Inspirational Motivation

I hope the title of this update sounds good, because it is meant to convey how terrific I feel. What do legendary rocker Bruce Springsteen and ballet have in common?  Read on to discover how that unlikely duo have inspired me.  Purely by chance, I happened to read a very good article about success on the morning before seeing Bruce Springsteen live in concert.  Here is what I have taken from that experience.

My friend on Facebook shared this link on Thursday. Put simply it knuckles down to explain how effort and persistence in the presence of quality feedback lead to success, not talent.  The author says: “You have to seek out situations where you get feedback [about your performance]. It’s a myth that you get better when you just do the things you enjoy."

She identifies that in the pursuit of excellence, those with an interal locus of control, a deep belief that they have the necessary control over their own lives and destiny are successful. Her words "since early childhood they have developed the belief that outcomes are contingent on factors within their own control." are an inspiration to my parenting, to guide my children to having that internal locus of control mindset.  It is also a challenge to myself, to change years and years of being 'external'  and to re-learn an entire thinking process.

The author notes that one of the most highly successful ballerinas that she interviews was one who 'never won competitions as a child'. Success is not instant, it is persistence that is the important factor, persistence and the seeking of feedback from experts. She notes that simply doing a favourite activity over and over again will not result in successes in that field without this feedback.

How do I tie all that together and bring it back to my own life experience? Well it occurs to me that I have work to do, and this is a blueprint for the framework for that work.  I see that I need to work on establishing a belief that I can change my energy, and acting on that belief, stepping out into the world where I will receive feedback and being persistent.

And then Bruce Springsteen blew me away with his Wrecking Ball show.  The whole album is an inspiration of rising up from ruins and the indomnitable human spirit.  And there is no motivation like being shocked out of your seat by a 63 year old man who simply hasn't stopped. His music is a testament to the truism of the article by Sarina Lewis. The lyrics are incredible, and my realisation is that this man has answered for me a question I've been too afraid to ask myself, that is: "Whats it all about this temporary thing called life?"  Its simple, in the words of the song "We Are Alive", "Its only our bodies that betray us in the end" - personally I am quite comforted by the idea expressed by Mr Springsteen at the concert that our spirits live on in the next generations (March 14, 2013, Bribane Entertainment Centre, Boondall).

How have I put this motivation into play? I'm just plain happier, lighter and that is giving me more energy for all the normal things of life. It has inspired me to re-evaluate my own career, which was stagnating, and to seek out feedback in what I do. I realise this is one of the reasons I so enjoy Tai Chi, as the instructors are wonderful at giving individual attention and feedback, so I feel that I am improving. Its darned nice to feel that feeling after a long while of negativity (workplace bullying) and fatigue (illness).

I have new goals, to finish my Childbirth International Doula course, so that I am seeking feedback, regardless of whether when I get to the end of the course I continue to practice as a Doula.  Taking that action will, like Tai Chi, help me improve on myself.  The house cleaning remains a goal, and I'll continue to blog that progress. I believe my whole of life experience will be reflected in the house, and visa versa.

I also want to leave you with these links today, just because I think they are awesome.

A daily review of the songs of Bruce Springsteens Wrecking Ball Album, here.

The webpage for the charity Bruce Springsteen supports in Brisbane, here.

The very first review of the Brisbane concert I attended, here. I particularly like this as it was written immediately after the concert and captures the euphoria.

I hope that somewhere my hastily written musings have managed to share with you at least a part of the wonderment I am feeling.

Just look at this energy! Don't you want to tap into some of that? I do!

 

The continuance of clean

Another weekend approaches and I'm glad to say that our house is looking pretty good. By comparison to how it normally looks that is.  We still look a little like we might be making the effort to join the hoarders show, but not quite making the grade.

Strangely I'm suffering from a fair chunk of fatigue, even when I am taking arthritis medication, so I am finding that frustrating.  But it is incredible how much difference it makes to keeping an area clean if you can get it back to a clean state to begin with.

Our entry is now devoid of all floor-based muck and junk. Which makes tidying in there so simple - anything on the floor doesn't belong in the room, with step 2 being straight into sweeping and mopping!

What I'm finding is that the everyday work of laundry and washing up never end or ease so although I'm feeling tired, I'm keeping up with those things while my husband is getting into the cleaning up / decluttering.  I'm happy with that, because normally what would happen when I'm feeling this low is that the rest of the house would go to seed and become very untidy (or like a bomb hit it); while I dragged myself through the laundry and washing up basics.

Is there any rhyme or reason to our new cleanliness? The obvious is my husbands contribution, but in addition to that we've also had visitors again yesterday. I think keeping a constant supply of people visiting the house means that we do keep up that little bit of extra effort. Yes the state of the house should be worth the effort for ourselves, but there is such a strong inbuilt tendency to 'make nice' for other people that why not take advantage of that, to work to our own benefit?

A great weekend!

I've been away from the blog because I've been too busy getting other stuff done!

I am thrilled to say that for whatever reason my husband found some inspiration and it is incredible how much gets done when both adults in the house contribute!

This weekend I have managed to get back on top of washing up, keep up with laundry and feed everyone healthy foods.

On top of that the list of clean spaces is long! I spent my alone time on Friday cleaning the kitchen floor, plus beginning some of the other spaces. That night my husband took only one hour to clean junk off the spare bed downstairs! (it was piled up with toys and other flotsam).  Then my husband got very inspired by his friend's visit and he cleaned the rest of the entry, moved the old bed from our sons room (finally) and rearranged and cleaned our elder daughter's room. Plus in the process, the steps were cleaned off and vaccuumed by elder daughter, and hallway cleaned!  Our house looks almost like real people live here!

The difference that is made when he participates is remarkable. I am shocked at how easily he makes a big change, and stunned that for the past two years he has not been a part of the solution. 

We were able to have my father for lunch from the nursing home and it is simply lovely to walk around the house in peace, without feeling crowded in by mess or clutter or untidiness. 

I feel so much lighter and I am holding my breath, hoping it lasts. While it is here, I'm taking advantage of the extra cleanliness to keep up my pace, so even if hubby goes back to being part of the problem, I've taken full advantage of the momentum happening right now!

Some pictorial evidence to follow in the next update!

The Big Routine - What do I need?

Vegetable gardening week has thus far been an abyssmal flop.  I did have one day of planting, and managed to acquire some cuttings of Nasturtium, that are excellent for keeping away pests.  So instead of updating on the nonexistent veggie progress, I’m taking sometime out to review my month’s blogging to see what kind of routines that have been on my mind.  Hopefully it will give me some idea of a daily cleaning routine that I can then experiment with next week.

A personalised summary of routine cleaning and organising from previous blogs shows the features my cleaning routine needs to have:

1.       Using the electronic diary in the phone for all family commitments works

2.       I like to make cleaning fun, with games, aps and fun sounding things like 27 fling boogie.

3.       I can’t clean ‘all the things’ at night late, it leads to insomnia!

4.       Focussing on one area a week works well to remind me to prioritise cleaning

5.       It would be beneficial to have regular visitors to keep a level of cleaning frenzy going

6.       Whenever possible, always leave every room brighter (eg pickup rubbish/junk) throughout every day

7.       Regularly cleanout the fridge before bin day, pay bills as soon as they arrive (I’ve had some disappear into the paper piles!), upload pictures at least monthly, send greetings quarterly.

8.       Spend at least 2 hours everyday on cleaning until the chaos is controlled.

9.       Have 2 days in a row alone in the house to clean every fortnight at least, again until it is controlled.

10.   Keep on top of my teeth and hair care to keep me feeling presentable to the world

11.   Make effort to have some ‘emergency’ supplies to be prepared for changes.

 How to apply these criteria is coming up in part 2 of the big routine!

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)!

Mould and mildew go away!!!

Todays post is all about mould - I figure that for south east Queensland where I feel it's a very topical subject! We've had 2 floods in one month and it's still raining!

 So I'll share what I know with you about mould prevention and removal.

Annoyingly the first thing I learnt is that number onerous prevention is cleanliness and lack of dust. A wise friend informed me, and of course it makes sense when you think about it, that mould will form on any dirt or dust ANY! Which is a real bugger if you are like me and not the perfect housekeeper! But I'll come back to this because there is something eke I nee to say about mould prevention - you might think it obvious, but of you do, perhaps you're not quite on the same page of the cleaning journey as me!

So the second thing I have to say about mould prevention is this: do not leave things in areas where they might go mouldy. This list includes wet towels in the laundry basket, sponges in a damp area like in the sink, or in my case, ANYTHING on the back verandah of the house, where mould will spring fromm nowhere and invade anything in its path! It might mean don't leave bath toys in a container on the bathroom floor or even don't leave you dirty clothes in the bathroom. You know if there's a spot in your house prone to moulding up.

Go now and fix these problem areas!!! Save and rescue your items from mould!!!  If its too late however, and the demon black gunk has set it, then here are the mould removing strategies that I know of, I'm sure there are more on google. Rather than go through the types of items, I'm going to list my knowledge of mould fighting super stuff - all of which require the use of gloves when applying, in no particular order (but with numbers because I like them):

1. Clove Oil.
Obtained: from the local health food store, or chemist.  I have no idea why  these people stock it!  Uses: I've put it in soaks to remove mould with varying success, also between 2 and several drops in the wash to prevent or remove stains, I wash in hot water, but this could be wrong!   Anyway here are 3 more mould and clove tip links.  ABC North Queensland have this article.  A Sydney blogger suggests clove oil to clean hard surfaces and gives more information of the properties of clove oil here.  The Australian Whirlpool forums have some terrific answers about mould and clove oil here.

2. Bicarbonate of Soda and Vinegar
Obtained: from the grocery store.
Uses: I have used them in the following way to keep a shower clean and also to clean off a significant outdoor verandah area. It lasted about 18 months to 2 years.  Step 1, wipe away excess mould. Step 2: make a paste with warm water and bicarb, scrub mouldy area. Step 3: using hot water and vinegar wash down area.  This seemed to work a treat to clean it right up.

The sites above also encourage use of bicarb / vinegar with clove oil, which makes sense.


You can also make a scrubbing paste with bicarb to scrub clothes or textiles that have gone mouldy. It may bleach the area though.

3. Bleach
Obtain: a good quality straightforward bleach without added chemicals from whereever you can.
Uses: I give my husband the job of scrubbing fabric with a weakened bleach solution to remove stubborn spores after washing or soaking in oil of cloves.

Also bleach is not as effective in my experience as the good old bicarb and vinegar trick in the shower.

These three items are pretty much all that stand between you and a mess of mould, so thats why I focus more on prevention than cure.