I AM BACK

I wish I could say 5 days away did me good. It was emotionally challenging and physically exhausting. My back is still hurting and I swear my parents must have some kind of parasites hiding in the beds. If I brought them home with me I will have a hard time forgiving that.

The car is still a mess, the rest of the trip has been cleared away. Tomorrow is Monday. New week, new room. 

Why am I doing this?

SUPER SATURDAY

Major progress today on 2 rooms. Dropped off a load of clothes for charity, finished the cake  I baked yesterday and went to see a friend who is struggling at the moment. Good day. Nothing else to say.

Editors note: traveling might mess up your posting schedule

FREAK OUT FIRDAY

Seriously. What a day. I had a break down before 10 am. I had just realized that after a week of being told to change the sheets on his bed, Alex had tricked me into believing he had, by taking the old sheets off. He just never got new sheets on. As he has a loft bed, above eye level, it is not something that would have caught my attention. Unfortunately for him, the blanket he got himself to not have to use his sheetless comforter was peeking out and caught my attention. I got quite annoyed. I gave him an additional 20 things to put away. He was upset about being "punished". (He obviously never really has been punished in his life!) He was all:"I didn't know that not doing it would get me extra work." Excuse me? My telling your 5 times is not enough motivation? You would do it if you knew you get in trouble for not doing it? Well. What really finished me off was bumping into just one more blasted thing standing around hurting my knee. I yelled and slammed a door. Obviously I had been loud enough to scare James into thinking that I got hurt badly. After sobbing hysterically for about 5 min, I was finally able to tell him, that the real problem is, that no matter what I do, it never seems to be enough. 

Once I had calmed down I reminded myself it was Miracle Week. The dishwasher being fixed helped. I cleaned up the kitchen, even mopped the floors. Did some laundry, emptied a basket that I had taken out of the bedroom into the hall. I dug through more stuff from the attic. I made pizza for dinner and a cake for a friend. I dropped one of the layers for the cake, and nearly dropped the one I had to bake to make up for it. James twisted his ankle badly in a heroic sacrifice to not run over Marie who had managed to fall with her bike right into his path. All in all I guess it wasn't the worst of days, even though I still feel that nothing that was done today will make a difference in the long run. Not even the 3 more pieces that I mended watching TV. As I stayed up way to long watching anyway I should have gotten my ironing board too. Well. Enough self accusation. Things got done. They are taken care of. More will get done today. Miracle week has 23 more work hours and I will make the most of them! But first. I will catch some sleep!

THURSDAY ALREADY!

James took 2 days off of work and already made some serious progress on patio prep work. I made really good progress on the room of the week, the bedroom. At least until I realized that I have only about 10 days left until I go to my parents house. So, just 10 days to raid the attic for all those items of clothing that are too small for my children and should fit my friend's kids. I have no time for this. I really don't. On the other hand, it will have to be done eventually, I might as well get it done while she needs the stuff. I did have a box off stuff to go up, so I just called it a trade. 1 up, 1 down. well lets face it. More like 3 down as I found clothes that fit the baby. Today, once more it feels like it is one endless job, that I will never be able to finish. But it is Miracle Week. I refuse to be defeated. So before ending this day I started on the pile of clothes to mend. I mended 4 and got rid of 3 "unmendables". Small steps, but steps none the less!

PIANO PRACTICE

As I have nothing good to say about today I shall simply change the subject.

I have decided to practice the  piano more often. I found a teacher who is not only cheap, but also available in the mornings. She wants no contract, it is pay per lesson and she is willing to give lessons at random intervals. Sounds perfect for me.

Why is practicing the piano important for me? I play well enough to make progress as long as I practice 10 min /day and poorly enough that I have to concentrate solely on the piano when practicing. The second I think of something else I hit the wrong keys. I have to tune out all the stress and worries or I am not going anywhere.

I finally came up with a system that works for me. I want to be able to play hymns at church. I used to make one list of hymns I want to learn after the other, losing them all sooner or later. Now I have a traffic light system. I have colored sticky tabs. Green means "mastered, play once or twice a month". Yellow means:"needs work, play once every day until mastered". I have a few yellow ones, the current one has an additional blue tab for quicker reference. Red means:"new, practice 10 min every day until well enough to turn yellow". As I have a whole lot of  red ones, the current red one has an additional pink tab for quick reference.

Within a week I have bumped up one yellow to green, a second yellow one will just need 1 or 2 more days and the current red one that I failed at 2 years ago is pretending to want to go yellow.

So. If one approach doesn't work for you, just try something else until you find what's right for you.

THANK YOU TUESDAY

Please read the following post with a sarcastic tone of voice. Thank you.

Thank you Taxi Tuesday for:

• coming up with the grand idea of being the hottest day of the year so far
• letting the baby take care of #2 in the bath tub
• having James drop the baby's full milk bottle in the living room (yes the top came off)
• providing me with a grand thunderstorm that blew rain horizontally more than 5 feet to hit my freshly washed windows
• making sure the speech assessment appointment would be on a Tuesday morning
• having my blood sugar levels sky high with no apparent reason
• making sure rush hour traffic was worse than usual, so I would be late for pick up
• convincing the dishwasher that today would be a good day to start leaking right as I needed to leave
• 
  

But you know what. It is miracle week. I am stronger than you Taxi Tuesday. I will process one more load of laundry, clean up the kitchen, (although I think I shall pass on turning on the dishwasher) and then I will go to bed!

MIRACLE WEEK

Last night I decided to make this week "catch up week". My resolve was to not pick a new room and to finally finish all the ones I have started. But there is something about waking up and being ready to face the day, no, the whole week before 6 am without an alarm. So forget "catch up week" and embrace "miracle week"!

It being miracle week I didn't want to miss out on starting on a new room. The bedroom it was!

By 6 am I was out of bed and ready to go.

By 7 am I had snacks for everyone, 1 child out of the house, the washer running,  4 loads of dirty laundry sorted and took last week's clean laundry off the drying rack. It was also folded and taken upstairs to be put away.

By 8 am I had changed sheets on one bed, had 4 more people out of the house, including Snow White with full stage make up. I had supervised piano practice, 10 min of reading and lunch was simmering on the stove.

By 10 am I felt like I wasn't getting as much done as I had hoped to.

By 3 pm I felt like I had wasted most of my day. 

By 4 pm I turned to comfort eating.

By 5 pm I dragged myself upstairs to keep working on my nightstand to proof to myself that I have the determination it takes to make "Miracle Week" happen. And then. Truly. A miracle. I found a "long forgotten" love letter from James. In it he not only told me how wonderful I am and how much he loves me, he also told me, that he knows that many of the things I do, go unseen. 

"Thank you for the many things you do, many of which seem to go unnoticed. I don't notice enough, but when I enter your world, I realize just how much you do."

My very personal miracle. The perfect words to keep me going. Written down more than 2.5 years ago. 

Miracle week indeed!

MY FEET HURT

I have been out and about, running around from 6:30 am until 11 pm. Now my feet hurt. As most of it was taxing and shopping nothing got done. My anxiety over this never ending week resulted in some comfort shopping. Water guns, a basketball, a soccer ball. Say what? Yes. Other women buy shoes, I noticed I start buying stuff for the kids when stressed. Good for them, eh? 

In other words, no progress on the project, but the new stuff at least is put where it belongs. The downstairs is clean and even though things didn't go as planned I stayed happy and relaxed. Now my feet are up and I can tell they are as tired as I am. Tomorrow promises to be just as much work, but as a lot of it is party prep it should be fun work at least!  

MORNING HIGH

This morning after I had them all out of the house I started a mental blog about how I successfully finished the upstairs bathroom. Several distractions and 3 hours later I realized it wouldn't happen.

At least not today.

How do I feel about it? Well. Of course not too great. Today was more or less the only day with enough time at home to simply get that done. I did make progress in all the 3 rooms that are still on the list, even the bathroom, but I once again denied myself the satisfactory feeling of crossing one of. 

I really think it is a form of self destructive behavior. Now the big question is:"How do I change it?"

COMFORT SHOPPING

I used to think that I am not a shopper, but I guess I am. I have been rather stressed lately. Nothing in particular, just the amount of things going on, and let's face it. This self imposed 14 week project. Obviously I still see it as one and not as 14 little projects. Most likely so I don't have to see myself fail on a weekly basis.

Back to shopping. I think the main reason I don't see myself as a shopper is because I don't buy stuff that is typical like shoes or clothes.What did I buy?

• cute wrapping paper (I am sure the kids are tired of our old paper)
• swim suits for the girls (I kept telling myself they need them)
• floating tubes for the kids (the kids will have so much fun with these at the lake)
• pens (Marie can now have her own set to color and won't have to steal and ruin mine)
• set of looms (so cheap, reduced, great potential birthday present)
• t-shirts for James (BTW he hates them)

I think that's it. I really don't want to know if I got more. Most of the stuff didn't even get put away. This way I can feel bad about it again tomorrow.

THE KITCHEN IS NEXT

Thanks to Saturday I feel like this can actually be accomplished. I might have only reported on putting the kids to work, but I myself have worked like I haven't in weeks or even months. I just got started and kept going. I wish I could say until I was done, but I can at least say I worked until the day was up. Besides working alongside the kids (to make sure they kept working) I loaded the dishwasher 4 times, ran 5 or 6 loads through the washer and the dryer and got most of the stuff folded an put away. I even got started on that silly little bathroom. I must admit I only got started, but I believe that is better than nothing. Especially as I had already decided to do the kitchen the coming week. And yes, I already got started on the kitchen last Saturday. Sneaky me. I know.

Why the kitchen? Because the kitchen boils down to a simple cleaning job. The only shelf that needed decluttering was decluttered 2 weeks ago when I ran out of patience looking for something on it. As the kitchen is rather new, cleaning it is easy (I kept up well), none of the shelves are cramped. I must say the  kitchen is rather well organized and has plenty of half full shelves.

Now if I hadn't miscalculated the time still needed for the current translation I would have actually gotten started. As it was I spent all morning fishing it, then ran my errands and by that time I was out of stamina. No such thing as one wall in the bathroom and 3 cabinets in the kitchen. Well. The translation is done, money is earned and I'll pretend to not be aware of Friday and Saturday being more or less completely taken up. So yes. I am still planing to do the upstairs bathroom and the kitchen this week!

CHEAP LABOR

Last night I went to bed around 6:30 to "read a little". 2 pages later I was history. I did wake up 2 or 3 times but decided to not get up until morning. I actually made it. By 7 am I felt well rested and full of energy, and that was after rolling over 2 times. 

After 12 hours of sleep and ready to tackle this house I decided it was time to torture the kids a little bit. I have been way to laid back about daily chores lately. Clean up your own room has not been stressed much and they rarely had to put away their own clothes. The girls had an easy life especially. Marie can whine like no other and I just didn't have the nerve to listen to it. Ella will happily help 9 out of 10 times. Plus, I wanted their clothes to be put away nicely and the just won't happen if they do it. The boys did rather well the last 2 weeks with staying on top of their room, Alex gets assigned little things that he prefers to do "later" and Matt unloads the dishwasher first thing every morning without ever being told. So thanks to Ella and Matt, Alex and Marie were off the hook. That would change today.

I had my mind set on making them each work for 60 min today. I did not tell them, I just announced that it was "help Mommy day" today. Matt had 26 min under his belt before the other 3 even got up. He was done by 11 am. That was the moment I took to announce that any kid that worked for a total of 60 min before 5 pm would be taken to the ice cream parlor. They were all rather excited. Matt hat a smug smile across his face as he had earned it already. Ella wanted to work off her 40 min in one stretch, Alex was confident but didn't get off the couch for his additional 49 min and Marie broke down sobbing (fake!) that that was "way to hard!" During the day Alex decided we could go without him, he'd rather play computer games. Marie spent more time whining then working and Ella realized she still had homework left. 

I sneakily assigned Alex 2 min chores to fill up his account, so when we told him he only had 35 min left to work he reluctantly got going.  Once he was down to 15 min he was excited and found jobs until he was done (smack at 5 pm).

Ella got done easily, homework and all. Marie got an extension and finally finished her 60 min by getting all the groceries from the car. The hardest thing for her was that every time I told her:"do this still and you are done," (referring to yet another 10 or 5 min block) she thought she would be done all the way. So she was rather frustrated. I will have to communicate clearer next time.

We made it to the ice cream parlor after dinner. Once there, the kids happily agreed to making this a Saturday tradition. Work for 60 min and then go to have ice cream. To sweeten the deal we agreed that it would even include the playground if they got done earlier next time. 

I must say that getting 4 hours of labor for the prize of 10 scoops of ice cream was a great deal!

I AM A GENIUS!

I am not a great fan of soccer, but living where I do, I sometimes play along and at least pretend to be. It is very hard to escape it, so you might as well embrace it. Just make sure you are rooting for the opposing team to make things interesting.

I find soccer about as enticing as ironing. If soccer is on TV I usually do stuff on the computer, I have also been found reading, glancing at the screen every 10 min, while dear James is glued to it.

So the other night the Champion's League was on and we saw a few minutes but then James switched to a sitcom. Knowing I had curtains to iron to make progress for my project, I rather reluctantly gathered my stuff and got started. I hate ironing those curtains. You are supposed to iron them on the lowest setting, but unless you set your iron to at least wool, nothing, absolutely nothing will happen. Your arm may go numb, but that's it. So after cranking up the heat little by little all the way up to "cotton" I finally got to a point were I was seeing success. It still took for ever, but at least my efforts where making a difference. I was suffering, but at least the show was funny. Once it was over, James switched back to soccer. It was half time, but he kept watching none the less. Second half started and we were still watching. Forgive me if I sound bitter, but ironing is enough torture on it's own. I do not need a boring soccer game to go with it. Then it hit me. I said to James:"You know what. You keep watching and ironing my curtains and I'll go to bed." "Sure," he said without moving an inch. "I am serious," was my reply to which he said:"So am I." But he was still not moving. So I got off the couch. And wouldn't you know it. He took my place. The game had only about 20 min left, I went and brushed my teeth, finished the chapter of the book I am reading at the moment and fell asleep with the lights on. James came up, told me Barcelona scored 3 goals in rapid succession and I was gone again. The next morning I found 2 of my curtains back on the rod and a third neatly draped over the drying rack. I love the guy.  I have 2 more curtains to iron. I wonder when soccer will be on again?

THE KITCHEN IS CLEAN

Sometimes that is all you can ask for. And no, I did not mop that floor. Today that would be asking too much. I have a killer weekend ahead of me and I am still not sure on how to survive it. Project progress today was minimal. At least there was progress. I was able to keep my headache in check. The weather the last 3 days has been hard on me. 3 late nights in a row did not help. I am still sitting here with piles of laundry to be folded that I washed and dried today. All in all it was a good day. On time for appointments. 2 warm meals and happy children. Oh. AND a clean kitchen. It's all a matter of perspective!

2 DAYS OFF

James took Tuesday and Wednesday off. I know exactly what you are thinking. "Great, she finally tackled that tiny bathroom." Well. Guess what. She did not. She had errands to run for 6 hours on Monday and was glad to be alive when it as over. James took all morning for his errands and Tuesday afternoon of course was Taxi Tuesday, with a twist this time as activities were rotated for this week. Wednesday she spent another 7 + hours on errands multitasking as she was translating (=making money) while killing almost 3 hours with tests at a doctors office. In the afternoon she found herself helping James finish a project she wasn't even aware off. Maybe you can relate that she was not up to much more than providing food for the critters after a day like that. So with Thursday being the first day without being all over the place for half of the day or longer it was spent catching up with normal things like laundry and collecting a myriad of things that are lying around. (We definitely have to work on putting things back after using them.)

I would say:"Tomorrow is another day," but it really isn't as we'll be gone most of it and I honestly don't see myself getting anything done. But hey. Who cares. There is still Saturday to finish the blasted bathroom. Or at least start it. :(

WHAT A DAY

Nothing went right today it seemed. It is 8 pm and I am so tired. I simply wan to curl up in bed and cry. I took out another mirror of a parked car on main street. I almost ran over a 5 year old, I had a 10 year old pulling out right in front of  my car on a skate board and those are just the car related issues. 

Zero progress on the 14 week challenge. Oh well, I guess that is not true. I did clear one drawer, but half of it's contents are still lying around and it is in a room I will not get around to for a while. 

I did invest a lot of energy into cleaning up what seems insignificant and I have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning at 8 am. They wanted me to show up at 7:30 but guess what. No way.  On the bright side, this will be the second to last additional appointment for the week. Everything else that is on the list is just a regular thing, As bad as the house looks, at least it seems to not get any worse. I also found a piano teacher right around the corner that is available in the mornings too. You only pay per lesson and she said she would be just fine to give me lessons at short notice and at random intervals. I think I will give that a try. 

WEEK #4

I have been experiencing "pick a room-anxiety" since Friday. Seeing the state of the living room and taking into account the fact that I only finished 1 room so far, makes me very reluctant about choosing a new room. I think I am setting myself up for failure. Getting started every week, but never finishing anything. I know myself well enough to know that not choosing a new room won't make me finish and old one.

One of today's problem was that I wasn't able to stick with my "no appointments on Mondays" rule. I was to visit 2 people this morning, one appointment fell through and I took the hour I won to run to the famous Swedish furniture store. Of course there was piano and I had sneakily made a dental appointment right after piano. Unfortunately the school changed the kids's time tables so I had to switch the kids's piano lessons around so the kid that was half way to the dentist at piano lessons wasn't the one who had the appointment. Add having to make a cake for today and you can see why I might have felt a little overwhelmed about this new room.

Fortunately I have a friend, Louisa who decided to be my challenge partner. Her room this week is a small bathroom. I have decided to tag along. That upstairs bathroom has almost no storage room so there isn't much in there to begin with. I am telling myself I can do this in one day. I guess I really could if only I got started. I am just not happy about using another one of my "joker rooms" already just to keep this project going. But not all is lost, just yet. I have been picking at shelves and drawers in other rooms that I am not officially working on whenever the occasion arose, so I am making more progress than I think. At least I hope so! 

RANDOM TOSS-A-TON

It's not that I didn't get anything done today. It just felt like I didn't get enough done. James was out getting stuff for his patio project and by the time he was done I left for a baptsim that I had been invited to. I had made cake for it and did a few little things around the house, but nothing that made me feel like I accomplished anything.  So tonight I decided that even if I can't focus on anything really today I can still get something done. I just started to randomly open drawers fishing out stuff that could go. Like old recites and broken pens. I also found 1,5 pairs of shoes to get rid of and quite a few other things. Some things I came across were to keep but in the wrong place, so I got them back to their home. My efforts might not be noticeable, but I know that I got stuff done. As small as the things were that I did, every single one was necessary, there was not churning, just action. Well done, me.

FIRST ROOM OFF THE LIST

About time, too. Considering it is the third week and I only got the easiest room taken care off, this is quite pathetic. On the other hand, it's done. Finally. The living room seems to be getting worse every day and I have less desire to deal with it. I also came across a few things to do I totally forgot. Like the windowsill, or vacuuming behind furniture. The secret department in the couch. Washing the curtains. On the bright side, it IS Friday and I am making progress with the patio leftovers. I have also dealt with the few things I have brought down from the attic. So 15 items less when I will actually tackle that. My neighbor promised me the weather would turn bad around lunchtime, but it is still sunny and bright and I am thankful for that. The kids have been very cooperative all week and I think I shall pat myself on the back for surviving another one!