ROTM - MAY

Room of the month for MAY will be the kitchen. And yup. It's done. Cupboards emptied, cleaned, reorganized. Declutterd. Yes, no worries. To be honest. There was not much clutter and I pride myself in still having shelves that are basically empty. I might still be working on the January and February rooms, but I believe I just earned myself  2 extra weeks for those!

How on earth did I pull this one off you wonder? Well, 2 days of hard work and some cleaning fairy magic of course!

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!

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!

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!

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?"

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!

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!

I READ A WHOLE BOOK

Today I gave myself permission to simply read a book. More or less a whole book. I did start it yesterday. My friend gave it to me yesterday. She got it for herself to read, but gave it to me first, saying:"you'll be done with it a lot faster then I will be." True. But I am already reading a book. And I abandoned that one to read another one I got from a friend last Friday. (Yup. I finished it and returned that one already.) No wonder she ever has time to dig through her stuff you will say. I guess it is a way of decluttering for me. This way, the book is read and returned in less than a week. One more thing off my list. I think it would be easier to just say:"Thank you so much for thinking of me, but I really don't have time for this book right now. I'll get back to you."

Well. The book is read. The 3rd load of laundry is running, the dishwasher was loaded and is read to be loaded again, 2nd load in the dryer, 2 loads folded and one put away. It is not like I was idle. I even got all the kids to do a chore around the house. And got a hold of the repair man for the washer finally. And music lessons sorted out. Most likely I am doing a lot better than I think,it'S just hard for me to give my self credit for the things I do get accomplished. 

Surface of the day: kitchen counter (always a surprise how much stuff ends up there)

7 a day: indoor trash can (Ironic, I know, throwing out a trash can, but the thing was old AND broken) 2 plates