THIS WEEK'S EFFORTS

I am proud to say that this week's efforts have paid off. The downstairs was clean on time and still is clean. (Although I can already see it deteriorating.) The upstairs was only halfway done, but I shut the door to the playroom and locked my bedroom. Silly, I know, but I did feel a strong need for privacy.

The girls's room ended up being the surface of the day and the 5 a day ended up being random pieces of "art", a ball with almost no air in it and a McD.'s toy. None of them was hard to part with.I felt a pang of guilt with the plastic princess, as it wasn't mine, but ever since we had it she's been lying around on the floor and she simply isn't of any use to play with as she is bolted to a piece of plastic. I guess you could display her on a shelf. But that's the end of her usefulness.

My drop zone had 6 or 7 baskets full of stuff and 2 piles of clothing that were supposed to create a brand new abominable pile next to my bed. The boys's room was a terrible mess. Instead of just doing what I am good at and hiding the baskets in my room I challenged my son Matt. Object of the game was to clean up 17 things. He in his room, I from the upstairs landing. We ended up playing 5 rounds. Amount of things to clean up varied from 17-47. We picked a new number each round to keep things interesting. He ended up beating me 4:1 (First round went to me) but the true victory was that I ended up with just 3 baskets in my room. One of them has mostly stuff to be ironed in it. Yes.

I still have 3 baskets there but I have gotten far in the last 6 months. I am starting to deal with my problem differently. I am happy with my progress. Very happy!