SURRENDER? ME? NEVER!

Nothing like a comparatively relaxed weekend to regain the courage to go on. Not like I did much. But I kept going. I made tiny progress in the guestroom. So it was almost nothing, but it is still more than nothing. Giving up is not going to get me anywhere. So I might as well keep going. Focus is on maintenance, You and I know that 10 min a day CAN and WILL make a difference. So I will stick with my daily survival routines and add 10 min in one room to improve things. Ther is no way I will be done before the summer as I had planned to, but plans change and goals can be adjusted. So bear with me. I can do it...

I OFFICIALLY SURRENDER

A few days ago Alex had me sign a text he had to copy about "forgetfullness".  He also added that he had to do detention again for not bringing his textbooks to class. He got all defensive about it. It wasn't his fault. They were in his locker and the key was lost. Well. DUH! Guess where the key was. In his backpack. Instead of telling me and investing 5 min into finding it, he invested 2 hours in extra homework and detention. Things got worse. Detention was canceld the day it was supposed to take place and James took a trip for nothing to get him to his music class on time (which he ended up being late for as detention and music class overlapped).
I was steaming. It didn't help that it once again concerned my "favorite" teacher. I never sent out the mean email, as we had an info night with her and another teacher 3 days later. I was way too nice and explained to her that the only one she punishes this way is me and that Alex won't care. I also told her that it is VERY important for me to find out about those things or I can't do anytthing about it. I don't understand why they send notes home to be signed by the parents if they never checked if the note got signed. Well. Guess what. Next day I had a note from teacher #2 that Alex was without a notebook for the last couple of weeks and that he expected the updated material by next Monday. To top things off Alex mentioned he got detention for another subject for not having his homework 10 times.

I can't do this. I don't care if this place is cluttered. There are obviously more urgent things to worry about. In additon to this, James finally booked a flight to attend the family reunion. He will be gone for 11 days. I am gald he is going, but want to cry just thinking about it.

I am done. The project is canceled. Ask me about it again when James is back.

WE DID IT!

The room is clean, the windows washed. I don't think that much was thrown away, but as I said, there wasn't that much to begin with. It was definitely the easiest ob so far. The only thing I did was  wash the window and move the couch. Such a good feeling to have one more room of the list!

SELF CLEANING ROOM

I love self cleaning rooms. Seriously! the boys are doing so well with their little project. I helped by haven't moved a finger in there and we are a lot further than I expected to be. If we play his right, we could be done tomorrow.

I DECLARE THE PATIO DONE

I am done with the patio I decided. The few things that are left from it have disappeared into the basement. I am not even sure where they went. They will resurface, so who cares. I really need to bump a few rooms off the "started but unfinished" list. 7 weeks in, having 2 rooms off the list isn't as big of an achievement as I wish, but it is still 2 rooms off. So make this 3, especially as you keep inmind that I more or less had 2 days off in between. Wish me luck...

THE BOYS WILL HATE ME

I already announced to the boys last week that there room is next and that I will NOT be the one doing it. At least not by myself. As they only recently moved into their room it should be fairly easy, but it will involve quite a bit of dusting. They also finally need a desk. Their lack of enthusiasm was palpable. I must said I am not overly excited myself to do this, but it needs to be done. I do consider it a fairly easy room, so maybe it will give us a chance to get a head start on which ever room is next.

NEW FOUND MOTIVATION

This week has not been going to my liking. Zero energy, zero motivation, zero hope. Yesterday I got an email from James about a family reunion he wants to attend. He has been bringing this up for months now and I have been telling him for months that he should go. The problem is that it is transatlantic, the kids will still be in school, and he doesn't want to leave me here by myself with the lot of them. So his first plan was to take as many as he could while I tried to convince him that it would all be some much easier and more fun for him if he did not have 3 jet lagged kids with him.

He really wants to go. His parents aren't getting any younger and I think deep down inside he fears it might be the last time he sees his father. It's not that I like being a single mom with 5 kids and I hate it when he is gone over night, but I love him too much to  have him miss out on this occasion because of his sense of duty. 

Today it hit me. The only way I can convince him to go is to prove to him that I am perfectly fine and that I can handle this. I know this can carry me through this phase. I'll do it for him. So he can go and enjoy some time with his family that he rarely ever sees. Of course I would prefer to go with him. It's just not possible this time. I have survived it before, I will survive it again. 

I love him enough to have cleaned the kitchen now. At 11 pm. With him sound asleep. On a day when I had to add #5 to the head lice count and shaved off another head of hair. On a day when I felt that I can't do this and it is all helpless. Yes. That's how much I love him!

TODAY IS TOMORROW

No. Today wasn't much better. I am still in head lice shock and can't focus. Rock bottom, here I come. I stuck with necessities. But hey. If you only do half of what it is necessary, even though you did things there will not be real progress. I need to reset my brain. The good news is that I am making serious progress on my Christmas Carol that I have been practicing on the piano. Ready for the bad news? Well I guess it is a funny story, but it did make me wonder about how thorough I was in the living room. Get comfortable, I need to start this story at the beginning.

So. Easter. remember Easter? No. Well, that's how long ago it was. The weather was lousy and we hid the eggs and candy in the living room. Because it is so much fun, we hid them multiple times. When we were finally done I counted them and announced that one egg was still missing. We had 18 instead of 19. Alex, the math genius told me how many eggs everyone started out with and patiently explained to me that the total was 18 and we had them all. I insisted we were one short. He explained 2 or 3 more times, with a little less patience each time. As I repeatedly tell him one can't always be right and sometimes you just have to suck it up and admit you are wrong I figured I should lead by example. So I said:"What you say makes sense. You must be right. We have them all." I had totally forgotten about that moment when James came upstairs tonight and said:"Look, I found an Easter Egg in the living room!"
I was right! I was RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT! HARHARHAR!!! Guess who was in the boys room gloating 30 sec later! Too bad it dawned on me a few minutes later that that also means my living room clean up was not as efficient as I thought. I could have sworn I dusted that surface!


Editors note: yes this week was bad enough that it took me 3 days to post this!

HEAD LICE. AGAIN!

Seriously. I don't need this. I spent my morning hunting for head lice. At least there is no school today.  Found them on 4 out of 7 heads. More or less shaved one of them. 4 mm of hair left. Brother thinks it looks cool and wants his head shaved, too. I shall oblige. When I was finally done checking and treating I was too worn out emotionally to continue.  I finally got my courage back up around 7 pm to start stripping beds. Turned the wash on at 8. House is falling apart. Clutter everywhere. Why oh why would I wish to go on with this? Nicole would say:"First world problems." So what. They still stress me out. Maybe, just maybe tomorrow will be better.

HALF TIME BREAK

Sports, concerts, even long movies all take half time breaks. I decided I will, too. I can't go on like this accumulating unfinished rooms. Especially as they are all so close to being finished. I think each of them can be done in under 2 hours. That sounds doable, don't you think?  Oh wait. The kitchen will take more time. Here is the plan:

Monday: kitchen + patio
Tuesday: kitchen + upstairs bathroom
Wednesday: kitchen + living room
Thursday: kitchen + guest room
Friday: kitchen

And then...new rooms, new adventures!

DISCOURAGED

I am not sure if the headline really gets across how I am feeling about this at the moment. I tried to get the kids to earn ice cream but they whined and lamented about 7 min blocks of cleanup being too long and that 5 would be all they can handle. I did what every evil mom would do. I got some work out of them and then decided that if any of them really want to go, they need to show some initiative. None of them did.

James is suffering severely from allergies and the week was just simply too much for both of us. We both crashed more than once and it feels like one of us was always napping. James made the kids work some more so they all have a little more than half an hour under their belt but no reward. Ella seemed to be the only one genuinely sad about it. I think I will support her in earning it a little more next week as she wasn't complaining.

I felt like crying tonight but gritted my teeth. Now that the day is up I will be honest. We got a lot more done then I thought at first. We even finally got my zucchini, tomato and  pepper plants planted. The cucumber doesn't look like it will make it, but we will see.

I have laundry to keep me busy for the rest of the night. It is such a struggle to keep going at the moment and it has been for weeks, but I refuse to give up. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Maybe I just need to take a step back and find out how to be more efficient. Maybe things just have to stop going wrong. Leaking dishwasher, emergency pick ups and stuff like that really doesn't help. Tomorrow is Sunday. I'll take it easy.

THE EARLY BIRD SLEPT IN

Mind you, I was up by 7:15 am but that is 1 h 15 after I want to be up and 45 min after I should be up at the latest. I also took a nap at lunch time and fell asleep at 6:30 pm right after dinner. I am not sure why I got up again, maybe because I thought it wasn't that late yet. I might have been completely out of energy, but I did get a few things done. Tiny steps but I feel good about it. I just need more sleep.

I DON'T CARE

I wish every day was "I don't care day" like yesterday but alas, it can't be. So I decided to swallow some worms, like them or not. It is kind of hard to keep picking worms when one child reappears at the doorstep crying the moment first period starts telling you he had trouble with the bike and then plan B to take the bus failed, as he didn't make it to the next stop in time. Never mind the torn backpack. When the next child tells you as they are about to leave the house they need the bike today at school you just sigh. You'd rather have your daughter keep drawing in the mean time but she isn't ready for school yet, oh and don't even mention that the other one is barely dressed. 

So once it is all sorted out, your husband, picked you up after he took the crying child to school (you drop him off at the office) and you barely made it to the doctor's office on time you think your only worry left for the day is piano lessons. So as you are wasting your life away in a waiting room, the receptionist looks at you and tells you, you have a phone call. It is your husband telling you that your son was smacked over the head by accident with a gym bag containing soccer cleats and he is at school right now and they recommend the child see a doctor and are you able to pick them up? Well. At least this gets you bumped to the front of the line. (silver lining!!!)

We skipped the doctor as he was starting to feel better at lunch time. Forgotten textbooks for homework were only a small nuisance and picking up James was a pleasure and I am oh so happy there is such a thing as frozen pizza. I even found a way to make progress in 2 rooms! So all in all I guess it is still all good. Now I'll kick into hero mode and finish the ironing!

I DON'T LIKE WORMS

At least I was more or less wide awake without an alarm by 5:40. As this week's Taxi Tuesday provided me with an additional appointment, 2 additional drop offs and one additional pick up I decided that anything besides taxi duties and feeding children was bonus.

Such a good feeling. For one you don't feel bad about sitting on the couch reading your emails, and you feel really good about yourself after you, sorted laundry, processed a load, went shopping, started cleaning out the car and ironed a pile of stuff. 

Yes. I am awesome. A bucket full of worms for me!

EATING WORMS

The early bird catches the worm they say. I have noticed that I get most of what I do get accomplished during the day done before 10 am. The only way to increase productivity is to get up earlier. Well.

My day was lousy. 107 little things messing up my day. There was slight progress on the project and I think I was able to pick a new room for this week. I am going for the guest room. Not much to declutter in there. Mostly clean and dust and then actually fill it up.

I refuse to surrender. I don't care how much there is to do. I don't care how hard it is. I will simply GET THIS DONE!