How long does it take to lose oneself? It's just a jump to the left?

That's me right now. Stuck in a time warp. Apparently it takes one week post-party to have regressed to a state of household chaos that very much resembles pre-party house chaos. With the addition of post-party mind-bending, Springsteen tour ending, hormonal panics. And a husband with a very very sore gum.

And how do I feel overall?  I feel rather remarkable.  I've only had to remove 2 items from the kitchen windowsill in a week, that is pretty good going for my compulsive surface covering hubby.  There are no extra do-dabs or non-belonging items on top of the bookcase.  The pantry is a little chaotic, but I'm onto that.  The laundry is getting a bit dodgy, but again, I'm keeping it in check. The kitchen table and kitchen bench are suffering post-party agonies (I can't see either)

On the flip side I have my blackboard, I have my daily quotes on it. The untidy 'hot spot' dumping ground near the stereo is tidy.  The fridge is tidier than it used to be.  The chaos at the moment is within me, but I'm also calmer with this month's hormonal cocktail.

Time is fleeting.

I am feeling a strong sense of that at the moment. That I must make choices that are best for the whole family.

At the moment that doesn't seem to include a trip to Santiago, much as I would LOVE to see Bruce and the E Street Band in concert again on this tour, I think I will miss out, in favour of the following range of alternate activities:

• walking the 5 km (or 10km) part of the local marathon.
• spending 5 days on the Gold Coast in a special 'children-friendly' resort 
• campervanning in the September school holidays
• my daughter's only gymnastics competition this year
• spending some time alone / with other women crafting / crocheting as an 'escape' for me
• visiting my Aunt as she celebrates her 90th birthday
• anything else that seems healing and energising that doesn't cost a small fortune in airfares.

But for now, I'm a bit in the time warp. About to turn 40. Listening to live music as I type that is tonight soothing and quietening the conflicts within.

I met (for the second time) a lovely man today, who hopefully has given me the direction and strength I need to deal with family conflicts. He's certainly given me a large list of things to look after. Who'd have thought a solicitor would be so helpful. Hopefully his charmingly brusque and forthright manner will help see me through the chaos there.

I've put on weight from doing so much Tai Chi and less walking (and lets face it, eating too many jam drops and chocolate cake slices!). I'm sure there is a balance there, but hubby needs to get out and exercise himself. Maybe some of our walks can include the children. I would love that, although its hard to get them all in the one place cooperating!

Have I said anything tonight? Probably not, but

"With a bit of a mind flip, you're into a time slip", so what does it matter?

:)

PS I learnt tonight how to change to a nicer font, yay me for conquering HTML. Also it occurs to me that blink and you miss a whole 7 days. What did you do with this week?  (tramps* don't answer, I know if you're in Europe what you've been up to!)  Blink again and 6 months have gone by.  Morale of the story? Blink infrequently, and make some memories every day.  Today's memories are of my daughters delight at jumping, her kisses of Grandad and the glorious smell of dinner cooking when I arrived home. Tomorrow I will aim for more memories and less chaos.


*aka Bruce Springsteen fans.

Wow, extrinsic motivation central!

Today I'm writing to begin to come to terms with the fact that my motivation is extrinsic. Pretty much all of it. In fact I can't imagine what it must be like to be any other way.

This week has been a rollercoaster. I have spent quite a bit of it preparing my Rainbow Jelly Cups.  Then there are the hours spent agonising over the soon-to-be-over Bruce Springsteen and E-Street Band tour in Europe. I dearly wanted to see it, and have been quite challenged by my initial indecision and ultimate realisation that no, there is no way I will.  Of course now the announcement of Santiago as the next-to-last-stop has me excited all over again.

Closer to home, the great birthday party, combined with the 'best friend visit' sent me into a frenzy of cleaning like I haven't managed in this house in years. Not since before children.  It was really quite something.  The threat of new people in the house, with a short time frame had my frenzy of activity both focussed and effective.  Some things I tidied, others I threw into corners to be sorted later.  But I know where those corners are, I do not intend for the house to get into a state like it has been in the past ever again. 

In fact, for the sake of noting it down, those corners are 1. beside the bed in the family bedroom and 2. hidden in the cupboard in the front room - some reasonbly important papers disappeared into there!

What was the result? A relaxed happy me who felt I'd done what I could, plus the amazing feeling of an uncluttered space. VERY uncluttered compared to just days ago. I am loving it.

I really felt like this party had me pulling together all the things I've been learning about myself this year, I took breaks when I had to, I prioritised what to stress over and I owned my happiness. When guests were arriving and I was cake decorating, I just happily stayed in my happy place, loving the cake decorating moment with my friend Lyn. Everything else was taken care of (once I shoo'ed my hubby into the backyard to supervise children). It was lovely. This is the result of my decorating happy place. The butter cream was not smoothed beautifully. But the cake is for a little person, who isn't going to worry about that!
 

Since then I've also managed to calmly handle the alarming sisterly crisis (a very complex situation) and taken myself for a walk in the rain this evening, reminding me of Irish weather, of Bruce Springsteen in Ireland and of all the fans enjoying this kind of warm soft raining weather at Bruce concerts.

The fun part for me now is two challenges. The first relates to the house - keeping it tidy, keeping on top of my clutterbug husband who I notice has already found a new spot to mess up (the upstairs bathroom that we don't use!!!!). To make sure of this I need to stop blogging very soon and tidy up the room I'm in and the entry.

The second challenge is a new one, but also old. I need to make sure that I make a daily documentation of all the work I do for my Dad as it may be required soon. I write so much down but its something I could do better at, so thats my challenge for this week, beginning with today's trip to take him his special drinks. I was very happy that he enjoyed them and also a 10 minute phone conversation with his beloved sister in law. These moments are precious.

Keeping it all together

In theory I have a system for keeping it all together. My life that is. And my husband's, our childrens' and my father's lives.  Its the calendar function on the iphone and I am still shocked at how well it works - I put EVERYTHING into that little machine now. All appointments, school functions, TV Shows I want to watch, and all the other little and big things. 

Today it feels like all I am acomplishing with it is keeping track of the things I can't keep up with! The doctor's appointments I've had to cancel, the day out with my father that isn't going to happen because I can't access all the equipment I need for him, and what feels like a million other things at the moment.

I simply do not know how to keep up with the commitments in my life. Perhaps today I went off the rails a bit sideways with some upsetting phone calls, or maybe I was exhausted after hauling a toddler around a dairy farm yesterday in the Ergo Carrier while keeping track of a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds!  I'm not sure.

What I do know is that I need to work harder on routines, especially a morning and evening list, similar to flylady, but one that suits me.  I need this quickly, so that the next time my husband decides to use a blade to cut out cardboard squares and slice a tendon, I'm less thrown by the three days of chaos that ensues.  He's fine by the way, tendon is healed really well.  I'm still unimpressed he was playing around with the crafty stuff for himself instead of playing the 'clean floor game' like I asked him to when I was dragged off to rescue my father who phoned because he was in so much pain and the staff wouldn't / hadn't given him painkillers all day.  One thing that I did learn, thanks to a random tune on my phone whilst upset prior to the dairy farm trek is to:

I need to play every morning in the car, as I'm not a fan of school drop-off.

The Clean Floor Game

One of the jobs for the weekend was to do a cleanup of the floors all around  the house. On a whim this morning, I decided to turn that into a game, to keep things interesting. I'm a big fan of UFYH (Unfuck Your Habitat) and enjoy their phone ap - I find the randomness of the suggestions really suits me.

So I found a container to use as a 'jar' and wrote the names of all the rooms /areas of my house on scraps of paper and tossed them in.  The idea being that I would draw out a room, clean the floor in that room, and then take a break doing some jigsaw puzzle in between rooms.  I get tired quickly from bending over jigsaws, so the break would be self-limiting automatically.  This is the jigsaw:

It worked beautifully. The first room I drew was the kitchen, so the whole floor had toys and random stuff picked up and was swept.  Then my break was a little bit of jigsaw and some X-box games with my son. My daughter got caught up in the enthusiasm, and did her own little bit of cleaning of a junk room upstairs (she lucked out and drew a hard spot to clean).  Here's the extremely simple 'pot luck' container:

Many interuptions later, the front verandah got thoroughly cleaned up, cat litter changed and swept. Then the stairs which in my house tend to collect things at the bottom that need to go up, plus other random flotsam were cleared off all the clutter.

Sadly my cleaning spree was not to be however, and I spent most of the day visiting and caring for my Dad.  I finished this special something for a friend while with him.

In the end, I am tempted to keep up this game as a way of getting through the tidying up more often.  I can see me using it on floors, but it might work for other things, like '27 fling boogie'. In such a big, cluttered house with a husband who tends to leave things on the floor, I find it difficult to be in 10 places at once to pick up after him and the children. This little game will make it easier, particularly if I'm lucky enough to have a day at home when we are both able to play it, in 2 different rooms at once.

I hope that your weekend has been as productive as mine. (and that you are more prepared for Monday than me - thats my job before bedtime - getting lunchboxes ready and uniforms ironed)!

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.

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!

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.