Cleaning habits, Challenge week works!

I've come to a realisation about the creation of good habits. Small good habits, or small efforts made repeatedly, lead to a self-regulating habit. Just like this post on "Habit V's Guilt" I am discovering that baby steps do indeed make cleaning progress. Not only do baby steps eventually lead to real changes, but the slow creation of habits over time creep in.

There is something about confidence that makes a contribution here too. The entire theme for this post started out when I happily noticed that the laundry has managed to stay in a state of what I'd call controlled chaos since the great laundry challenge week (updates found here, here and here).

The state of the laundry looks pretty awful at the moment, but the reality is that I'm getting through my 1-2 loads a day from beginning to end and for the most part, everything is where it should be. The same kind of thing is happening in the kitchen. Sure the hard-to-wash-up stuff sometime lingers, and there always seems to be leftover washing up, but its not the same dirty pot sitting here on Thursday that was there last weekend. Its a new pot, replacing the cake tin.  I think when I am more confident, and my habits are even better, I can raise the expectation that no dirty dishes will be there from one day to the next.

I think I'm getting all my concepts mushed up in a mess here, but what I'm figuring out is that by giving myself permission not to be perfect in my habits, while simultaneously keeping up some confidence that I'll get these things done, I'm managing to keep on top of some routines.

All I need to do now is keep up with the decluttering and slowly add in more routine cleaning.  Seems so simple but I suspect it will be a slow road.

Something also seems to be brewing in the wider family as this evening my husband has swept the floor without any prompting. 

Veggie Garden Challenge week!

This week, I'm inspired to get out into our veggie garden.  We have been half hearted growers for about 5 years, and last year I achieved my goal of having some kind of crop year-round.  Here is the most recent harvest, a Kent Pumpkin.  Last year at one point we had 6 growing on the vine.

My challenge for the week is to get the winter crops planted, as well as a fresh batch of year-round things like lettuce and carrots.

Here are the before shots.

These are the 2 empty beds at the front. Behind the big bed is mostly parsley and beetroot.

This shot shows the weeds! but in the foreground is the mini-bed with capsicum (bell peppers) and a big space in the middle where my tomatos and basil are going.

We have chives to help keep the aphids away from our rosebushes. I planted these on the weekend, with my son, around 'his' rosebush, a scented Mister Lincoln who hasn't yet flowered.  I also want to incorporate nasturiun and marigolds into the pest-repellants for the rose area.

The other crops going in are 2 punnets of lettuce - but first we need to finish preparing the bed, with some extra soil and compost.  I will be sowing some carrot seeds into trays for transplanting among the lettuce as they make good companion plants.

 

My husband bought some unknown 'somethings' I think I'll get them identified before I let them into the garden! 

We also have cucumbers (or they might be zucchini!) - these will need some support as the plants grow viney.

Happily, I already managed to get the 4 basil and 2 tomato plants into a garden bed with some existing capsicum (bell peppers) before all our rain, so with any luck they will thrive as soon as it stops raining. This is the basil before planting out, in one big clump.

For the rest of the week I'll be working on the list of jobs and plants above.  At the moment around the subtropics it really is time to plant broccoli and some of the other winter crops for early harvesting.

In the northern hemisphere its the perfect time to get all your spring / summer crops in like beans, beetroot, cucumber, cabbage, celery, even sweet corn, potato and leeks.  This site has a terrific worldwide sowing guide, although nothing replaces local knowledge, if you can get in touch with keen growers near you they'll have so many tips and tricks that suit your climate perfectly.

When all else fails, fake it, cut corners & take a shortcut!

Today is a day of cutting corners. In the end, that is what has made it a successful day.  All the corner cutting has paid off with a hefty dose of "hey I did it". Sometimes faking it till you make it really is the magic formula!  I've heard people say that before - its certainly written in the book I'm reading "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. After my experience today, I would agree that there is a lot to be gained in terms of getting things done and positive energy in having a go at this strategy!

There are a never-ending number of ways you can 'fake it', some of my favourite cheats and shortcuts include:
- putting on music for little ones to dance to to buy a few minutes of instant fun
- making 'fake' dips, like 'corn relish' dip - blend some cream cheese and a jar of corn relish - voila, tasty dip, looks homemade! A similar dip can be made with a packet of french onion soup, as shown here, or you can also make up about 1/4 of a cup of soup first, it make the blending easier!
- applying a thin layer of wax to a clean stovetop to make spills easy to wipe off - I'm yet to do this one, it is pinned to my new "Organising Energy" pinterest page, here.
- pouring some vinegar into the bottom of the dishwasher to kill germs
- adding vinegar to washing up for an extra sparkly finish
- deliberately hugging for at least 30 seconds or more even when I don't feel like cuddling, because thats how long it takes endorphins and other good hug-hormones to work. This one really works a treat!
- I've already mentioned my inability to do birthdays weekly here. So I make do with my post office issues, and send them quarterly. Everyone still gets a card, and while I've had a few comments on the earliness / lateness of the cards, what I haven't felt is guilty for not sending one at all. It really bugs me. I think birthday cards are important, no matter your age. So when I don't send them (like I haven't sent any this year!) I feel quite bad for the lack of respect and love I've shown my family and friends.

The special fake-it day I had today involved quite a few moments of making do, and getting on with it. This is the story of my fake-it day.

Today I attended a local birthing and mother's community group. It is a bring-a-plate thing. So I took these rather ordinary jam rolls bought from the supermarket, and dressed them up a little!

I simply cut each roll into thirds, tured them onto their sides and suddenly I had little mini rolls. Sure, everyone probably knows they're store bought, but they're now snazzier! For a children's function you could add some icing writing on the plate to make little snails!

 

Going with the theme of shortcuts - I always wash out stains that needs a bit of a handwash while I'm in the shower. It is strangely soothing using your feet to clean while relaxing. One of the advantages of the shiny new shower, inspirational place to do the handwashing!

We even 'cheated' at taking my son to school today. I dropped him and his Dad off, reassuring him that Daddy couldn't leave as I had the car! Separation anxiety eased. A great schoolday was had and the school library got a parent helper for an entire day!

I'll leave you with a cool idea for some down-time play, especially on these crazy, rainy days.  I had some flour that had for some reason been left with its lid off, so we made playdough! The no-stove recipe I use is:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 tablespoon Cream of Tartare
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup of hot / boiling water
stir, knead and add food colouring.

And when you are all done playing, store the homemade playdough in the fridge for next time in a ziplock sandwich sized bag!

Thats it from my day of short cuts and 'faking it"

101 Dreams

For Christmas I bought myself this book from Kikki-K.

I am not sure what I hoped to acomplish with it, perhaps I was hoping to get some organisation from the sinking depths I felt I was in at that time. What has surprised me, is to discover, when I reopened the book after it has been hidden behind junk for a while, is the following entry:



Dream #11 - write a blog!

And here I am, writing. Its not the blog I had in mind, but this blog is absolutely the one that needed to be written. It contributes nicely to dream #5 - live in a clean house.

Its a bit different to writing a bucket list, this 'dream' idea. While my bucket list might list 90 places I'd like to visit, my dreams are constructed of slightly different stuff - things like visiting my relatives; taking a family vacation.  After 2 months, it still only has a list of 30 dreams, but they're heartfelt and meaningful to me.  I think I'll be keeping this dream book a little closer :)

We are having internet problems here with heavy rainfall and flooding nearby, so a blog with pics is on its way, stay tuned!

Cleanup Challenge - the Final Review

Last week I was busy doing my 30 minutes a day cleanup. It taught me a lot about motivation, and about the limitations of my illness (cleanup at night is bad for sleeping). It also did get me out of a few bad habits and into some good ones.

Bad habits that bit the dust last week during cleanup challenge were:
1. Resentment at jobs not done by my husband. This week past, I just got on with doing them myself.

2. Avoiding the rooms that are cluttered or messed up. This has been a big one for me, as the longer I avoid a room, the more opportunity that my clutterbug husband has been in it making a disaster area! So getting myself throughout the whole house daily has been important.

And the positive habits I am beginning have been:
1. Leaving each room a little brighter. This goes hand in hand with the whole concept of a daily clean-up and some days this is the way I spent my whole 30 minutes of the cleanup challenge, just going back and forth brightening up by de-messing. I have even started contemplating indoor plants again!



2. Continuing good habits in the laundry - I've made an effort to keep up the good progress from the laundry challenge and continue to complete a load of washing, not just keep putting more and more in the machine until the clean laundry ends up all over the laundry floor!

3. Keeping busy. Its kind of like leaving the room brighter, but more about the energy. I've just made sure that I have kept moving, kept cleaning and tidying as I go, rather than stopping to let myself get bogged down thinking about it all, I'm just getting stuck into the cleaning.

Today's keeping busy has rather shocked me - I seem to have blitzed a few things. I've been maintaining the newly cleared off windowsills free of my husband's attempts with several stray items over the past week or so to re-clutter the sill area with random things including: an electrical plug, random spices outside of my spice basket, washing up that needed doing (yes he put this on the windowsill!) and at one stage the random knives that USED to live up there were returned by him instead of thrown out! Never a dull moment living with a clutterer.

Motivation to Clean - its out there!

The list is here! My top 7 motivators to get up and get cleaning! For me personally the overall motivation is to live in a clean, tidy environment. However finding the daily motivation to make sure that happens is another matter entirely.

Here are some of the best tips I've found so far:

1. Invite someone over! Now I've spent some time adjusting my attitude that I want my house clean for ME, not for visitors. That still doesn't stop me from cleaning more when I know someone is coming. And while that in grained habit exists, keeping a regular stream of visitors through your house can be a terrific motivator.

2. I also found this article about dust mites disturbing enough to prompt the motivation up a gear.

3. Visit someone with a clean house! I will admit that jealousy of someone else's clean domain really gets me going in terms of motivation to do the best with what I have!

4. Get some alone time with your mess. I find that one of the biggest motivators for me is having the time when I'm not going to be interrupted by a toddler to really get into the swing of cleaning up.

5. Finish something. Anything. It could be the washing up, or it could be something like posting a letter that you just haven't gotten around to doing. Whatever it is doesn't matter, as long as you finish one thing. It is inspiration to keep going.

6. Set a timer and just start with a de-junking / rubbish collection / 27-fling Boogie and throw out as much rubbish and recycling as you can. If that doesn't motivate you to keep going, well at least you've done 15 minutes of cleaning already! Fill up your bin!




7. Get dressed up - Right now, when you're attempting to get motivated, start out by getting dressed up - whatever that means to you, whether it is Flylady's lace up shoes or your own personal 'ready' look. Mine is hair and teeth, I discovered here.

And if you are so stuck, that you can't face any of these tips, feeling overwhelmed, then try my magic 4 - have a glass of water, do some exercise, take a long view (how much does it matter right now?) and get started, anywhere. Do not panic.

Keeping up with correspondence and other paper issues!

Or, paper is my nemesis! I find paperwork the single biggest cluttery mess of all time. Recently, cleaning out a box that had been sitting idle for 3, yes THREE years, I managed to reconnect with a schoolfriend, who'd written me a letter and included her email address. With the wonders of facebook we were soon chatting online, just as we used to in primary school :)

Which leads me to posting about what tips and tricks I have learnt about keeping up with paperwork and correspondence. Its absolutely a work in progress, as I'm still learning!

1. My first tip is to find somewhere to store all the 'outgoing' correspondence stuff. Thats the stamps, envelopes, notepaper and cards. I love cards, and like to keep cards for all occasions on hand. A large part of my difficulty with corresponding is the sheer volume of child-unfriendly stores I need to visit to successfully send anything! Here's a pic of my storage box for correspondence. You might prefer yours labelled.


2. Write seasonal birthday greetings. I started this a few years ago, and it has been my most successful method of sending greetings yet. Instead of writing a card the week before individual birthdays, because of my organisational challenges, I send 3 months of cards at one time. I still phone or email, or whatever is normal on their birthday but at least then they also get a bit of a bright card too, because its nice to receive letters in the post. Its much easier to sit down once to write to a few friends and family than to find the time every week. You might find it perfectly easy to do weekly, or perhaps once a month is a good time. For me, its every 3 months. I know I can fit it in 4 times a year. I use a recycled Elephant Poop Calendar to keep track on a perpetual calendar for all birthdays. You can get something similar, minus the poop here. Or you can make your own, using a funky free download from the lovely Avie Designs Stationery




3. Incoming mail. I always open the incoming mail and immediately sort it into a. rubbish; b. filing and c. to pay - I no longer have a 'to read' pile, as the one I started sat 6 months unread and growing. In the minimisation effort that is my house, as I open it, into the bin, filing cabinet or 'bills' pile it goes immediately. I have even taken to paying bills when I open them in order to have all paperwork immediately in the filing cabinet or bin!


4. information from schools, doctors etc is my current disaster when it comes to paperwork. Generally these things need keeping for reference. Many people find a decorated magazine holder for each type of information e.g. school, doctor. works for them. I am beginning to go paper free - I answer school notes immediately, just like opening bills, and I use my phone's calendar to immediately enter in any important appointments or dates and even reference information so that I no longer need the note from school in its physical form.

5. Birthday cards and mementos - I have a single box at the moment for each child as their memory box. At the moment its small and plain plastic because its a relatively new addition to my organising regime. After display on the birthday, the cards go into their box. Achievements at sport go into an album, as do school reports and other school related certificates. At the moment school certificates and awards for my daughter are in a simple binder from Officeworks.

Leave each room a little brighter

Thats my motto for today. The idea comes from the wonderful wisdom of "Organise and Decorate Everything" found here on Facebook and here on the www.

Day 3 of her 28 ways to stay organised is a cracker - with "Always leave a room looking better than when you entered it." You can follow the rest of the 28 days on facebook. For now, I'm focussing on Day 3, and how much difference that can make.

This morning before school, I must have done laps between the living room, front door, back door, laundry and kitchen at least half a dozen times. The fun of having 2 schoolkids and a toddler! Keeping in mind the mantra to leave the room a little better, the living room soon had dirty dishes removed, a bit of plastic wrap binned, and some clothes put into the laundry dirty sorting pile. My kitchen table got cleaned off over several trips past it to the bin and the few things that had fallen out of (or never quite made it to) the sorted dirty laundry were quickly put in their proper place. It created a lovely vortex of positive energy whereever I went, because I was on the lookout for the sort of debris in the house that I normally try not to look at!!! Funnily enough, those little things made a difference to how the house felt when I returned after the school drop-off, I had taken a load of rubbish to the bin!

On that note, its bin day again today and the fridge got another clean-out - anything potentially suspicious all tossed out to make room for fresh food and straight into the rubbish truck!!!

Another bonus today was the impromptu window wipe - I went to open my son's juice bottle and it had turned rancid in the heat - and exploded all over the window above the sink! So the window cleaner, paper towel and I had a little pre-breakfast date to clean up. :) The room is now a lot brighter, literally!

Progress made!

Given that I spent some time in the entry this week, I decided to stay there, and aim for some cleaning that went deeper than the surface of things. And I discovered, once I emptied out the shelves, that I own an incredible amount of jigsaw puzzles!


After the photograph and the amazement of the tower of puzzles that I have, it was time to sort. I found the early parts of sorting easiest, and after making a dozen decisions or so, it got harder and more and more puzzles ended up on the 'maybe' pile.

My puzzle sorting doesn't fit in with most 'organiser' recommendations. Its unique to me and my puzzle scenario.

First were puzzles I'd finished, and had no attachment to. The 'get rid of' pile.

Then the puzzles that I either hadn't done or thought I might like to do again. A subset of this was the 2000 plus pieces and the less than 750 pieces groups separated out.

Last were the puzzles I knew I absolutely wanted to keep. There were about 6 of these from that whole tower. Scenes I like, special memories, particularly fun ones.

Now I am pretty overwhelmed at the responsibility of taking ACTION! Very grown up this sorting and deciding business. While getting children to bed, I remembered a recent article about the way cluttered people make decisions, and its true! I felt very uncomfortable making snap decisions after the first few. Towards the end, all the decisions I made had very little connection to how I felt about the puzzle, and a hell of a lot to do with how uncomfortable I felt.

Bearing all this in mind, what I plan to do is to start doing puzzles, and see if in 3 months, or 6 months I still have the same attachment to the 'maybe' puzzles. After the time passes it might seem pointless to keep them for the 'one day' when children are bigger.

In the meantime I've made offers to loan them out to friends, and I've chosen a better home for the ones I'm keeping - instead of in what was the conveniently new and empty hutch in the entry, they'll be making their way upstairs to the toy /craft area and stored in a large cupboard up there that needs a good cleanout but is otherwise unused.

Ooops! Wayward Energy Bomb!

Yep, thats the energy bomb hitting town. It seems my 'daily 30 minute cleanup' has come unstuck on some very basic issues of stress and illness management. Apparently I find this whole cleaning at night thing far too stimulating! So far my evenings have been:
 Day 1 - successfully tipping out stuff and cleaning up plenty.

Day 2 - wiped out with pain and brain feeling too overwhelmed to do anything

Day 3 - bit more energy, a catch-up clean during the morning and now

Day 4 - evening after children asleep I'm just so grateful to have time in peace and quiet and again pained and feeling overwhelmed.

It is very clear that the IDEA of cleaning up every night is extremely inspiring. Not only do I get a 30 minute clean done, but during the day it seems more is tackled. It is building my awareness and also a sense of being capable of tackling boxes hiding in not-so-out-of-the-way corners! Today my husband and I went through an Ikea box together and put away everything that wasn't rubbish. Half the box went in the bin! There is more to this energy bombing than meets the eye. Am I simply getting afraid of succeeding when I tackle the daily cleanup? or too excited at the wrong time of day for helping me sleep? I think personally that I am finding the successful cleanups a little daunting, as it makes the possibility of clutter-free that little bit more real, so more important. But the time limit of doing it in the evening is very counter-intuitive for me. I have an auto-immune disease. Its never a good idea to do things that will disrupt a soothing night time. The National Sleep Foundation suggests to

•Spend some time "winding down." A person with insomnia needs a "buffer zone," a period of time to allow the activating processes in the brain to wind down to allow the alerting mechanisms to decrease their activity so that the sleep systems can take over. I suggest that you start winding down two hours before bedtime. Stop all work and end phone calls to family and friends, as often they are activating.

None of which I was achieving by doing any kind of cleaning "before bed". So the plan is to continue the 30 minute 'tidy up' challenge, but with the proviso that it needn't be at any particular point in the day, as long as the intention is similar to the 'end of day' concept, of tidying and neatening all around the house. Without causing me sleepless nights!

Cleanup Challenge Day 3

After a couple of high-pain days I was ready to get back into the cleanup challenge. The front entry had been littered with various things, toys, a boxful of generic nonsense from the car, and 2 boxes of tools during the course of the previous week. So quite by accident, I spent over 40 minutes cleaning up just the entry, replacing childrens books in the bookcase, moving tools to the edge of the room neatly, re-tidying shoes and then sweeping the whole thing.

I also took the time to re-organise and stand up all my photo frames and make the room look a little more inviting. My 'end of day cleanup' swept the kitchen floor too, and swished the toilet, put on 2 loads of washing. So far, its a success, although I have had to be mindful of the concept of creating a habit, and not feeling guilty when I was too sick to get stuck into it the previous night. I've also had the opportunity to consider some information from "The Happiness Project" author in her blog, that you should not get more organised, and rather should just throw throw throw things out. It makes sense. There is too much stuff in my house, and I'm better off without most of it I'm sure. Her 'don't get organised' blog is a great read. What I'm going to spend the morning doing is following FlyLady's excellent plans for decluttering. 27 Fling Boogies and 5 minute Fire Drills here I come!

When Things break whats really important?

Some days it all just goes to hell in a handbasket, doesn't it? Today is one of those days. I've drunk the water, done some cleaning, done my level best to remain civil to those I love. And it still just feels like a horrid day. Perhaps thinking about money, work, trying new things, and my 40th birthday all at once was brain overload?!! First world problems. Blog will resume with some tidbit of knowledge and learning from the day if some's to be had.

	Women Of History (@WomenOfHistory)
15/02/13 8:50 AM Never let a problem to be solved become more importantly than a person to be loved. -Barbra Johnson

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And that's it! When all else fails, remember love. Today I cuddled my children, apologised to my husband and read the little ones 3 or 4 picture books. Job done today!

Valentine's update

Today being a day some people go crazy about, I didn't need an excuse to give my children a bit of extra love this morning. I made them both a valentines heart. Perhaps next year it'll be craftier and snazzier, but this year it was pretty simple. Happy Valentine's Day!

Cleanup Challenge Update #1

The first evening of the cleanup challenge was a roaring success! I'm amazed at the range of things I got cleaned up in just 30 minutes, all around the house. Its been a long time coming but this week's challenge is going to be good for me! First I threw out rubbish from the kitchen, picked up random washing, put away groceries that had been left on the floor in bags. Then tidied all the random shoes to the front door, cleaned cat food bowls and left in sink to soak, fed cat and turned on his heater! Cat did well from this effort! Swept up cat feeding area, plus a random muffin spillage from earlier in the evening. Also while I had the dustpan and brush, swept the traffic area of the stairs, boy was there build up of random flotsam, including what seemed to be the entire contents of a packet of raw nuts! Upstairs I put away some clean laundry, then in the living room I put toys in the toybin and tidied up the xbox controllers and games. Rearranged furniture a bit to suit my liking and swept a little of a styrofoam disaster! I also swept up where my husband had thoughtfully used a broom to make one huge pile of muck in the hallway, all in the bin now! Tossed out a great deal of recycling, empty packaging mainly! Turned off 3 lights that didn't need to be on, tidied away a few toys from the hallway and all of a sudden, 30 minutes is gone by!

My blind moggie is happy to have his warm heater :) The update from my morning's efforts is that last night both getting the laundry finished and tidying so much around the house has inspired me in the house today. I have caught up on washing up, swept the floor, installed a temporary vanity unit in the new laundry/bathroom. Next I'm off to tackle a couple of problem areas in the house that have been bugging me for ages.

Challenge Week Update!

Today marks the end of my "Laundry Challenge" and I'm happy to say it has certainly been a success! Thinking about and focussing on one area of work for the 7 days has given me the boost to make progress in the laundry, to be inspired to tackle other areas, and get something 'finished' - although the 'finished' job at the end was far simpler than the 'finished' job I hoped for on day 1. My laundry has gone from cluttered and a dumping ground for all dirty clothes wet and dry on the floor, with a huge mountain of clean clothes growing from a washing basket in the corner, to an orderly looking room with nothing on the floor, sorted dirty clothes in this great Antonius system from Ikea.

Clean washing is also sorted in Ikea, so that everyone in the family can collect and put away their own clothes easily. What I've learnt from my weekly challenge is that it is a great way to accomplish something in a particular area; that it motivates me to move and meet my 20 minutes goal every day; that I need to continue the laundry challenge and add in another challenge next week, building on the foundation of my routines until I am a powerhouse of keeping things tidy and organised! I'm so pumped by this challenge that I'm going to start my new Challenge today - this one is going to be doing a nightly clean up, every night for 8 nights! What that means in this case will be spending 5 minutes in every room, making something neater, tidying, collecting all dirty dishes and rubbish and taking them out, and where possible, pick up everything off the floor. It will probably be a 30 minutes a day job, because our house is very large and I'll be doing the whole thing!

School Routine

Todays post is short and sweet. Tonight I made, thanks to pinterest, a visual reminder card set for morning routine for my son who started school this year. Here it is

Thats it from me for today! I'll let you know if the visual aide works. Laundry day 6 in progress now, I am off to set a timer, or I'll get distracted!

Unfinished business ....

Todays thoughts are about never finishing anything or being prepared in advance with something so that I can get it completed properly. This is an increasing problem for me, 2 years ago when I started homeschooling my eldest I found it easier to work through things, now it seems impossible even getting simple tasks done. And this needs to change, it's been 2 weeks and my daughters 2nd school shoe is still missing. I am beginning to think I threw it out! But it's a sign of my scattered mind that until now I haven't cared! Yet it affects how she does at school (well it doesn't but soon I'll get a 'please explain' from the principal). I think to boost my spirits I need to plan and execute something simple but big enough to give me a sense of accomplishment. To get me over that line no matter what!

Incredible achievement of Steve Bradbury, to be the one who finished! Back to my more mundane unfinished business, I originally wanted to decorate one room as undersea theme. At the moment that seems daunting. I think instead I'll make an autumn theme and re-new our autumn wall - actually I'll do all 4 seasons and put them on a new wall in the house - with the craft all prepared before I start so kids get 4 days craft out of it with confidence that it will be completed not just a half arsed job. My TO DO list for this project looks roughly like this: Words - print out words and take to be laminated Craft - collect season craft ingredients in one box Location - find a location and make sure there is sufficient space - consider all seasons on one wall for practicality such as behind TV? Share - send to friends with children a care package ready to go; sell premade packages online Project complete! Autumn leaves, still have plus Pinterest Winter - Snowflakes doilies Spring - flowers Summer - sun craft, check Pinterest and pool theme or beach theme? I'll update with progress on the seasonal crafts later, but in the meantime, an update after today. I am shocked at how effective just thinking about things in a new light can be. Today, looking for an opportunity to finish a project, I came home from settling my father back at his nursing home, grabbed the pre-cooked potatoes from the fridge and set out making 'Tuna Beach Balls' from the recipe my daughter picked for her school lunches 2 weeks ago. Fiddly and annoying cooking, but a real hit with her, she wants 4 for morning tea! I am so glad I took the opportunity and time to make them, instead of catching up with washing up tonight. And I'm painfully aware my work isn't done as it is still laundry week and I'm heading back in there to see what I can get done tonight before bed! Please share any of your 'unfinished business'; I'd love to hear what you get stuck on.

Habits v's Guilt

Today has me thinking about the way to make a new habit. All the experts say, do something for 30 consecutive days and its a habit. Great. In my experience about all I manage in 30 consecutive days is eating and sleeping (the blog hasn't made it that far even). However I do have some thoughts on the tricky balance between trying to create a new habit, and being swamped by guilt and despair at being unable to stick at anything for 30 days. This line of thought is triggered by circumstances today. Not only am I still up at the hospital with Dad trying to get him enough pain relief, but my elder daughter came down with flu-like symptoms and needed a close eye for a while there. So my plans to conquer the lawn went awry about 10am. Although the mower and the lawn had a pretty big get together before that and between us, my husband and I mowed about 1/3 of the block. Go us!

Then there was juggling the whole sick girl, pained father issue. It basically took over the day. Spending a bit of it reading "The Hobbit" aloud to my sick girl and both of us falling asleep took up a few hours! I'll write more about that another time. What I am realising however is that the past few days, allocating 'extra' time to cleaning the house is what I need to be doing every day. Not just sometimes. Because life will continue to happen, not every day is going to give me a free 3 hours to declutter. I can apply the pricipal I learnt when pregnant with my eldest child. In order to prevent gestational diabetes, I took up exercise. My husband and I walked every evening for 20 minutes around the neighbourhood. Those walks became a daily routine. But there were days they didn't happen. sometimes even multiple days in a row. Normally after a few days of missed walking I'd be so filled with guilt and it would serve only to hold me back and make getting out the door bigger than ben hur and too big a deal, too hard. What I learnt 9 years ago however (and seem to have forgotten) is that it doesn't matter if you miss a day, or how many days you miss. All you need to do is pick yourself up and keep going. Just don't 'stop' or even think that you've stopped. I need to apply this principle to my cleaning.

In my case its not just about swimming, but how much swimming! I need to remember to keep swimming at least 2 hours a day to get any progress! I find I've been unable to do this as yet, but from here on the idea is to just transfer that mindset from evening walks to devoting sufficient time to the cleanliness of the house. It just simply has to be done. Too many years and too much illness and neglect. The time to change all of it is now. I also had a scary thought I'll be saving for later. If I have too much stuff to look after, then I need less stuff to make life easier!!! OR, what I'm trying first, is spending more time every day on upkeep.

Laundry day 3 Cleanup weekend day 2

Yep, thats the inspiring title today. Labelling whats going on in the land of lets clean up. Todays goals were to clean off the kitchen bench, kitchen table, bills from my desk and 1 other job. I got through the bench and table, paid a few bills, left the rest for Monday when I can confirm what amounts I need to pay and then I got stuck into the overloaded medicine box. Which brought me up sharp against the fact that my husband is not a compulsive hoarder, but he is compulsively untidy. Everywhere I turn in this house there are signs of his neverending efforts to make the house messier. Every surface in our house looks like this and worse.

I googled a bit and found some good links that helped me realise I could keep going with getting the house clean around him. http://www.compulsive-hoarding.org/About.html has a good insight into some of the underlying hoarding stuff. I found this site particularly useful with great tips that seem practical - http://www.lifedesignstrategies.com/art/my_partner_is_a_clutterbug.html Basically going to visit those sites got me past the overwhelming sadness and despair that hit when I realised how insidious and constant the cluttering is in my home. I really need to continue every day taking the time to fight the clutter or I will never get on top of it. I discovered today that in addition to a big box of medicines at the top of our pantry, and a selection that had expanded above the microwave, that my hubbie had taken off with my large Tupperware cake carrier and loaded the lid of that up with more medicinal stuff!!! All of it got tipped out onto the kitchen table and I repacked and re-sorted it all out so that I have a small neat group above the microwave, the original medicine box and one small box for the excessive amount of bandaids I found! Tonight I'm continuing my laundry 20 minutes. I have finished a load all the way to put away and will head in there now to put away some more of the clean washing pile. It is helping to focus on the laundry to help catch up or get ahead on that area for this week. Tomorrow's cleanup focus is on the outside of the house, mowing the lawn and possibly tidying up the back verandah.

Crunching the numbers

I've decided I simply don't do enough housework. Sounds reasonable right? Simple enough to work out? Well its still a revelation in my world. The sheer volume of time (is that some sort of grammatical oopsie?) that I need to spend to get through this mess of my house must be over double, probably triple what I currently DO spend. Its a tall order to try to get through the normal daily grind AS WELL as decluttering and cleaning out from behind all the clutter in a minimal amount of hours a day. Today is Day 1 of a hopefully 3-day child and husband free declutter / cleaning frenzy. Things started off well, I wrote a quick list of my 'initial' things to do, and then realised during the day that I wasn't going to make my goal of 'catch up on normal cleaning plus one extra job' unless I really took time to finish this evening. In total I probably spent around 2-3 hours cleaning today. It was not enough! 4 hours and I'd see some real progress after a few days. So I'm sticking with laundry week (today was 3 loads washed and dried, sorting tomorrow), but I'm going to see how tired I am after a weekend cleaning frenzy and see if I can stick to the 3 hours a day at least until I make some inroads into the cluttered messy areas. Here are some before and after shots of my 'project' tonight, the kitchen windowsill.

Laundry Challenge Week

I decided to try out the idea of challenging myself to spend an extra 20 minutes every day on one aspect of cleaning. This week, the clean laundry has been piling up in a huge tower, the dirty laundry is constantly threatening to erupt into mould and I still haven't put the room itself back together since the great laundry transformation where we added a shower at Christmas time. So 7 days of laundry challenge it is! Today I set the oven timer for 20 minutes and went for it! I got all the towels folded, and discovered there wasn't much more to the clean clothes once they were cleared! The wash load in the machine got put in the dryer, and I tidied up the dirty pile of towels and clothes that built up, ready to put on more washing during the day. A second load is in the machine now. I feel so good having done this, and am beginning to see how its possible with time allocation to actually keep up. For some reason, I really *need* the time set, I felt good simply walking away, even though it wasn't completely finished, I could step away from the room, knowing I'd done more in the laundry today than any other day in the past week! I feel like its a bit of a breakthrough about how to make sure daily jobs get done. Allow the same amount of uninterupted time (or mosty uninterrupted) every day, for different tasks, regardless of what else is happening in life. I'll be checking back on this theory! In the meantime, today's challenge was to spend 20 minutes in the laundry. Tomorrow I am going to find some aspect of the laundry to focus on. In my case it will probably be clearing the contents of the laundry off my back verandah (which roughly translates to clean out the cupboards!)

Working Smart

Today was bin day. I'm not very organised, hence the interest in how to organise my energy better. One thing I've learnt, at least a little bit, is the value of working smart. Something I'm proud to have accomplished, almost regularly, is the simple art of cleaning out the fridge before bin day. That way at least I don't have ikky stuff in my fridge for more than a week, and what is in the bin thats on the iffy side doesnt sit there for 6 days attracting the fly population of the whole street.

Sometimes I get it done on Tuesday night, sometimes I get it done thoroughly, including wiping down every shelf. Other times I toss the clearly too-old leftovers that stare at me as soon as I open the door, but don't get to the slightly iffy food lurking at the back of the bottom shelf. How smart I work is still variable on a lot of other factors, but if I get SOMETHING out of the fridge on bin day, I give myself a pat on the back for working smart that day! I also try to do a quick '27 fling boogie' (flylady again!) around the house to ditch any more stuff that I don't need as the bin is ready to go out. If its not too full, I make sure to try to fill it up from rubbish I don't need or old broken toys, anything I can get into the bin. For more info on 27 fling boogie visit www.flylady.net There are plenty of other examples of working smart. One I also do regularly is to open all the mail at the recycling bin. Junk mail and envelopes go straight into the bin, never coming into the house, because they don't need to be inside cluttering up the house. Then filing goes away straight away and bills go to be paid. One I don't do (because my kitchen sink is often full) is to fill a sink with hot soapy water before you start to cook, and as you cook, used utensils go straight in the sink and you wash up as you go. A friend of mine downloads her photos at the end of every week. She also sorts them at the same time into the various albums that she then prints when she has enough photos, eg. an album for each of her daughters and one for the family. I find myself not as organised as that, but when I do download photos (I try to do it monthly) I save them into a folder under the year and month, with months labelled 1- Jan 2013; 2- Feb 2013; etc so they stay in order. That way its easy to find by date. What 'working smart' tips do you have?

Getting dressed up in the morning

The amazing Flylady (www.flylady.net)suggests that every day we get dressed up all the way to lace-up shoes. I understand the theory of her logic, that being all dressed including shoes would trigger a sense of purpose. Only for me, that just didn't happen. I put shoes on and felt no different to being comfortably barefoot in my home. Except less comfortable.

But this week, as I tackled a particularly difficult knot in my very long hair, I had a lightbulb moment! For flylady, putting on her shoes is the ultimate symbol of her readiness for the world. For flylady, getting those shoes on was what made her feel 'fully prepared' to meet the world head on. I live in the subtropics. Shoes to me mean stinky feet and dull office jobs. They mean the opposite of comfortable, and are a reminder of how I prefer to be barefoot. However there are two things that symbolise my readiness to meet the world head-on. For me, having my hair recently fully brushed, and brushing my teeth mean that I'm ready for anything and feeling good about my level of preparation. Sometimes I go out without doing my hair properly, I give it a quick flick with the hairbrush and hide it all in a bun. I still go out, but I feel less perfect, less ready for the world. I know I'm hiding several knots in the bun! And brushing my teeth properly is much the same. The longer I take on my teeth, the more 'world ready' I am. So my version of 'getting dressed to lace up shoes' is 'brush my hair fully and clean my teeth thoroughly'. If I've done that at the beginning of the day, I feel more ready for what the day might bring, even ready for unexpected visitors, because I feel good about how I'm presenting myself, even if I'm barefoot! So if lace-up shoes don't resonate with you, maybe the shoes aren't your trigger for 'readiness' - maybe its wearing a bra, or putting on lipstick, or wearing your favourite jewelry. Maybe its starting the day with washing your hair. If you stop and think, you'll know what it is. That part of getting 'ready' that you wouldn't dream of leaving out when going somewhere important like a wedding or party or work, but you might not do every time you go to the corner store. That part of getting ready that might be difficult or annoying, or not seem important to do every day, but when you think about it, makes you feel good, even if there is no wedding to go to! I'm going to make an effort with my hair and teeth and let you know the results.

Being Prepared

I've had almost no sleep, my husband was with my Dad until 3am this morning as he tranferred from the nursing home to hospital with pneumonia. I had 2 children waking up in turns most of the night. The hospital kindly phoned me at 5:24 in the morning, simply to tell me that Dad was being admitted, breaking what little sleep I'd had. And so todays blog is about preparation. I was a Girl Guide. Be Prepared was their motto. I don't think at the tender age of 15 I had a clue what they meant. Now I believe I know what they mean, however my execution is lacking. My mother in law is prepared. Her mother, incidentally was a Girl Guide Leader for many years! Or perhaps it is a generational thing. She has her house and life organised in such a way that unexpected visitors simply mean closing a couple of doors (like the always busy sewing room), and she's ready. Visitors on short notice? Quick mop and she's ready. Visitors for morning tea? Defrost biccies. Visitors for lunch? Defrost some quiche. Unexpected illness? More defrosting. A chest freezer is pretty central to her level of preparedness!

My point is that no matter what the occasion, she's ready. She'll be having some minor surgery soon. You can bet she's cooking extra meals now, in preparation for leaving my father in law to fend for himself. One of her most amazing acts of preparation is her amazing potting efforts. An avid gardener, in the drought a few years ago, she chose the important plants, transferred them to pots, and watered them from the dam. I just hope that I can begin to become somewhat prepared, even if it is not as spectacularly well done as my Mother in Law.

Shifting the dust around

Today's muse is about rearranging. Is it simply shifting chaos from one place to another or does it achieve an outcome? Apparently rearranging is an integral part to decluttering. Why I wonder to myself, as my recent 'rearrangment' projects have involved minimal decluttering.(I moved a kitchen bench and transferred a low set of drawers from one wall to another in our entry) One website suggests that we need to put our belongings where they will be used. Another, 'becoming minimalist' suggests that rearranging achieves little, and only in the short-term. A host of others turn up very little on the subject despite google hits on 'rearrange vs declutter'. Which leads me to blog in a fly by the seat of my pants kind of way. Many times I stop my husband from random acts of junk rearranging. He is quite the keen rearranger, he likes to move junk from one room to another. He is especially talented at dumping junk anywhere that isn't currently being used, even if it means out of a cupboard onto an exposed surface. That kind of rearranging seems to be without purpose and unhelpful. Sometimes when you rearrange, you also sort, like going through children's drawers for outgrown clothes, or your own clothes cupboard for things you haven't worn since before the first baby was born. Those kinds of rearranging are productive, especially if after the sorting, the unwanted things are removed from the house immediately, or as soon as possible. Don't be me and end up with enough to supply a market stall for months! And other times, the rearranging is transformational, or practical, without throwing much away. Lets face it, sometimes just moving the couch exposes a mess that really needs a tidy up behind it, and that being cleaned up can only be a good thing! I think my recent rearranging efforts fall into this category - with our centre kitchen bench moved, there is more open space in the kitchen, its an area that is easier to keep clean as it no longer looks like 2 corridors. And before the bench found its new home, my husband mopped the area it HAD been in thoroughly, and gave previously unreached spots a good cleanup. Today's drawers moving gives us unfettered access to the garage from the entry again, and a chance to give a very good tidy up to the area it had been sitting as well as under the rug that I had to move in the proces. Its possible that moving things around can take away from more dramatic clean-up throw out types of organising work, but on the whole, I think that it is a gentle way to keep energy up on the bigger projects. For instance, now that I've moved the drawers (which hold our paper files), I feel more like sorting out the filing isn't such a big job!

Getting started

I often find that getting started is what undoes my energy. I'm too busy conserving energy (sitting on facebook) or simply avoiding taking action on the things that simply have to be done. Then I find myself wasting considerable time THINKING about what needs doing, whilst making no progress whatsoever. This is an almost daily occurrence with me and it has the most crazy simple solution. On every occasion I've found myself suffering from inertia, procrastination, or totally overwhelmed, the ONLY solution is to just get on with it and GET STARTED.

Sometimes its as simple as reminding myself to just start moving. Other times I need prompts, like my list above the sink that outlines the kitchen and laundry hour of work that theoretically gets done daily. Sometimes I really need baby steps, and I use the 'Unfuck your habitat" App onthe iphone to get me started using random 5 minute 'unfucking' jobs. The app can be bought from http://unfuckyourhabitat.tumblr.com/ Breaking down the work into teeny tiny manageable pieces sees me get started, and begin to get through things. It also helps to be able to do things quickly between interruptions the more important work of children :) Speaking of getting started, today is one of the days where I'm struggling with getting momentum going, so I'm leaving the blog to get back to tidying the house and attempting to make it presentable. I'd love to hear your tips and tricks for getting started!

Day 2 - Unravelling!

Something I'm learning about this blog thing already is that I need to strike while the words are there. So many little thoughts since yesterdays blog and not one of them to be found now! This morning was one of those mornings where it all goes wrong. So its 11:30am and I'm feeling like I've nothing to add to the world about energy organising, as mine isn't! But I suppose I do have some thoughts about what I do even when its all going wrong, and what I'd like to remember to do. Firstly, drink water. I haven't had any today,so I'm going to get myself a glass right now. It'll improve my mood, my health, my skin and hair. Can't go wrong with extra water.

Then there is taking a long view. In the big scheme of things, is the current crisis actually ginormous? Usually not. Taking the long view helps me chill out and relax about whatever seems to be wrong. Refusing to stay at school? Big deal, it'll work out. It just takes a bit of thinking and time and calm. Also I do Tai Chi. When it all seems too much, I rely on my 'walking meditation' to restore a sense of balance. Whatever style of meditation, or just a short walk (even around the outside of the house) can bring on some soothing feelings and a nice rush of oxytocin. And lastly, do something about it. Thats the last thought for today. Bad morning? well when it stops being a crisis and you've calmed down with a drink of water and a few laps in the pool (whatever exercise or meditation you prefer) then pick up and keep going. Thats what I'm doing right now, tackling the dishes. Start the morning at 11:45, but at least it'll be started :)