PUT IT BACK

Today I caught myself trying to take short cuts. Like putting the paint next to the basement stairs instead back into the basement. I decided to skip the short cuts. It took almost no time. And the things were done. And I came across a few thing that looked like they want to leave my house. 

I am not sure if this is week 4 or 5 of perpetual madness. All I know is that it will go onfor at least 2 more weeks. Maybe 3. 

I am surprised how well I am holding up. I've been going for weeks at a pace that I usually couldn't keep up or 3 days. The house might not be perfect but it hasen't gone done the drain like it usually does when I am under stress. It even improved in a few areas. 

How tired can one person be?

TAXI TUESDAY TRAUMA

I thought the last 2 Taxi Tuesdays were bad. Little did I know. Just how uhm STUPID was it to add an appointment on Tuesday morning in a town approximately 60 miles or 1 hour away? (I did set up the appoinment weeks ago, the other option would have been Friday which sounded  even worse.) Of course the Taxi Tuesday in question has the added benefit of a parent-teacher conference at night. Finding out the night before that the kindergarden-ballet ride once more would not be happening was "the icing on the cake". NOT!

Well. Here is the short version. First time I left the house was at 7:30 for a drop off. I was finally back home for good at around 9:15. Yes, pm. In the mean time I had shuttled kids back and forth, killed a very long time in a waiting room, got stuck in traffic and managed to be on time for every single drop off or pick up, even if just barely.

Have I mentioned that sometime during the 5 times I rushed home I managed to get 2 loads of laundry washed and a delicious dinner cooked?

I am awesome.  I am also completely wasted. The End.

SUPERHERO MODE

Today I kicked into SUPERHERO MODE. Not uncommon for a Monday. I feel like I haven't doneenough, so feel free to tell me I am wrong. Here is what I did today.

Of course I picked up my girl from school. I had warm lunch for the kids, a warm dinner for the whole family (no complaints), my 6th load of laundry is running. (Yes, I did start way early.). I made 2 cakes today. One of them a double batch, that required 2 rounds of baking. Why 2 cakes? Because I figured you can't dangle 2 layers of delicious, rich chocolate cake in front of a bunch of saliavting kids without giving them a piece. As the 2 layers of cake are prepwork for a wedding cake I had to make a new one for the kids. I did 3 hours of household work. And I just plugged in the iron.

So why am I thinking I didn't do enough?

HARDER THAN I THOUGHT

5 a day proves to be harder than I thought. Some days it seems rather easy. Others I really have to look for things I can get rid of, which in a house as full as mine is enough proof, that I have a hard time parting with things.

The easiest for me are things I can pass on, that somebody else has use for. I am learning to chuck kid's "art" without thinking twice. Too many times have I seen the things brought home from school, dropped in the hall to never be looked at again by the artist. I have gotten rid of what feels like 5217 pieces of art in the last 4 weeks and so far not a single one of them has been missed by it's creator.
Next on the list are cheap toys. You know, the stuff you get with your meal at a fast food restaurant or the little surprises in cereal and don't ask me where else.

Still among the hardest are things that "are still useful" but nobody else wants them and interestingly enough I don't have any use for it either. I am working on reprogramming my brain about usefulness.

I  must say though, that it has helped me in various ways. As I like to win, having a quota to fill makes me search until I find something. And even when I am done, I keep my eyes open to find more things that can go. It seems that assessing everything I see makes it easier to throw away things. I also notice things more that I need to get rid of and I am learning to just chuck things in passing, like the terrible doormat I had. Left, the house this morning, picked it up while shuting the door, threw it in the trash and hopped into the car. Yup. That easy.

PERSISTENCE STINKS

The worst about persistence is, that you have to be persistent about it. Seriously. How boring is that? How boring is it to clean and declutter for 2 hours every single stinking day except for Sundays? How boring is it to load the diswasher time and time and time again just to turn around to see that the dinner table is buckling under the weight of dirty dishes? Should I bore you and list more things that bore me?

Everything has a price. The price I have to pay for a clean house is persistence. Whether I like it or not. I think I will ponder this some more today. I will try to find out if this is the price I am willing to pay. Of course I will persistenly put in my 2 hours of boring household chores while pondering. One almost wishes it was Taxi Tuesday.

TAXI TUESDAY RELOADED

I will not bore you too much. This time I at least found out Monday night that my daughter won't get a ride. I thought I had an appointment tonight that made me quite nervous, and I needed to find a ride for my son, so I could skip the last taxi tour. Ah well.
Long story short, when I went to pick up Ella and to drop of Alex at the same time, I ended up getting so caught up in my worries about the evenings appointment and a potentially crying toddler in the car, that I left without Ella. If Matt hadn't inquired about her whereabouts upon my return home I might never have noticed. All I can say to my defense is that when I got there I had talked to her and told her I needed a minute and I told her I needed another one a couple of minutes later, so I did check off "pick up Ella" on my mental to do list. I did stop dead in my tracks when I realized what had happendend and ran out to get her, yelling at James to check for parking down town and to find out if I had the right day. Turned out I didn't. It's tomorrow. So what do you think. Did I declutter? Uhm. Well. I think I'll take the 5th on that one!

SHORT NOTE

Just a short note to let you know I am alive and decluttering.

today's 5: 5 magazines
surface of the day: top of the piano
household chores: an estemated 1,5 hours
garden: some wedding, prep work to plant tomatoes

MY VALENTINE

I cleaned up the whole downstairs. I focused on the living room. My husband loves it when the living room is clean and clear. (That's why I usually do it last, becasue he will come home and clean up the livign room, but he will not on scrub a sink, unless I'd ask him to.) I didn't cheat. Anything I came across was "evaluated and acted upon". I either put it away or tossed it.

When James came home he said:"The living room looks very nice, thank you!" I told him that I loved him enough for cleaning up the downstairs. I might have loved him enough to tackle the upstairs, too, but I had 4 hours of errands, 1 of them with all the kids in tow.

I wish I could say I will tackle the upstairs tomorrow, but I think I will focus on maintance downstairs and pure survival the rest of the week. It's gonna be a full one!

Seeing how much I got done the last 4 weeks despite the many appointments makes me think I am actually learning to get more things done! Good job, me!

CHORE BUFFET

You know those all you can eat buffets? Where you can start with dessert? Eat all the meat and skip the vegetables? Or have 5 different soups with 7 different kinds of bread? You only take what you want and leave the rest.

That's kind of what I did today. I wasn't in the mood for a 3 course meal of cleaning. I decided I didn't care what was important. I didn't care about the big or little jobs. I decided I would only do what I felt up to. SO. Laundry. Lots of laundry. Even more laundry. Dirty laundry, clean laundry. Sorting, washing, drying, folding, storing. Ironing. IRONING! Bleah.

I cleaned a bathroom, cleared a coat rack, washed it down and got rid of half of the coats. Nobody wears them anyway. I cleaned the kitchen. I cooked. AndI made the kids clean up. Hehehe.

It wasn't an organized approach, at the moment I wish I had invested all that time into the front room. But lets face it. I got a lot done today. If I had forced myself to work methodicaly I think I would have given up pretty soon.

I think I'll have those "all you can handle chore buffets" more often!

SKINNY CLOTHES

Today I went up into the attic and packed up my "skinny clothes". I had mentally prepared for this all week long. I decided if I can find out why I am still hanging on to them I might be able to let go. I think I finally know why.

It always felt like letting go of my "skinny clothes" means that I admit defeat. That I tell the world and myself that my skinny days are over. That I will stay "fat" for the rest of my life. That I gave up hope. Realizing that helped. Obviously the size of  clothes I store in my attic has no direct influence on the size my body. If it did, I would be skinny by now. Right? I pulled them out one by one, mostly tops, I had gotten rid of the pants a while ago. Not that I had many pants. Most of them I had worn until they fell of my legs. I must admit, that I kept about 15% percent. At least I hope it wasn't more.

I did share a few tears. Not really because I parted with my clothes. It was more of a general feeling of overwhelm. Sitting in the full attic. Barely making a dent into the amount of things stacked up there. Being reminded of my weight problem and how useless it seems to fight it..

It's all good. Life is change. Let me tell you. If I am ever skinny enough to fit into those clothes again I deserve a whole new wardrobe full of clothes. And maybe, in a few weeks I can let the rest of it go

TAXI TUESDAY

I used to like Tuesdays. Now all I ever get to do is taxi  kids back and forth. It becomes even more fun if you find out at 7:15 am, that not only do you have to do 3 trips to the neighbouring town in less than 3 hours, you also have to pick one kid up from school that was supposed to go to her friend's house and go to ballet class with her. Needless to say, you get to do one more extra shuttle trip to ballet. So the question is. Go grocery shopping in the 45 min between the start and end of dance class or go back home? But shopping means you have to drag the Judo kid with you. Oh, and the little one.

Seriously. I am not the type who thrives on running errands in the first place. But taxiing kids back and forth form 2 pm-7 pm is all that I can handle. Needless to say decluttering was not on top of my list today. I got one little drawer emptied out. Cleaned out, rerganized it. Have NOT delt with the leftovers.

The last 2 weeks were so full. This one is just as bad, and I don't even know what's on the agenda for next week. All I can say is I came a long way. I might still hava a long way to go, but I am definitly moing the right direction!

NO EXPECTATIONS

I heard the following thing:

Have no expectations. This way you will not be disappointed.

"WHATEVER!" was my first thought. How on earth would that work. You simply can not NOT have any expectations. No matter how I looked at it, it simply didn't feel true. It was impossible. I got rather upset about it. How could somebody utter something so unbelieveable stupid and believe they said something profound? I simply couldn't let it go. I mused about it for days. Finally it dawned on me. It was kind of like Einstein's "Theory of relativity". In school they all claimed they understood. I was the only who admitted that I couldn't for the life of me imagine 2 spaceships without a point of reference. There is ALWAYS a point of reference. I felt it was the same with expactations. There are ALWAYS expectations. 

I decided to give it a try. Man. It was hard. It made me see one thing. My expectations really can ruin an expirience for me. Instead of simply enjoying the moment, I would wait for my expectations to be fulfilled. Learning that helped me to have fewer expectations, or lower expectations.

Today was a day with high expectations. I would clean for 2 hours, get rid of 5 things. The surface of the day would be tackled and I would start out on decluttering the whole house. Well. Gues what. It didn't work out. By 2 pm I decided to let it go. I erased my expectations. And I was happy. I decided I would be a relaxed happy mom. Around 5:30 I felt a pang of guilt for not living up to my expectations. I told James and he made me feel like it was perfectly fine to not fullfill them. And I was able to let it go again.

This is what I did instead. Trust me. These babies exceeded my expectatiosn BY FAR!

DO I WANT TO CHANGE?

Seriously. Sometimes I wonder if I really want to change. Staying the way I am and in the situation I am in might not be ideal, but at least I wouldn't have to adapt to something new. This year I had no New Year's reolutions as they end up being the same every year anyway. So. One starts to wonder.

I think it would be easier for me to stay happy with a clean organized house. But who am I kidding. It's not about being happy then. It's about being happy now. Today's goal was to write down all the things I want to do and change and to prioritize. So far I haven't even gotten myself a pice of paper and a pen.

I think I am afraid of the hard work it will bring with it. I want to eat a whole chocolate cake AND be skinny. I want to have a clean house WITHOUT EVER having to touch a rag. I want to be ORGANIZED AND KEEP IT ALL.

I am afraid it won't work. If I want to stop being a hoarder I have to be willing to change. I think I'll go and get that piece of paper now.

IT WAS BETTER

Today was better. A lot better. Most likely due to some ibuprofen. I might only have gotten 90 min in, but I can claim that I have started decluttering again. Admittedly  I am sorting through stuff that only came in yesterday, but 3 big black bags are 3 big black bags. I not only made it through the first bag, but I also found out which size for boys clothes my friend Jane needs so I can pack a bag, straight for her.

I am motivatd. Highly motivated. It's break through time. I can feel it. I can see it. I did not let the first half of the week get me. I pulled through with the plan for the rest of the week and so far. I can do this. I am strong. And I will be happy. It's my choice!

IT'S ONLY WEDNESDAY

Last week was full. This one is even fuller. I was kind of worried how I would make it through the week. Monday was hard but went okay. Yesterday was spent in a blurr of tears as I found out that my son's first teacher, who I liked very much and was a great help for me in becoming more confident with my parenting lost her battle against cancer.

Today about 20 min after I got up I could barely move anymore due to pain in my left shoulder (after being in pain all week last week on the right side). I had a meeting with a teacher at 2 pm, dentist appointments for everyone at 3 pm, hit a car in the parking lot in between. (Fortunately there seems to have been no damage on either car except for a minor scratch on my plastic bumper and the owner of the other car just shrugged it off) I cried some more today, due to pain and overwhelm and sadness for losing such a great teacher at such a young age. (She was 5 weeks younger than me.)

Can tomorrow possibly go worse? Definitley. But it won't. It simply won't.

MOUNT LAUNDRY

We all have our weak spots and our strong sides. When it comes to household chores laundry is definitely my strong side. I know, that I once more lost complete control when the laundry gets out of hand. With my energy and water saving pearl of a washer, a load of laundry takes more than 2 hours. So unless I have a plan of attack the average 10-12 loads I do a week simply won't happen.

First thing I do every morning is to start the laundry. Taking down the dirty laundry, sorting it and starting a load has become second nature to me. I don't even think about it. It happens before I am fully awake sometimes.

Mondays and Friday/Saturday are usually my big laundry days. I am fortunate enough to have a big laundry room downstairs. I have set up hampers and happily start sorting by colors, hot or cold, you know the routine. In the end I have 8 different categories. The cool thing is, that once a hamper is full I know the washer is full. No more guessing if a load is ready or not. When I go downstairs and sort I usually simply turn on the kind of load that reached the top of the basket first.

Doing 5 loads in one day usually takes from 7 am until 10 pm as I usually don't catch it right at the end of the cycle. The dryer takes a good 2 hours, too.

I did do some "in house" research and feel save to say that 1 basket of laundry from taking it downstairs - putting it back in the dresser requires 30 min of work. Ironing is NOT included (as I avoid that at all costs).

Sof if I tell you that I took 5 baskets full of dirty laundry downstairs, and also tell you that my dryer is acting up and the first load alone had to be started 5 times (and I even took out half being afraid that it might have been to big) you can guess how my day went. Which reminds me...I better go down and check on the dryer!

5 A DAY

Supposedly 5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day are key to a helathy nutrition. 

Recent independent studies (in my household) have shown that trowing 5 things out every day establishes healthy slim cabinets and well fed happy trash cans. It also makes it easier to part with things. It becomes a habbit. 

So if you want to put your hoard on a diet, join me now. I keep track by putting an x on my calender every day I managed to throw away 5 things. Wheter in passing or as an organinzed effort doesn't matter.

If 5 sounds to much, start with 3 or even 1. Once you managed to do so for a whole week straight you bump your number up by 2. Obvious trash counts, as long as it was lying around. 

If you get behind you can catch up the next day, but you can't work ahead as the goal is to establish a habbit. Of course you can throw out more than 5 things, but they don't count for days yet to come. 

I am putting my hoard on a diet. NOW!