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.