Step by step - My version of "In the beginning."

I was thinking today and I have been asked(okay maybe only by one online friend but I have been asked) what exactly I do to keep things under control. I follow FlyLady although there are lots of groups that basically send the same message of baby steps and not letting yourself get discouraged. It all starts with a clean, shiny sink. Yup for me it is a simple as that! Watch this video and you'll see what I mean.

For me a clean sink is the key. For me once the sink is clean I am lead to wipe the counters and keep the kitchen tidy. If the kitchen is tidy I get such a nice happy feeling when I walk into it that I want to keep other areas of the house looking good as well. Walking into a messy kitchen makes me feel like going back into the basement and climbing into bed ... anything but dealing with the huge mess.

If you are really rotten at house keeping, like me, take a small step at a time and don't give yourself too hard of a time when you don't get everything done. Don't be too easy on yourself either though that is a surefire way of backsliding right back into a cave in the mountain of housework that will grow up around you. I try to remind myself on a regular basis that it's all worth it. I can do this and when I am done I can stand back and enjoy the way my home looks.

FlyLady says to just do 15 minutes at a time ... pick one fairly small job at a time and do it for 15 minutes. You'll be amazed at how much you can do in just that little 1/4 hour.

I love ruts, habits, routines and rituals. So for me having a list of things I do every single day is very satisfying. So quite a while ago I made up routines that I do everyday. I follow the ones that are given out on FlyLady customized for my house and energy levels. I have spent pretty much no money and have gotten a huge amount of peace from it when I am able to keep it up. I am vowing to myself that this time it's for keeps. I have a Morning, Afternoon and Evening routine that I printed out and put inside clear plastic sleeves(2 in each sleeve) and they are clipped together with a big old heavy alligator type paper clip like this. I keep them hung up in my kitchen and check off completed chores with a dry erase marker and then I erase my checks when I am done and flip the slip to the next list(for morning and afternoon) then I have to unclip the lists and flip them fro evening and my inspirational end of day thoughts.

That's where I started. A clean sink and routines...

Cass :)

Things that make me go "Hey that's cool!"

Yeah I'm weird but I'd like to make note of some of the things I have re-discovered for myself because they are memorable for me.

**The sky is cool - it looks cool and is lots of fun to look at.

**If I don't stop and holler "C'mon!" to M every 3 minutes while we are walking back and forth to school she comes just as fast as if I did.

**Toilet bowl cleaner is good for more than just the inside of the toilet bowl ... it can get nasty crud off of other parts of the toilet as well!! I discovered this for myself just today(it was clean the bathroom day) and on a whim decided to put some of the blue goop on the stain on the back of the toilet rim surface(it's been driving me nuts on my daily wipe down of the toilet) and it got it off!! /happy dance/ . Yeah I know ... but like FlyLady says "Nothing says I love you like a Clean toilet to throw up in when you are sick!" of all the things to resound with me that is one thing that really sticks.

On the phone with my Mom today and she told me in the past my record for keeping the house clean and under control was a month and a half. My vow to myself is to start the new year with a clean house. Keep the supportive comments coming because we all need encouragement in our goals even the simple-seeming ones. I can do this ... I love how the house looks and feels to me when I get my work done. My satisfaction level is almost Zen like and yes I am well aware of the fact I am odd but this is my job. My dream job really since as far back as I can remember I always said I was born into the wrong time. Even when I was 12 I felt I would have been happier when women's main roles were to raise children and keep house.

I love being home. I am proud that my kids come home for lunch every day. I am proud when my family gets fresh baked bread and I cook everything they eat. I am proud when I know exactly what is in the food that is nourishing their bodies. I feel a huge amount of elation when I look at my routine list and everything is checked off. It makes me smile when I can check off a hard chore that I did even though I didn't want to. I am happy when my house is in order and my life runs more smoothly because of it.

Cass :)

I week celebration!

Because even small steps should be praised. I'm doing well and happy with how the house looks. Yesterday my chore of the day was the kitchen and I wiped down all the lower cabinet doors as well as the front of the stove, dishwasher, pantry and fridge(all of them are white). I was very surprised at how much better they looked ... how dirty were they?

I have more laundry than usual today. The last three days it's been all I can do to scrape up two full loads a day but I have mostly thanks to A's continuing bed wetting. Everyday this week I have had to wash a sheet and blanket from his bed and the blanket is always a load on its own. I don't mind though two loads a day is pretty easy. Today I stripped and changed K's bed with fall coming on now she's using blankets again and she's been sleeping on top of her memory foam pad(Thanks for that Mom she loves it) with no sheet for over a month so i thought it was time to make up her bed properly. I'm sure she'll sleep much better tonight. That of course added to the laundry considerably(2 blankets and a sheet) so I now have 4 loads of laundry today...although 3 of them are blankets so very easy - just feed the machines.

My chore of the day today is to wash floors ... normally I would have washed the kitchen floor yesterday but the humidity and warmer than usual temperatures here in Southern Ontario wore me out so I left it to today. This morning I re-printed my routines(the stuff I have to do every single day) in a bigger font and added Lock doors to the list for Evening Routine as I again forgot to close and lock the back door last night and it was open all night(I've done this several times over the summer - I tend to be forgetful). J gave me a chill when he replied to my "Well I can't get it every night ..." with "Think of that when someone comes into the house while we're sleeping and takes one of the kids." Yeah I won't forget again ... talk about put a scare into me!!

Anyway enough slacking I'd better get to work ... and M is upstairs on her own again I just know she's up to something!

Cass :)

I'm Simple.

No this isn't another Blog entry about a D'oh! moment in my life. I just wanted to Blog some thoughts I was having this morning. Mostly it struck me at about 7:45am this morning when I realized I was done my morning chore list(not to be confused with my chore of the day - I have a list of basic chores I have to do everyday to keep the house looking nice). Knowing that my morning chores were done and I did not have to do a single thing until 11:10am when I walk up to the school to get the kids and walk them home for lunch. It made me very happy. Then on my way back to the house(limping because I managed to hurt my leg somehow on Thursday) and listening to my MP3 player(I have a little iPod shuffle that I love) I realized that it doesn't take me much to be happy.

There are things that make me mad in my life, don't get me wrong. I spend some of everyday angry for some silly reason. My point is that it doesn't take much to have me laughing and smiling again and I am deeply grateful fro that.

So far the house is staying under control but remember I haven't even hit the one week mark yet. With meal planning all three meals a day I only have to think "What should I make?" once a week and then look at the menu for the rest of the time(I've done 1 week of meal planning all three meals so far). I found out on Thursday when I went in to swim laps that the pool, that was supposed to re-open Oct 1, will be closed until the first week of November because they found out they need to do more work on it. Ah well, gives me time to get this whole doing housework under my belt and ground into my thick skull.

I thought I had more to say but this Blog has taken me half the day to write(stuff keeps coming up) and now I forget. So - Later!

Cass :)

The best laid plans ...

So recently I have once again been trying to get my life on track, get settled into my routines that I know work and sticking to it. Of course as my Mom pointed out to me the other day "You're very enthusiastic when you're talking about these things Cass but your follow thru needs work.". She's entirely correct ... I'm great at planning. I'm wonderful at planning and writing down my plans and I'm even pretty good at sticking to said plans, for about 3 days.

As with many things in my life I have real success issues. I know this very well about myself and I hear knowing the problem is half the battle but sadly it's the solving the problem part where I fall on my face. Basically it's like I am afraid of actually succeeding. I see this in everything in my life from my housework to the games I play on my computer. I very rarely manage to follow thru on anything. So I end up opening my eyes and looking around my life every few weeks and saying "How did I let all this go for so long!?" At this point it's mostly the house and the things I have to do here that I am trying to focus on. Of course that covers quite a bit of stuff. My To Do list looks something like this:

TO DO
Get into a routine with the house cleaning and stick to it.
Meal plan 3 meals a day and a suggested snack every week.
Keep the laundry under control.
Set up and stick to a daily routine to help A with his school work.
Keep an eye on M, if you can't see her she's doing something you won't like.

My extended list includes decluttering, getting into the Y, finding time for J&I to be alone as well as budgeting and cutting costs. This week(yeah all 2 days of it) I am doing well. I got thru my morning routine before I walked the kids to school today(I have to be able to do that so that when I start going to the Y everything still gets done). I have been meal planning all three meals as well as baking a lot of things we eat from scratch(just since Thursday though). J expressed concerns this morning that I would get tired of the time it takes to do this and I said to him "I have time, even when I go to the Y in the mornings I have loads of time. I can't use time as an excuse. I have to quit wasting it."

I'm right. I am very good at wasting time and it needs to stop. I'm not 12 anymore I'm 35 and it's way past time that I grew up and started doing more with myself that nothing. How can I look at J and know I love him when all I do to replay everything he has given me(a home, 2 children, the option not to go out to work) is whine and moan about what a mess the house is and how I can't seem to keep my act together long enough to keep it that way for more than 3 days at a time! I have no excuses. I'm in good health and I am capable. I know what needs to be done and have the tools to do it. I know exactly how to keep the house looking great by only doing an hour or two of housework a day. If knowledge is power why do I spend so much of my time feeling powerless or is that just my utter lack of motivation to do anything I'm feeling?

So I'm kicking myself in the backside ... again ... and hoping this time it sticks. I can do this. The key is that I need to keep doing it!

Cass :)

PS - In case any of you were wondering my neck is feeling better just a tiny bit of stiffness left.

Oh my aching neck!

I have a lot to update on but my main concern the last few days has been the fact that I have a stiff neck. I just woke up this way on Wednesday and it won't go away /sigh/ I guess if it persists I will have to go to the doctor about it(I have to talk to her about birth control anyway). Lets hope after the weekend the whole thing will have resolved itself!

So my first bit of information is that yes M is doing great in school, as far as I can tell they all are. I'll know better once report cards come out ... I agree with someone's comment that M looks like Dot from the Animaniacs. She really does ... right down to the "I'm to cute to punish!" attitude /sigh/.

I have been busy with a mini-reno this last week or so; I ripped out the carpet in the back room and painted the plywood sub-floor in there. I also took down the table and put it away. We never eat at it and it was just taking up room. I love the table(my Mom got it for me several years ago) and it may serve it's proper purpose somewhere down the road. At this point the back room is mostly used as our main entry and now works perfectly for all our coats and footwear sans table. The floor doesn't look the best but I much prefer it to the stinky carpet that M couldn't seem to resist peeing on. Now my next big job is cleaning the basement carpet again because of M /sigh/before I have to close windows more often. Thankfully school seems to have distracted her enough that peeing on the floor is less interesting to her. Although she is certainly still great at making messes and getting into things when I'm not paying proper attention!!

So the back room is now properly set up as our mudroom/entry room, since white paint was what I had the floor is white ... which of course shows the dirt but I don't mind. I'll either clean it or it'll stay dirty - at least it won't stink!! Total cost(less my sweat and tears) - $15 for paint gear that I bought out of the $50 a month allowance I allow myself now. J & I have taken a very close look at our finances recently and realized we are now maxed out on all our credit(1 credit card and the line of credit from the bank) and have no wiggle room at all. It's a big old fashioned debt pit. Now the good news is that our house will be paid for in about 8 to 9 years /happy dance/ and we are now on a strict budget. The bad news is that the van needs work and we can't afford it until the end of October. J will have to carpool until then but he is not happy. I'm trying to keep the cost of food down and the last two weeks we have done well in averaging out at just under $150/week for food. I am now planning all meals again and cooking more stuff myself. Making stuff from scratch is cheaper but takes more time which really is something I have a lot of anyway even with planned trips to the Y(which I really have to get on!). We'll see but so far we're doing pretty good. Thankfully J gets a portion of his check taken every pay and put away in bonds which is our Christmas fund so we have no worries there and with my personal rules about the number of toys the children get and a nice purge of toys right before Christmas we should be fine.

Otherwise nothing much is new with me and mine. I'm once again trying to get the housework under control because I feel a large reason my neck is bugging me is that the house is not under control. So I am doing housework therapy, wish me luck!

Cass :)

The kids go back to school - all of them this time!

Yup, my littlest monkey is now in school. God have mercy on her teachers!!

As you can see my children have super powers; A has the super power to make an unfortunate face at exactly the wrong time! K has super curly hair power and always looks like she just got up - good thing that's the style now! M has 'I'm the cute little one' power and uses it often on her older brother, as you can see here. Don't be fooled she's thinking of a way to make her brother dance like a puppet for her, I can tell.

M's first days of school have gone well unless I was there with her ... My school has a thing all this month that every Wednesday I go to school with her from 8:40am-10:30am and we do stuff together and the teacher and other school experts give us all advice on how to help out kids learn at home. Both Wednesdays now I have left first with a screaming daughter. When she is there on her own she is fine, according to the teacher. I saw when I was there yesterday she knows the routine there and seems happy,which is great and typical of my kids. They all like school - it's not as boring as home.

Also since my last Blog...Yesterday was A's 7th birthday! My Mom was surprised she was all "Seven! I thought he was turning Six! Where did the time go?!?" We gave him a mix of home made (fabric panels for under his loft bed to make a fort & a magnet/chalk/pin board combo that J is finishing up) and bought stuff(Star Wars action figures and a big 3D, glow in the dark wall puzzle of Spiderman). Mom gave him $20 which he is now thinking of 50 ways to spend!

Not much else to say ... just the usual fall routine. I'm sticking close to home the rest of this week and then next week I will be off to the Y 4 mornings. Wish me luck.