehouse club. I joined BJ's a few weeks ago with a free trial membership. I've had to go to Yorktown once a week so it was convenient to go to. Being pretty well informed about prices, I tried to be reasonable about what I bought. One thing good about going there was it kind of keeps me out of places like shoprite which is good because I often buy extra things I don't need if I go there. The less often you shop the better. At BJ's I was able to get larger amounts of things I use often (pasta, sauce, frozen pizza, certain snacks...) The bill comes out higher with less items, but now I won't have to buy soap, sponges, Cascade, for a long time. The other thing I want to work on this week is paper clutter, my nemesis. I will think about it like an organized person. Also I want to organize the music and photos I have. But that will have to wait.

Experiment

As I stuffed my Shoprite receipt into my purse I thought "what would an organized person do with this receipt?" Then I came up with an idea that I could try, for a week, to live like an organized person does. I have a tendency to leave some crucial part of a task unfinished. For instance, this morning, I was folding whites but didn't finish, so they are still on my bedroom floor. I took in and put away most of the groceries. I did not make 2 phone calls I was supposed to make that are important. I did not write the thank you notes yet for Troy's party 1 week ago. I was just about to say that "I'll start tomorrow" but that would be what I always say. I'll begin today!

(Not) Gettting Things Done

Just about one week later, I am writing again with a similar train of thought. I do not do well with a "non" schedule. I know lots of people would envy my situation-not working and it's summer. However I need a schedule or 1-I get nothing done and 2-I do not feel happy because I am a person who feels "something' needs to be done everyday, and it can't just be me wandering around doing laundry here, dishes there, vacuuming randomly, and then doing the same exact thing tomorrow. I start to go stir crazy. I know there are limited days to our lives and don't want to feel like I'm wasting mine. My problem is that one small thing can bog me down for days, weeks, months, and potentially YEARS!

Taking too long to do a task

I seriously have a problem with getting things done. Packing for example. Trying to get DS ready for camp but am unable to do so. Why? Have difficulty finishing things, and keep getting distracted. Why? Find myself walking all over the house. Not good.

The results

Okay, so I did all the things on the above list, and some laundry as well. I also found the piece of paper I was looking for. The living room downstairs took a long time. Wait-did I say I would dust? I didn't do that. Again, as I moved the living room couch away from the wall, I found things like granola bar wrappers and popsicle sticks as well as the occasional stray sock. Now, how do you get the "cleat" smell out of that area. Since I don't have a mudroom, the cleats get left by the front door and I have tried a lot of different methods but it's kind of like the smell of a wet dog that won't go away. When we did the addition, I wanted a mudroom but the area where it was supposed to go would have required changing the entrance way and dismantling a room. I didn't think that was worth it. I've seen some nice built ins for entrance ways, so eventually I'd like to do that. I've never seen anything for the area immediately outside the door however. That's the kind of thing I need. I do have kind of a unique house now. While it was thundering today I realized that from the front windows it feels like you're in a treehouse. That's one of the things I like about it. Lack of a garage...dislike. But at least I never have to clean out my garage, which I'm sure would be full of things if I did have one. Tomorrow is another day off but I certainly don't want to spend it cleaning again.

A long Day Ahead

3 days off. Every inch of the house needs to be cleaned. Where do I begin. Begin at the front door and work up I suppose. After I finish unloading the car I will: vacuum entire downstairs, mop both bathrooms and wood floor and clean the bathrooms. Then I will come upstairs and do the same.
How long will that take me if I begin now? It's 11:30. The countdown begins now.

Correction

I have to laugh when I look at my last post and say to myself, "what was I thinking" and how can a mind change so much from day to day. I suppose that's why we set resolutions and then break them-it all depends on our mood at the moment. At this time I have a pile of laundry on my bed and it is the same pile that was there yesterday that I didn't put away. Into a basket it went until today when I dumped it out again onto the bed and unfortunately the clothes did not put themselves away as I had hoped. So I have to ask myself just why didn't I get this task done yesterday and I believe the answer is twofold. Lack of hangers and lack of space. I could solve the hanger problem by purchasing more tomorrow. The lack of space could also be solved. Take out the numerous items that have not been worn in the past year. I have all these bizarre jackets someone gave me when they moved. They were designer jackets in a petite size, so I took them but there isn't any place to wear them to.

Also I did not do the missions or anything else I promised to do in my last post. Not only that but yesterday night I went into the living room downstairs and found once again: socks, crumbs, water bottles and wrappers. Would my children do that at a friend's house? Let's hope not. I did an emergency vacuum at 10 PM last night. I haven't checked the room yet tonight but what are the odds that I will be doing that again?

New Goals

Okay, so I have 3 new goals. One is to do the Flylady weekly missions.
The other is to declutter 15 mins. a day
The third (and most difficult) is to go through every single piece of paper and organize it. Yesterday I had a huge scare. I needed a legal paper and couldn't find it. I did eventually find it, but went into a panic before I did. I have things pretty well organized within boxes but there are too many different boxes. For example on Sunday I needed a copy of a play I wrote many years ago for a class and I knew I had saved it in a marked folder. Only I wasn't sure which box the folder was in. I found it, but I need to streamline and integrate the contents of different boxes. The task seems extremely overwhelming which I why it never gets done.
I need a reason to feel optimistic right now.

cleaning the car

When I go in other people's cars, or see other people's cars, I feel a twinge of guilt. They don't have as many crumbs as me, and their seats are clean. I have crumbs, dirt, water bottles and stains. Believe me, there have been times in the past when my car was far worse, so when I look at my car I see progress. It's when I COMPARE myself to others that I usually feel worse. This afternoon both DH and I cleaned the car thoroughly, vacuuming the seats and floor, using upholstery cleaner on the seats and wiping down the vinyl surfaces and windows. It may not be perfect but it's better than it was. Also we did major cleaning this weekend for the relatives. Things looked good for about 12 hours. I went back in the living room downstairs today when little guy was having a friend over and removed socks, plates, blankets, and water bottles. How did so many socks get left in that room in one day? Also, I believe we have to vacuum again already due to the muddy soccer conditions today. And lets not think about the closets, (and the paper clutter within them) someday, that will happen. At least we did something and as flylady says "it's better to take a lick at a snake" then do nothing and that advice has helped me considerably since beginning this journey.

Habits of Highly Ineffective People-Humor

Ok, time for sharpening my skills:
1-Have a vague plan on what you want to do on a particular day
Then attempt to carry out the "plan" which hasn't materialized
2-Start many tasks at once: at the same time, put laundry away, clean the counter, put dinner in the crockpot, change the animal's cage. This way something is sure to remain unfinished
3-Wander away from the task at hand to "check email" and get lost on the computer and begin blogging
4-Overestimate the time it will take you to do something ie: call for an appt.
5-Rationalize that "it's now too late to do what I planned to do" and do nothing instead
6-Go grocery shopping forgetting to buy what you really needed
7-Be in a bad mood for the rest of the day and angry at the world because you didn't get anything accomplished.

Does This Happpen to You?

Cups, plates, empty bottles, wrappers, crumbs, popsicle sticks, socks, shin guards. Leave my living room (which is also where you enter the house) for a single day and that is what you are likely to find. Now is it just my kids who feel it's okay to litter the house this way? I have tried to enforce a no eating zone but it's a little late for that I fear. They respect the upstairs food rule, but the downstairs has always been where they have felt free to snack so it will be a whole other ball game to change that. Now perhaps if I put a garbage can in that room it would help. That I should definitely do. My husband says I should not clean it up but tell them to. So for the last two days I would go in and say "I see an orange peel, a yogurt container, a spoon, socks, etc." and the two younger ones would begin to debate with eachother who was responsible and who should clean it up. Eventually most of the things were removed. Still, this very morning I went in and found all those things mentioned at the beginning of this entry again. Something must change!

Procrastination Posting

Every morning I get up a full 2 hours before I need to leave the house. Then for the next 2 hours I try to put the house in order while getting 3 kids (and husband) out the door. Now, in the days when I was working full time, and before the addition, I would literally be leaving the house in a frenzy. Now I don't have to do that, but I feel that I should leave the house like a clean slate because I never know when inspectors and the like might be walking through. Today was one of those days when I did not finish everything and felt like coming back and finishing before going to work, but I knew that wouldn't be a good idea so I just sucked up the idea of crumbs everywhere and took off. Now today was my short and easy day so in my mind I figured I would get home and immediately start cleaning. In my mind, I would get home, change clothes, and start cleaning from the front of the house to the kitchen. Vacuumming, dusting, swiping surfaces, putting away things that did not belong....why then am I here writing this post instead? Good question. I guess because I'd rather write than clean. I am rebelling. But now I will go and clean for a set time of 45 minutes and see how that goes. Maybe I'll even post the results later.

How it looks to others

Monday night as I got out of my car to teach, I realized how messy it looked inside. There were a few bags of my teaching things, a few plastic shopping bags, a few coats, a few soccer balls, along with the new pocketbook I bought but never transferred my things to. The question is-why is all that stuff in my car? I could bring in the jackets and soccer uniform, put the soccer balls neatly into a bag, reorganize my teaching things so I don't have to drag around random bags of things, but I don't know. A few months ago I thought my car was pretty clean and a little kid commented that it was a mess. Having a few things around to me doesn't mean "mess" but it does to others. Meanwhile, that day I thought the car looked pretty clean because there wasn't much in it. It made me think about how I perceive things, and how I worry that others will perceive them. I still have that moment of panic when someone comes in my house that it isn't perfect or welcoming in some way. We got caught in an unfortunate holding pattern with our house, that some things aren't finished and we can't finish them without stepping on someone else's toes.

Update on clutter

Well it's been a while and thought I'd check in. I have to say that since my last post I'm much less tired and did start eating better and taking vitamins daily, which has helped. I've gone back to making lunches at night most days, and don't even feel the need for coffee in the afternoon. I have been making a conscious effort to choose tea at those times, I heard green tea in particular helps your metabolism. As for clutter, I have not been stressing too much about it lately. I am trying to vacuum daily, stay on top of laundry, put clothes away. Probably have not done enough as far as basic maintenance but everything looks better than it once did, thanks to more space.
Now, the next major project I still have to do is still go through the boxes that were put in the closet space because it is hard to find anything in the "before" last week could not locate the paper cutter that I love so much. Had to use an old fashioned scissor. It worked but that's only one thing on my list that is "somewhere" but which I can't locate.

How do you find time?

I have been trying to live by certain principles. Some are more successful than others. Since being introduced to flylady I always: Get up, shower, get dressed, wipe the bathroom, put in a load of laundry. I have been quite successful with keeping the sink empty also. And since getting my room I have consistently made the bed. There are other steps she recommends that I have not quite adhered to which are: choose your clothes for the next day, declutter a hotspot, spend 15 minutes decluttering and some of her daily missions. I get up at 6:00 on weekdays, and leave at 8:25. Seems like plenty of time but something is not working efficiently, and I think it's making lunch that has slowed me down. Today I seemed to have run out of bread so it took me a while to find 2 pieces for the oldest one's sandwich, meanwhile he was late for the bus. Also I had to make the tuna salad this morning. So I think I have to go back to my old successful method of making lunch the night before. The problem is at night I am soooo tired. How can I have more energy at night? I've started to eat better during the day and I think it's helping. And a little shot of java in the afternoon definitely helps. How bad is that really?

Last weekend I cleaned for a party which was more successful than usual because I have more rooms and since my home is in an almost finished state, it was okay to have 1 room as the designated clutter room. However, that room is supposed to become a child's bedroom sooner rather than later. So now my mission is to enter that room and decide where to put all the things I have collected from around the house. So I really have to start thinking things like-where should cameras and video cameras go? Where do I put-well everything in that room. Art supplies, school supplies, office supplies, exactly what room are they supposed to go in? It's nice to declutter but you have to keep some things. The question is where and I actually have no answer so that is why the things have been stuck sitting in that room for the past 2 weeks.

de-junking the bathroom closet

Today, another snow day, I attacked the bathroom closet downstairs. I found approx. 15 of those conditioners that come with hair color, threw those out. Reorganized the good stuff into categories so I'll actually be able to find all those extra toothpastes and deodorants that we keep buying. Found the q-tips! Threw out all kinds of no longer used lotions, perfumes, lipsticks, hair products, expired medicines and creams, even found a jar of bath salts that said "class 4-402" which was given to me in 1995. That makes 16 years that is sat in a closet. That's the kind of thing that can really make me laugh. Then under the vanity, I threw out old faucets that has been replaced, empty boxes, candle with no wicks, I found a whole bunch of Christmas Candles that people gave me as gifts, they should go right into the garbage but I kept them for some reason-maybe I'm not reformed yet. Old tape for wrapping wounds, old ace bandage that could no longer be unwrapped, bath toys....goodbye all.

After reading Don Haskell's clutter book I feel I am doing very well at "dejunking" as he would call it. I laughed out loud for several chapters-he is so funny. I liked how he got into all the things people buy for various holidays-although I don't do that. But since moving upstairs I realize how much I like it. I feel like I am sleeping in a hotel and that is because there is nothing in the room except the bed and my clothes. There isn't even anything on the dressers. Yesterday I decided to attack first my closet, giving away several pairs of pants that don't fit right and never will, then went after the closet in the downstairs small bedroom. Threw away a lot of old school papers from my youngest preschool days (he knows how to read and write now so I don't need the evidence), I did save the nice books that the teachers put together, they're more like scrapbooks. Then into the other kids bedroom where I threw out "Trivial Pursuit" it has been sitting in that closet since we moved here and that was in 1993, I feel bad that it was in my son's closet so long and he's now 14 and moving out of the room. I also went under the bed and found a huge box of school papers, including a lot of 3rd grade math (he's in 9th grade now) WHY was it there, I don't even know. Then onto the leappad box. Brought them so much joy in their early school years. Again, memories of oldest son using the little music program when he was 5. Unfortunately could not get the thing to work. Did not throw that all out since I thought my students might like it if I could get it to work. Still doesn't belong in their bedroom. I "gifted" all kinds of preschool games, art supplies, etc. to husband's job where they have a family visiting room. I do much better with clothes and things than I do with my own papers, but it is liberating to actually toss the bags in the garbage, and give other bags to people who might get joy out of them. I liked the Haskell book because it was not so depressing, you could see the humor in your actions.

determined to eliminate paper

Last night I said "throw away 10 pieces of paper" today I said "throw away 10 more" but it is hard to keep up the positive feelings when I see that is not getting me too far. At the same time I feel a certain motivation because if I just do this maybe it won't hang over me for the rest of my days. Clutter prevents you from enjoying anything else. Right now I have rearranged the piles to the floor of my bedroom never a good thing. So I must get them into file folders and into the file box asap.

Seeya!

Would having more time make a difference?

This year I am working part time (not my choice) but yet I have accomplished less. I thought in September that working part time would enable me to completely get the house in order. Not so, because I am living through a construction project that will never end. I have actively avoided being in the house most afternoons because I can't stand to be there with the workers present. It feels like I am living in their house. If I go home and they aren't there it feels strangely deserted. I need uninterrupted time-no kids, no workers, no place to go-in order to really get organized. At least that's what my mind says. But can I change my thinking to take advantage of 15 minutes here or there to do the real organizing? Not the daily cleanup-I am capable of that. I'm talking about organizing the monster-which is really, if I narrow it down, one area of my life. The paper. Yes, that's really it. Why do I have such a mental block against the paper? I should just do one box at a time. I have completely stopped buying anything unnecessary in the past few years. So all that I really have left is the things that accumulated "before I saw the light"
I will try to tame the paper monster. Really! I'll report back to see how I did.

According to a book I'm reading you either are a cleanie or not. (Her term) She compares it to having an innate talent like singing. You can improve most things if you practice but some things just come naturally to certain people and others have to work harder at it. I know that's true! Last night I conscientiously put away all the clothes, did the dishes left over, put things away that were out finished up and folded laundry only to find that this morning it looks like I have to go around and do the same thing again. Now if I was a true cleanie, I would be doing that instead of writing about the process. Some may say this is a waste of time but tracking the process is keeping me motivated. One problem is I have not taught my children properly but it is not their fault. I feel hypocritical to criticize them when I have not shown them the way. So I must now show them the way by my actions and hopefully they will also learn from my struggle that some things are difficult but we can work through that. I can't take back all the times I yelled and moaned over the mess and their lack of help. I feel guilty about that because I have not given them the tools to manage their belongings. But I'm trying and it's never too late for that.