2016 - RESOLUTIONS

Over the last couple of months, I came across a few sheets of paper with NEW YEAR resolutions of the past few years, probably of the last decade. Turns out they were more or less the same.

• lose weight
• declutter
• get organized
• keep house clean
• improve piano skills
• learn new language

The amount I wanted to lose, or the language I wanted to work on has varied over the years, but all in all it has stayed the same. My conclusion? Obviously not much has changed. 

This year I have changed my approach. I obviously won't be losing the 66 lbs I want to lose, neither will I be selling tickets for my piano concerts. What I have done is look at WHY I fail to achieve those goals.

Lets take losing weight. This is what stops me:

• eating to much 
• eating at the wrong time
• eating the wrong thing
• not working out
• turning to food for comfort

This is what I am planning on doing to fix it:

• have fixed meal times
• have a meal plan
• start with a 5 min work out routine and increase it gradually
• find a different way of dealing with stress.

By not picking a certain number of pounds to lose this year I hope to take some of the stress of it away. I want to focus on a healthier me, not on the magic number.

4th DAY OF CHRISTMAS - GO AHEAD, LAUGH

So we decided to go to my parents house for New Years. Of course I got nothing done today. Besides traveling 350 miles I needed all day to "wrap things up". I really need to stop putting things off. It didn't help that I had a day less than I thought and I barely found out yesterday. So today was spent frantically getting done all the things I still wanted to do. I didn't succeed but got a lot more done than I expected. Baby was super clingy, but hey, no news.

As the boys made progress in their room thanks to my marvelous input and continued supervision I will declare their room the room of the day. Am I done? No! Of course not. But isn't it so much more fun with all these half finished projects?

I guess I will just hit "pause" on the project. Can't really continue working in my home if I am not there. I will check if there is anything that belongs to me still at my parents house. If I get it all taken care off I will treat myself to an accomplished day! How's that!

3rd DAY OF CHRISTMAS - SELF SABOTAGE

I really wanted to start on the stairs and top landing today. It is all in boxes and most of it is clothes and toys so lets face it, not too hard. Unfortunately I realized that I could tackle that "en passant". IF I deal with 1 or 2 items every time I go past the pile of baskets and boxes should be gone by the end of the day. I dealt with 1 basket this way yesterday and lets remember. Yesterday was NOT a good day. Considering it was only day 3 and I was already 2 days behind I figured I want to stay away from it, just like I would stay away from the boys room (except for coaching) and the laundry room as the "take care of something when you flip the laundry" approach seems to be working well, too. 
Considering my left over options I decided on the down stairs bathroom in the hopes of being done fast and thus allowed to finish the upstairs bathroom and the bedroom. Well. Once I got started it went fast. Too bad I didn't get started until 4 pm and too bad that I never finished. I left 1 shelf. A tiny shelf. I think I am just trying to sabotage myself again. Just making sure I can't tell myself how well I did at the end of the day. But guess what. This is what I did

• 7 baskets of dirty laundry sorted
• 8 loads of laundry washed
• 1 load hung
• 7 loads in the dryer
• 8 loads folded (I had leftover laundry from the day before)
• 6 loads put away
• cooked dinner
• baked 3 sheets of cookies
• reduced upstairs pile "en passant" 
• made progress in the laundry room
• cleaned parts of the kitchen
• kept 6 kids alive and out of trouble
• made sure said kids practiced their instruments
• made said kids take out trash and clean up at least 100 items each

Forget that little shelf. I did AWESOME!

2nd DAY OF CHRISTMAS - BAD DAY

I can't believe this. The upstairs bathroom was supposed to be the easiest. And I only got half of it done. Seriously! The baby was super fussy all day. Nothing went the way I wanted it to. So I messed up day 2, like I messed up day 1. This stinks. I am also not sure why I thought that finishing laundry on the 23rd would mean anything for this challenge. I washed 4 on Saturday, 5 today and trust me, this is not the last I have seen of the laundry room. I am not even sure which room to attempt tomorrow.  Downstairs bathroom as it's easy? Laundry room as it is started already? ARGH! Decisions, decisions. How I hate it.  

PEACEFUL REST

I am not sure how to describe to you the feeling of peace and serenity you experience going to bed in a clean room. Why do I keep this kind of peace from myself? It is definitely a great motivator to keep working on this project. I want to feel this kind of serenity in EVERY room!

1st DAY OF CHRISTMAS - CHANGED PLANS

I should know myself better than to schedule a clean up to start in the middle of a holiday weekend. Besides sleeping until almost 11 I felt like watching movies, not like cleaning up. But guess what. James started cleaning up our bedroom. Before I even got out of bed. I never told him that I have this clean up planned. This way I won't feel like I am watched, or adding extra pressure. So, when James started taking care of all the things I was scared of in the bedroom I decided to change plans. I decided that instead of the upstairs bathroom I would do the bedroom. But guess what, I didn't. I started. Yes. I got about one third done. I could kick myself. What kind of a start is this? Worst of all is that James "cheated". He moved 5 baskets of stuff out. Don't judge. They grew miraculously over night when he clean up the downstairs for Christmas. As he moved them I figured I'll let it pass. Sneaky me. I worked on 2 of the baskets, none finished, started on the laundry room and figured if only I guide the boys a little they might be able to pull their room off by themselves and as agreed upon a few days ago, I get the glory. So. Never finished the room and started 3 others. This is NOT how this is supposed to work. I hope I can get myself back on track with day 2 on Monday and the upstairs bathroom. Fingers crossed.

REMEMBER THE REASON

for the season! May your Christmas be filled with love and joy, with hope and happiness!

Remember the child, born in a stable, laid down to sleep in a manger. The greatest gift of all.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

PREPARING FOR THE 12 DAYS

In order to not be too sidetracked or overwhelmed during the challenge, I made sure I have laundry out of the way, fresh sheets on the beds and I have a meal plan. I will also tell the kids that we will go through their rooms together and that they should be prepared to part with things.
Stuffing things into rooms that have not been tackled is not allowed. Stuffing it into rooms that have been taken care off will results in a 2 hour attic penalty. And that would REALLY hurt. 

HERE'S THE PLAN

As I want my Sundays off, but really want to put in 12 days of work I decided to just go 2 days longer. As I will not really be doing the 12 actual days I figured I might also start a day late. SO I will go until the 8th of January. I will start with the easy stuff. This way the 26th should be a breeze and it can be done early in the morning or at night or in between, whatever works best. Around New Years I will stay in the basement rooms to not mess up the living area. I have given myself permission to switch days any time as being "in the mood" for a room is crucial. Once the day is up, that's it. I will not drag it into the new day. I will start a new room every morning. This sounds like a recipe for certain failure, but I have learned over the years to not pull it all out but go drawer by drawer. If a room goes fast and I have time left, I can keep working on a leftover room once the room of the day is done. This way I will make sure that every room will be worked on. Otherwise the rooms I hate often go untouched. I am allowed to delegate anything I want to delegate and still get the credit. I better delegate A LOT!

SPINACH

I had a crying fit over a pot of spinach today. It had been a stressful day. And yet, I still made it to the kitchen to cook a healthy dinner. Chicken, potatoes, broccoli and fresh spinach. The place was a madhouse. I had to feed the baby, keep kids working and best of all I kept my calm. Time was running out, but I kept working. I asked Matt to take out the biodegradable waste, which he did. I heard him come back in and next thing I know he is standing next to me with a clean pot and I was wondering what he wanted from me. And that is when I saw a pot with potato peels and other leftovers in the sink. He had thrown out the spinach I had just spent 10 min prepping. 

You might not believe it, but for a second I thought about going to check if I could save some. I dismissed the thought within a second and figured my time was better spent sitting on the kitchen floor, sobbing. Which I did for the next 15 min.  It's not like the tossed spinach was such a big deal. This morning I already found a basket full of clothes. Half of it clean, the other half dirty. Too late to find out which was what. So it just went back into the wash. It feels like every day is like this. No matter what I do I am doomed to fail. And plenty of people to make sure I do. Why do laundry if someone gets the clean stuff mixed in with the dirty? They can wear soiled stuff. Why prep vegetables if someone just tosses them? Might as well just order pizza. 

No matter how hard I try, it feels like it's never enough. Well. I guess I'll just give it another try again tomorrow. I just have to make sure I have enough chocolate.

CHECKMATE

Nothing like putting in all this work, just to realize you forgot to put the sugar in the dark dough. 11 more days and I can have my fresh start. I know, you can start whenever, but a new year always brings new hope. At the moment I feel that I fail at whatever I start, no matter how hard I work.  Lets hope I will not only work hard, but also get some things accomplished next year!

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

I know, I know. This is for lunatics. But I can't help it. I have been thinking about this for so long I will do it. I simply will. I don't care about your objections. I will do the 12 days of Christmas as a room clean up. Each day I will go through one room. Day 1- room 1- Day 2- room 1+2, Day 3 - room 1+2+3. You get the idea. Crazy? Most definitely. I know you are thinking about my Easter challenge way back when and you are getting worried. I accomplished so much back then. I thought I failed, but looking back I realize I didn't. This works for me. So I will do it again. Call me crazy. This should be fun!

THE BURNING HOUSE

So here is that dream I mentioned in my last post.

A few weeks ago I dreamt that the house was on fire. I am not sure if it was my house or not, clearly did NOT look at all like my house I am in right now, plus it was on a different continent. My stuff was in the house. That's for sure. It's been a few weeks so some of the details are foggy. Here is what I clearly remember.

The house was built on a hill. So the basement was going out level to the ground on one side of the house. We were in the basement. Some teenagers where upstairs and a fire started in a bedroom on the ground floor. We were in the process of packing stuff into boxes when we heard about  the fire. If I remember correctly we where about to move. So we ran out and I was thinking:"All my stuff will burn. Oh no!" My next thought was:"Maybe it is for the better. Let the ballast burn and start over."
When we got outside the fire department was there. As it was just a tiny fire, they decided to wait and see if it would go out by itself. We then decided that as long as there is just a tiny fire we could just as well go back in and get our stuff. We almost had it all out when I thought:"Too bad. Now I am stuck with it all." 
The fire department was right and the fire went out by itself. I was "stuck with my stuff" and when I woke I wasn't sure what to make of that dream. If I had any active readers I would open this for discussion, but I guess I'll have to interpret it on my own!  

THE VORTEX

I have a dresser in the hall with 2 small and 2 big drawers. One of the big drawers has the qualities of a vortex. What ever comes too close, gets drawn in, sucked to the bottom and never resurfaces. During my last emergency clean up I obviously pushed too much into the way of the vortex and it kind of spilled over and something had to be done. 

I now know why I couldn't find any hats during the summer. I also learned that useless paper takes up lots of room. Marie was delighted when she found out those little ponies were hers. I wish I could claim ruthlessness, but I think it was more randomness. 

I am not ready to do this properly yet. In the mean time I will just pick out the easy stuff and deal with the rest later. Or never. I dreamt my house burnt down. But that's another story. 

ISOLATED

My internet provider decided it would be cool to cut me off from the world for 3.5 days. No internet, no phone. You are probalby thinking I got a lot done as I wasn't distracted by the www, but guess what. I spent way too much time trying to get it to work again.

No internet was less of a problem than no phone it turned out. Not a single conversation with an adult unless James was home. Have you ever tried to notify the school that your child is sick if you don't have a phone or access to the internet?

Well it is back up. The last 10 days have been hard for me. I am seeing first signs of depression and I am terrified. I do NOT want to fall into that hole again.

Christmas is 2 weeks away but we already have flood of things coming in. Like the almost 80 used comic books we got dirt cheap and that will keep the kids happy for a long time.

The question is: Will I try to get as much or more out than in BEFORE or AFTER Christmas?