If I did have my own reality show then tonights episode would be worthy of sweeps week. I can just see the clips they'd show to promote the episode and none of them make me look particularly good. The evening started out fine enough, I had made cookies and Max had made cookies with his worker. I put them in ziploc bags inside a tupperware and inside the microwave. This is usually a safe place where Max doesn't take things from. I said usually. Larry is at work, Julianna was in her fortress of solitude, and Max was on his computer and watching his tv in the living room. The kitchen was locked up so I thought it was safe to go upstairs for a bit to check on my ebay auctions, put away a few things etc. Some time passes, all is quiet downstairs (well honestly I did have my ipod on so maybe it wasn't quiet but I didn't care). It gets to be close to 9 so I head downstairs to round the kiddos off to bed. What I discover is not a pretty sight.
Max had found the cookies in the microwave and he liked the gingerbread ones he made a lot and ate a whole bunch of them. He liked parts of the heart smart cookies I made, he didn't like the cherries so I found a massacre of cherries and decimated cookie parts from the microwave to the living room, ground into the couch, the chocolate chunks were melted all over his hands and face and supersuit (one piece outfit that zips in the back that prevents hands in the pull up messes). His desk was in pieces on the floor with his laptop on the floor in the middle of it. And there was a bad smell.
After saying some swears (thats part of what I'm sure they would preview in the promos) I got the broom and swiffer and clorox wipes and began the clean up. All the while he is capering about trying to get more cookies! Finally after about 15 minutes I got things pretty well cleaned up. Julianna wisely went upstairs to get herself ready for bed to stay out of the danger zone. He had his pills and two mini nilla wafer cookies. His usual bedtime snack is more elaborate but there was no more deliciousness offered to him this night. We headed upstairs where I fought him to deal with the bad smell, his butt was sore so there was quite a struggle that ended in the shower. The kids showerhead is waiting for the plumber to come to deal with it, it leaks like crazy and sprays water all over me on a good day when I'm trying to wash the boy. Tonight I managed to drop the showerhead as I was trying to put it back and it did a 360 turn in mid air spraying water all over the bathroom, reaching the mirror and soaking me. There may or may not have been more swearing.
Finally he's clean, teeth are brushed etc. We go to his room and I begin the application of the various salves and lotions. He gets some cream on a rash on his arm, he gets sensitive skin moisturizer on his face and a generous slathering of Desiten on his sore bum. At this point he is happy and dancing around so a moving target. I manage to get a thick layer on all the parts and he picks up a stuffed Santa doll and is dancing it around. Fine, good, be happy. Well, fine and good until he wipes his ASS with SANTA!!! So now Santa has non water soluble Desiten on his jolly red self. In the struggle to keep him from wiping slimy Santa on anything else I get Desiten all over me including smeared into my newly repaired and shined up rings and Max gets it on his hands and belly. Whatever. I wrap Santa in a towel and chuck him into the hall. I'm sure he'll be bringing me coal now. After stuffing him into his pj's and arranging all the things that need it Max is happy and angelic and has no clue why mommy is soggy, exhausted and grumpy. So I kiss him goodnight, beg him to sleep in and close his door. The next thing I hear is his light clicking on and maniacal laughter. I just know he's plotting for the next episode.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
It's over already?
I can't believe that October is coming to a close. Seems I just got out my lace up shoes and my feather duster to tackle my month of Fly Lady and now it's done. Here is my post-mortem on the event. I did not do all the plans perfectly but I did try and keep her ideas in my head about 90% of the time. My bed has been made almost every day for the last 2 weeks and my sink has been shiny about 70% of the time (I'll take it!). I have gotten a bunch of holes de-cluttered and taken two trips to the thrift store unloading over 10 giant garbage bags of clothes, sheets, and other household "stuff". I am "blessing the world" as Fly Lady says. I find myself looking at things with a more critical eye both in terms of "do I want to buy it?" and also "do I want to keep it?" and most importantly, "where should this live?". I think living the Fly Lady way is a lifelong process, some days I'll excel and other days I'll slack off. But it's all about FLYING...Finally Loving Yourself and taking babysteps in the right direction. While I don't plan to formally blog about Flying anymore I'm sure it will come up sometimes. I hope maybe I've encouraged some of you to check out her methods and find your way to less chaos (can't have anyone over syndrome). Next month is all about gratitude. In honor of November I am going to spend the month being positive and grateful, There is so much to be thankful for that I hope to really uncover and share much of it in the days to come. My daily thankful's will be on facebook while my weekly thoughts will be here. In honor of the last day of October, my sink is shiny, my bed is made and I'm going to bed at a decent hour. In honor of tomorrow being November I will say I am thankful that it's Monday and the kiddos go back to school. :-)
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Flap, flap...
Can I just say how in awe I am of people who work fulltime, have kids and try to have a life? Also single parents who work and have kids and try to have a life? I work 2 days a week and I can barely get my sh** together on a good day, I cannot imagine the disaster that would be my life if I worked full time. I was recently asked if I wanted to pick up a third day at work and I wisely set a boundary and respectfully said, "HELL NO, WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY?????!!!".
I have found the past couple of weeks extra challenging and my flylady ways have both helped me and also been neglected. There was unhelpful a**hole week where DH worked nights and was an unhelpful you know what. Then the next week he was out of town for work for 3 days, coinciding with the days I work, coinciding with a trip to the ER for my daughters ear infection. Then there was this past week in which I felt pretty competent but not superior in any way.
The good things from flylady that I have really incorporated are getting ready the night before (which I've mostly done for awhile but I do better now, mostly), making my bed daily (yay me), and keeping my sink shiny (again, mostly). I have not been able to do all her missions because of time and energy issues, I will take responsibility and say I have "chosen" not to do them all rather than I "couldn't" because I "could have" if I'd been willing to stay up later, get up earlier or stop watching Dancing With The Stars. It's all about priorities people.
I have done most of my decluttering on the weekends when I have more chunks of time and that has worked out. My linen closet is pared down considerably and nicely organized. My Master Bathroom cupboards and drawers were cleaned out, purged and washed. I have tackled one area at a time using her "give away, put away, throw away" bins which are super helpful. I took 5 giant contractor bags of outgrown clothes, linens and shoes to the thrift store last Monday and that felt GREAT. I try to look at how far I've come rather than how far I have to go because that's just depressing.
My focus for the next week will be on keeping up with the routines, bed making, sink shining, bedtime prep and continuing to declutter. I need to work on getting to bed at a decent hour. I am also trying to embrace her "DO IT NOW" philosophy. That means if you notice a spill wipe it NOW not in three days when it's hard and crusty. If you knock over a pile, pick it up and deal with it before it grows. If you notice the plants need watering or the cat needs to be fed, do it NOW. It's really a time saver in the end. That Flylady is so smart.
Flylady also has us preparing for "Cruising Through The Holidays" these days and while I have not done her missions full out, I have dug out my holiday planner (a super cute altered notebook I made about 4 years ago that I keep track of everything in) and started doing some Christmas shopping in the hopes that I'm not all rammed up at the end, sucking the jolly out of the holly jolly.
So break-time is over, back to putting away the strange things I cleaned out of my nightstand. Who needs 12 emery boards!!
I have found the past couple of weeks extra challenging and my flylady ways have both helped me and also been neglected. There was unhelpful a**hole week where DH worked nights and was an unhelpful you know what. Then the next week he was out of town for work for 3 days, coinciding with the days I work, coinciding with a trip to the ER for my daughters ear infection. Then there was this past week in which I felt pretty competent but not superior in any way.
The good things from flylady that I have really incorporated are getting ready the night before (which I've mostly done for awhile but I do better now, mostly), making my bed daily (yay me), and keeping my sink shiny (again, mostly). I have not been able to do all her missions because of time and energy issues, I will take responsibility and say I have "chosen" not to do them all rather than I "couldn't" because I "could have" if I'd been willing to stay up later, get up earlier or stop watching Dancing With The Stars. It's all about priorities people.
I have done most of my decluttering on the weekends when I have more chunks of time and that has worked out. My linen closet is pared down considerably and nicely organized. My Master Bathroom cupboards and drawers were cleaned out, purged and washed. I have tackled one area at a time using her "give away, put away, throw away" bins which are super helpful. I took 5 giant contractor bags of outgrown clothes, linens and shoes to the thrift store last Monday and that felt GREAT. I try to look at how far I've come rather than how far I have to go because that's just depressing.
My focus for the next week will be on keeping up with the routines, bed making, sink shining, bedtime prep and continuing to declutter. I need to work on getting to bed at a decent hour. I am also trying to embrace her "DO IT NOW" philosophy. That means if you notice a spill wipe it NOW not in three days when it's hard and crusty. If you knock over a pile, pick it up and deal with it before it grows. If you notice the plants need watering or the cat needs to be fed, do it NOW. It's really a time saver in the end. That Flylady is so smart.
Flylady also has us preparing for "Cruising Through The Holidays" these days and while I have not done her missions full out, I have dug out my holiday planner (a super cute altered notebook I made about 4 years ago that I keep track of everything in) and started doing some Christmas shopping in the hopes that I'm not all rammed up at the end, sucking the jolly out of the holly jolly.
So break-time is over, back to putting away the strange things I cleaned out of my nightstand. Who needs 12 emery boards!!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Fluttering along...
According to Flylady I'm never behind so it's impossible to fail. Ummm, ok. My first week "flying" has been a mix of success and um not failure (because that would make Flylady sad) but maybe lesser success. Friday started well (first day of the month and all), I shined my sink, cleaned out a few trouble spots and basically did as I was supposed to. The weekend was busy, gone all day Saturday, out with Max's new worker for her shift on Sunday but I fluttered along, still mostly shining my sink (one night there were dishes left to soak but I did them the next a.m.). Each day we get a mission (should we choose to accept it) to do in our zone for the week. This week we are in the kitchen. The first mission was to clean your garbage can, I didn't do it on Monday (that was the day I was overrun by my carrot harvest) but I did do it Tuesday. The Tuesday mission was wiping down your counters, moving everything and really getting behind stuff. I had just done this because of my carrot mess so I didn't do it again. Today was Wednesday and I worked so I honestly haven't even looked at the mission.
If flylady did call people failures or losers or other nasty names she would have called me one today. It started last night when I (foolishly) decided not to lay out my clothes and just do it in the a.m. That was mistake #1. We were running late this a.m. and it took me forever to decide what to wear which made us even more rushed. I will NEVER do that again. Flylady: 1 Me: 0
Then there was the matter of dinner. Flylady encourages us to plan our menu and use our crock-pots and basically have a plan so that the family can eat well and stress-free and on time each day. This is extra important on days I work. Like today. When I didn't make a plan. So dinner was a hodgepodge affair wherein Larry and Julianna ate leftover ravioli and scrambled eggs (that he made), Max had pizza with his worker and I had grilled cheese (with awesome Indian tomato compote that I made...soooooo delicious!!). I'd like to say I'll NEVER do that again but I know me and I'll say I'll TRY to NEVER do that again.
Flylady: 2 Me: 0
Then there is the matter of laundry. Remember Mt. Washmore? Well it erupted all over my laundry room and bedroom. Flylady teaches us to do a load a day start to finish, wash, dry, fold, put away. I have been washing and drying but the folding and the putting away, well there was a problem with that this week and I blame Larry. See he's working nights this week which means he is in our room, in our bed, sleeping all day which means I can't get in there to put anything away. So yeah, that's totally his fault. BUT tonight while watching Glee (poor Kurt!!), I finished folding all the clean laundry and sorted it and put it away (all but Julianna's clothes which are in a basket in her room, sorry, I ran out of steam). So I have a clean slate (sort of) with the laundry. Sadly...Flylady: 3 Me: 0
But since Flylady is such an awesome cheerleader she tells me not to get discouraged and to start where I am so I will start again tomorrow. The lunches are made, the homework is done and signed, the sink is shining. I almost left dishes in there but forced myself to wash them and shine it because I knew I had to report on my progress, and I knew it wouldn't take long, and I knew it would make me happy in the a.m. to see a shiny sink. I have a meal in the freezer that I can take out for dinner tomorrow night so we can come home to a nice meal after Julianna's Field Hockey game. And I'm off to pick out my clothes for the a.m.
So after nearly a week it's Flylady: 3 Me: 0 Lots of room for improvement but I'm on my way to ship shape life!
Happy flying! Leave me a comment if you are fluttering with me!!!
PS: Also this week, I bought a new book called: The Make Today Matter Makeover: The 26 Best Ways to Recapture Daily Magic, Kick-start High-Energy Living, and Get the Most out of Life by Brook Noel
If flylady did call people failures or losers or other nasty names she would have called me one today. It started last night when I (foolishly) decided not to lay out my clothes and just do it in the a.m. That was mistake #1. We were running late this a.m. and it took me forever to decide what to wear which made us even more rushed. I will NEVER do that again. Flylady: 1 Me: 0
Then there was the matter of dinner. Flylady encourages us to plan our menu and use our crock-pots and basically have a plan so that the family can eat well and stress-free and on time each day. This is extra important on days I work. Like today. When I didn't make a plan. So dinner was a hodgepodge affair wherein Larry and Julianna ate leftover ravioli and scrambled eggs (that he made), Max had pizza with his worker and I had grilled cheese (with awesome Indian tomato compote that I made...soooooo delicious!!). I'd like to say I'll NEVER do that again but I know me and I'll say I'll TRY to NEVER do that again.
Flylady: 2 Me: 0
Then there is the matter of laundry. Remember Mt. Washmore? Well it erupted all over my laundry room and bedroom. Flylady teaches us to do a load a day start to finish, wash, dry, fold, put away. I have been washing and drying but the folding and the putting away, well there was a problem with that this week and I blame Larry. See he's working nights this week which means he is in our room, in our bed, sleeping all day which means I can't get in there to put anything away. So yeah, that's totally his fault. BUT tonight while watching Glee (poor Kurt!!), I finished folding all the clean laundry and sorted it and put it away (all but Julianna's clothes which are in a basket in her room, sorry, I ran out of steam). So I have a clean slate (sort of) with the laundry. Sadly...Flylady: 3 Me: 0
But since Flylady is such an awesome cheerleader she tells me not to get discouraged and to start where I am so I will start again tomorrow. The lunches are made, the homework is done and signed, the sink is shining. I almost left dishes in there but forced myself to wash them and shine it because I knew I had to report on my progress, and I knew it wouldn't take long, and I knew it would make me happy in the a.m. to see a shiny sink. I have a meal in the freezer that I can take out for dinner tomorrow night so we can come home to a nice meal after Julianna's Field Hockey game. And I'm off to pick out my clothes for the a.m.
So after nearly a week it's Flylady: 3 Me: 0 Lots of room for improvement but I'm on my way to ship shape life!
Happy flying! Leave me a comment if you are fluttering with me!!!
PS: Also this week, I bought a new book called: The Make Today Matter Makeover: The 26 Best Ways to Recapture Daily Magic, Kick-start High-Energy Living, and Get the Most out of Life by Brook Noel
Friday, October 1, 2010
October mission...
So I figure half the fun/reason to have a blog is to monitor some kind of project. There was the one that Julie and Julia was based on where she cooked and blogged her way through Julia Child's cookbook. There was the lady who followed every piece of Oprah's advice for a year and blogged about it. And there are hundreds even thousands of other great ideas. I was thinking this morning that since it's October 1st I should pick something edifying to work on for the month. I already plan to focus on thankfulness in the month of November so I didn't want to start on that already. So I got thinking about what areas of my life might need a little help and it all came back to organization and clutter. So I decided that I'll sign up for the flylady emails again and try to follow her plan to the letter for the month of October. At the end of these 31 days my home will either be in better shape or I will want to strangle her with her fishing line (that's where the name flylady came from, she loves fly fishing).
For anyone who wants to follow along the site is www.flylady.net.
The first thing she asks us to do is to shine our sink. The logic is that it gives you one clean and sparkling focal point in your kitchen and it makes it easier to keep up on other things if your sink is shiny. That's truly all she asks you to do on day one. So I shined my sink, it's lovely :-). Since I have done the program a bunch of times before I pretty much know where I'm headed. Tomorrow I have to keep my sink shiny and get dressed to my shoes (lace up she insists!). If you want to do "zone work" then today we are in the front hall and dining room. In zone work you spend 15 minutes decluttering that area, because, "you can do anything for 15 minutes" or so she says.
I already do a decent job of my before bed routine (except I never cared about the shiny sink) so tonight I will do a little better than usual and lay out clothes for tomorrow, remove my makeup and moisturize and you guessed it, shine my sink.
The other thing that flylady talks about is conquering Mt. Washmore which is a much cuter name than my pile of laundry deserves. She maintains that you need to do a load start to finish each day. A great plan that means you don't have several clothes baskets cluttering up your bedroom with laundry that needs to be put away. I am going to embrace her system for this month and see if I can do a better job keeping on top of my mountain.
So after one day I don't feel redeemed of my clutter issues just yet but maybe in 30 short days I'll be a new woman. I'll blog about it periodically to keep me honest and on task.
For anyone who wants to follow along the site is www.flylady.net.
The first thing she asks us to do is to shine our sink. The logic is that it gives you one clean and sparkling focal point in your kitchen and it makes it easier to keep up on other things if your sink is shiny. That's truly all she asks you to do on day one. So I shined my sink, it's lovely :-). Since I have done the program a bunch of times before I pretty much know where I'm headed. Tomorrow I have to keep my sink shiny and get dressed to my shoes (lace up she insists!). If you want to do "zone work" then today we are in the front hall and dining room. In zone work you spend 15 minutes decluttering that area, because, "you can do anything for 15 minutes" or so she says.
I already do a decent job of my before bed routine (except I never cared about the shiny sink) so tonight I will do a little better than usual and lay out clothes for tomorrow, remove my makeup and moisturize and you guessed it, shine my sink.
The other thing that flylady talks about is conquering Mt. Washmore which is a much cuter name than my pile of laundry deserves. She maintains that you need to do a load start to finish each day. A great plan that means you don't have several clothes baskets cluttering up your bedroom with laundry that needs to be put away. I am going to embrace her system for this month and see if I can do a better job keeping on top of my mountain.
So after one day I don't feel redeemed of my clutter issues just yet but maybe in 30 short days I'll be a new woman. I'll blog about it periodically to keep me honest and on task.
Monday, September 27, 2010
How many to do lists does it take to get something done?
I often wonder what life would be like without a long "to do" list. I don't think it is even possible for me not to have a list in my head, on my phone, in my email, on my desk, in my car, at work etc. etc. They often say the same things and I often lose them, re-write them and lose them again. I tend to think about making the phone calls on the to do list at either, lunchtime when no one is in the office or 5:15pm also when no one is in the office or if I'm super efficient at 7:30am when, you guessed it, no one is in the office. Why I can't think of making phone calls at 10am or 2pm is a mystery of the universe.
I am an organizational product junkie, this is not to say that I am exceedingly organized, because I am not. I love the IDEA of being organized, I love to read Real Simple magazine and buy the Real Simple products at Target and dream of a day when everything I own has a label on it. I own a label maker, tons of file folders, boxes, bins, color coded this and that and still I have to hunt for pieces of paper, I take UPS items to the post office, I upend drawers looking for my septic plan and that was all just since Friday. I have fantasies about a place for everything and everything in it's place, I periodically subscribe to www.flylady.net and get all gung ho about her ideas (which are fabulous and work if you do them) and then get overwhelmed and unsubscribe and go back to my unmade bed and my unshined sink with hotspots chasing me around the house threatening to burn me alive at any moment. I have lots of books about clutter but I don't know where I put them.
I used to be organized, back before I had children I had it all together but then we moved to a giant house, I had twins, my son got diagnosed with autism and real life where you have more to do than time to do it, set in. I have some systems in place that work for me, I have a "control journal" (ala Flylady) where I keep phone numbers, menus and a sheet protector for each member of the family, I keep schedule items in there and it works pretty well. I make lunches and pack backpacks the night before, I lay out clothes the night before, in these ways I am organized. But I am only as strong as my weakest link and my weak link (dh) packed the lunches last night and forgot the boy's cheese for his sandwich (realized this a.m. AT SCHOOL, guess it's PB&J for him today!).
Every week I want to start fresh, I want to get my lace up shoes on (seriously, check out flylady if you have no idea what I'm talking about) and tackle some clutter but first I have to find my new color coded paper I bought so I can make the best to do list ever!
I am an organizational product junkie, this is not to say that I am exceedingly organized, because I am not. I love the IDEA of being organized, I love to read Real Simple magazine and buy the Real Simple products at Target and dream of a day when everything I own has a label on it. I own a label maker, tons of file folders, boxes, bins, color coded this and that and still I have to hunt for pieces of paper, I take UPS items to the post office, I upend drawers looking for my septic plan and that was all just since Friday. I have fantasies about a place for everything and everything in it's place, I periodically subscribe to www.flylady.net and get all gung ho about her ideas (which are fabulous and work if you do them) and then get overwhelmed and unsubscribe and go back to my unmade bed and my unshined sink with hotspots chasing me around the house threatening to burn me alive at any moment. I have lots of books about clutter but I don't know where I put them.
I used to be organized, back before I had children I had it all together but then we moved to a giant house, I had twins, my son got diagnosed with autism and real life where you have more to do than time to do it, set in. I have some systems in place that work for me, I have a "control journal" (ala Flylady) where I keep phone numbers, menus and a sheet protector for each member of the family, I keep schedule items in there and it works pretty well. I make lunches and pack backpacks the night before, I lay out clothes the night before, in these ways I am organized. But I am only as strong as my weakest link and my weak link (dh) packed the lunches last night and forgot the boy's cheese for his sandwich (realized this a.m. AT SCHOOL, guess it's PB&J for him today!).
Every week I want to start fresh, I want to get my lace up shoes on (seriously, check out flylady if you have no idea what I'm talking about) and tackle some clutter but first I have to find my new color coded paper I bought so I can make the best to do list ever!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Mindfulness...
I think the universe is trying to tell me that I need to slow down and pay attention. After a very mindful day on Saturday at Reiki training I've been thinking a lot about "stuff" and thinking I should start journaling (like I tell my clients to, you know, "Do as I say not as I do."). I have also been listening to Louise Hay's book, "You Can Heal Your Life" an oldie but goodie that I highly recommend. I ordered the paperback as well as the companion book to use at work. I also downloaded some meditations. I really WANT to meditate and be zen but that will involve sitting still and not getting distracted so I bet I'll need some practice and I thought guided meditation would be the way to go.
Then today I went to a training for work on DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and wouldn't you know it but the whole first part was about, can you guess? Yup, mindfulness. Last night I originally came into the office to find a journal but got distracted by writing a blog about getting distracted so I'm still without a journal. BUT as soon as I finish up here I'm going to make myself be mindful long enough to go to the closet and find a journal to use. Maybe tomorrow I'll be mindful enough to write in it. Babysteps, babysteps.
Then today I went to a training for work on DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and wouldn't you know it but the whole first part was about, can you guess? Yup, mindfulness. Last night I originally came into the office to find a journal but got distracted by writing a blog about getting distracted so I'm still without a journal. BUT as soon as I finish up here I'm going to make myself be mindful long enough to go to the closet and find a journal to use. Maybe tomorrow I'll be mindful enough to write in it. Babysteps, babysteps.
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