ROLLERCOASTER

This week is a real roller coaster. Monday I was low, Tuesday way better. Yesterday I was low again and today I am spinning like a dervish and seem to burst with energy. This morning by 9 am I had the trash out, my second load in the wash and dryer, 4 kids fed and out of the house with packed lunches. I had collected and sorted dirty laundry, folded and put away 4 loads and a few other things. 

I was on time for pick up and even got a few necessities at the grocery store, stopped at the shoe store for a pair of shoes for Alex (with 4 kids in tow), dropped Matt off at his friend's house and took 2 nice reading breaks. I rocked the music run AND gave a 45 min lecture at my church. And yes. Dinner was on the table before I left. Can you spell rockstar? Easy. K-A-T-J-A! And I was still smiling when the day was over. Oh, and in case I forgot to tell you, I even made progress in the bathroom. 

MY LONG JOURNEY

Sometimes I feel nothing but despair when I look at the mountain that is yet to climb. I might have covered quite the distance in the last 19 months but I still have such a long way to go. This week I have felt little pangs of despair more than once. Not as bad as last week.  But bad enough to make me cry every now and then. Just look at today. Morning spent on the phone getting nothing done because morals are low, all afternoon running all over the place with appointments and the evening home alone as James is out to dinner with his co-workers. 

If you have followed last year's 14 day power declutter you know that I had a little deal with myself. For every box I took up to hide in the attic, I had to deal with one from up there. I decided to offer myself the same deal this time. I am very reluctant to take it. The stuff I take up stairs will have to be dealt with eventually. Why not do it now? Plus, taking stuff into the attic involves actually getting up there. I am not in the mood for the depressing sight the attic is, plus it is such a hassle and I take forever to actually do it. I'll go up once a week I promised myself. Yeah. Right. NOT! It took me almost 3 weeks to finally go up. The main reason to get it over with  was not the pile of stuff blocking the upstairs landing, making it almost impassable, but the fact that I had stuffed myself with chocolate and sugar coated peanuts and I know that a nice little work out is the best way to deal with high blood sugar levels. So either I eat a whole package of sugar once a week or it won't ever get done. I took some books down in the hopes of being able to sell them. I have books that I "sold", but unless I reach a certain total I can't ship them off. Needless to say, the site I am selling to is not interested in buying any of the books I brought down. The only 3 that they would buy are some that I haven't read and figured I would read them first. I'll never get anywhere this way. Can you see why I start crying "out of nowhere"? Once again I feel trapped. Oh. And I accepted free stuff again. Just one item, but one that I won't need for another year. ARGH! Well. I am going to force a smile on my face now and pack the books that I brought down with the other "unsellables" and will try to dump them on some friends on the weekend.

ROUGH START INTO THE WEEK

Yesterday, I felt kind of down and the week had a rocky start. I am feeling a lot better today. James is out of town on a business trip. Or at least was supposed to be, but he came back last night with a coworker, as they couldn't get a hotel to stay. This just means they had to go back this morning. As it is a good 90 min commute that made for a long day for him yesterday. For me, too, as he was gone from 7:30 am- 8:30 pm and super tired by the time he came home. I have decided to worry about essentials only, with it being Taxi Tuesday you know what those are. Right? The best thing about last night is knowing that James can handle the mess. When he crashed on the couch at 9 pm, I said:"Can you tell that I surrendered around noon?" His reply:"It doesn't look that bad." hahaha I think he needs to clean his glasses! It did make me feel a lot better though!

WHY DO YOU HATE ME, MONDAY?

***spoiler alert*** this post contains plenty of TMI!!!!!  ***spolier alert***

As if it being Monday wasn't enough of a challenge, I had a certain little person climb into James's bed without a a diaper on and taking care of big business there. Needless to say I was thrilled to have do change the sheets again within 3 days and to have added 2 loads to my existing 5 loads of dirty laundry. The good thing is, that the mattress cover was in place, so at least the mattress stayed clean. As I had started the first load at 6:30 am (Yes, I am one busy mama!) the washer was done by the time I had the bed stripped. I have vowed to myself that I will not start the kitchen this week tempting as it maybe, unless I finish the other 3 rooms. I am not sure how I did 8 rooms in 2 weeks if I can't even get 1 done per week at the moment. I guess I skipped the deep cleaning back then and it was during spring break. This week has 5 additional maybe even 6 additional things to offer. 2 of them might be James problem but they leave me home alone for 2 nights this week. Needless to say I am not looking forward to it.

THANK YOU JAMES!

James does not know of my 14 week challenge, so of course he didn't know that the patio was on the list and that I had given myself a week to do it. As he didn't know, he simply went and cleared it in a day. I love the guy. I do have some shoes to sort through, but that should be a piece of cake. Thanks to James I am still on track. At least kind of. I have 1 week now to finish off the living room, patio and bathroom. 

WORST DAY SO FAR

Today was the worst day so far for me this week. By far the worst. I am not sure what it is this week but I feel absolutely overwhelmed. Just dealing with everyday stuff seems like all that I can handle. Lets not mention kids who pee their bed at night, spills all over the place and school time tables that have changed AGAIN and of course to my disadvantage. 

I think what really is getting to me is the suicide of a girl I knew. We weren't friends in the common sense. When we did get together we always had good and deep conversations and we did have a few things in common. We were almost the same age, both had a bunch of kids, close in age, the deep need to be perfect and struggle with depression. Obviously her struggle was a lot bigger than mine. I knew she had made an attempt to kill herself once, but that was 2 years ago, and everything seemed to have improved and it seemed she was doing so much better. She always had so much energy, she was excited about things, always willing to help. What a waste. What a waste of beautiful life. I sobbed through the whole hour of her memorial service. I have put her picture up on my mirror. As a reminder that things aren't always what they seem, that there is so much pain and heartache hidden under a beautiful surface. I had not seen her pain. I knew she had plenty of help, professional and from friends and family and still she saw no other way. That's what is getting to me. I am sure it will take a while to sort my feelings. Until then, I will just pour them out here. Quite therapeutic. 

ZERO PROGRESS

I know it is up to me to get things done. I am not sure what is keeping me, but it is rather frustrating at the moment. There is just always something else. And let's face it. Those tiles haven't been washed in years, they can wait another day. Dinner can't. Maybe I need a new rule. The "you-can't start-a-new-room-unless-you-are-done-with-the-last-one"-rule. but then I might be stuck on the living room until Christmas. Christmas of 2027. I think I'll just start on the kitchen next week. Partial progress is better than none. 

TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY

It is quite fascinating how littel you can do in one day. It'S not that I didn't do anything, I actually did quite a lot, I got rid of a pile of laundry, cooked, took kids all over town, had 2 additional runs (to the train station) but I did exactly NOTHING for my clean up and decluttering project. didn't help to have Taxi Tuesday and a totally worn out husband. I was really hoping for him to be home in time to do the last run. He was, but preferred putting 4 kids to bed to getting out of the house again. Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow. 

LIVING ROOM - LAST DAY

Mind you, this is from last Saturday and just never got posted. 

Last day in the living room. I am not happy with myself. Why? Because I am doing everything I can do avoid that room. I even started cleaning out the bathroom to stay out of the living room. I keep telling myself, if I finish the bathroom today I will have bought myself a whole week of extra time for the living room. Never mind that I was planning to do the kitchen next. So here I am annoyed with not finishing the living room, even more annoyed for starting the bathroom and running away from that, too. Well. I still have half of the day. It should be more than possible to finish the bathroom. If I will, I will feel a whole lot better about myself!

Editor's note: No, the bathroom was never finished. But fortunately the mountain of ironing was or this week would have been a complete disaster! 

I'VE SAID IT BEFORE

and I'll say it again. Mondays are not made for decluttering. Neither are Tuesdays. If I take a closer look at Wednesdays... Well. Lets not go there. I did get a decent start in the living room. Monday was spent plotting (avoiding) the room. I attempted a declutter a few weeks ago and failed at the first shelf so I tried a different cabinet yesterday. It worked. I got rid of enough DvDs to end up with the empty shelf I needed to reorganize the cabinet on the other side of the TV. I washed the dirty porcelain and feel like I am  making good progress.  

14 WEEKS OF DECLUTTERING

1 year ago I challenged myself to a major 2 week declutter. The goal was to declutter 12 rooms in 2 weeks. Needless to say Inever made it through all of those room, but I managed to finish 7 of them. Nicole pointed out that it would be smarter to give myself a week per  room instead of  a day. Of course she was right, but I work best under pressure.

I have been considering this project for a while now. I have many reasons to want to do it, and quite a few that keep me from it. 

PRO: 

• 1 week is eough time to declutter and thoroughly clean a room 
• chances of success are a lot bigger than last time
• with the progress I made over the last year this should be easy

CONTRA:

• 14 weeks of declutter? SERIOUSLY?
• the attic isn't even included in this challenge.
• I know myself well enough to know I will give up in the middle.

So after pondering this for a week, this is the compromise I came up with. I will not make it 1 14 week project but rather turn it into 14 1 week projects. Big difference? In my mind. Yes. 

So here are the rooms I am planning to tackle

• 4 bedrooms
• 2 bathrooms
• kitchen
• living room
• laundry room
• guest room
• storage room
• hall
• garage
• patio

Technically the garage and the patio are outside, but as we are planning to put in a new patio in a few weeks they are a must. The bathrooms will take less of a week of course but the halls total to a scary amount (especially if you consider the landing in the basement). The storage room is even scarier. I will start with the living room on Monday. I have decided to go for that as it seems challenging yet easy enough to not scare me off right away. So stay tuned for my progress!

MISSED ME! DIDN'T YOU!

I talked to a friend today who unfortunately lives on the other side of the world. We rarely talk and NEVER get to see each other. She told me how inspiring it was to read about my journey. That was exactly the boost I needed to return to blogging about it.

Rest assured, you didn't miss much. I was so busy with just keeping up with my achievements and to stay afloat with the million things I had to do. But I did take the time to look back over my journey of 1,5 years. I am doing well. I really am. I still have that little hoarder in me, but the hoarder  and I have learned to to get along. My little hoarder has also learned that live runs smoother without all that excess stuff.

I do have a new project in mind so this is the perfect time to return to blogging!