Clutter (aka "junk") Rehab

Clutter has taken over my home. Actually, "clutter" sounds like I'm trying to be modest about a few piles scattered here and there around our house. Which is definitely not the case here.So let me rephrase.

JUNK has taken over my home. Seriously. Random things everywhere I look, all the time. So much that after a while I just stop seeing it, because my brain can't acknowledge all that stuff. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad enough that you will be seeing me on an episode of Hoarders, but I definitely won't be inviting people over anytime soon, either.



Or maybe I should. Every once in a while I get fed up and host some kind of dinner party or play date at my house. And then the day before I start freaking out and racing around trying to get everything done. That urgency seems to be the only thing that can force me to stick to it long enough to get the house presentable. But by the time I'm done the house looks so amazing! And I think "OK that wasn't too hard. And now that it's clean it'll be so easy to keep it clean!"

And I do.

For a few days. A few weeks tops.

Then one day I come downstairs and realize it has happened again. The house looks as if a bomb has gone off. Or fifty people have moved in, trashed the place, and left. Or it could be that most of the time no one bothers to clean up after themselves.

And by everyone I mostly mean me.

OK yeah, I admit it. As a super crafty, DIY loving, constantly inattentive and distracted stay-at-home mom, the majority of the stuff that is cluttering up our home is mine. It drives M completely bonkers. And I'm trying so hard to fix it, to get rid of the things I don't need or use.

Anyone have suggestions on how I find the time (and energy) to do that without parking the kiddos in front of the tv?

Decluttering Challenge: Day 1.

I know, I know, it's been a while since I've posted. Months, in fact.

I started this blog with such high hopes... then life got in the way and everything just went bad for a while. But I'm back now. I'm trying again! And this time I'm not doing it on my own!

One of my favorite bloggers at Living Well, Spending Less is doing an October Challenge called "31 Days to a Clutter Free Life" and I'm SO excited to get started! Okay, so I forgot I had even signed up for it until I received the first email assignment and am actually a few days behind... but better late than never, right?

Honestly, though, the biggest motivator for me to complete each day's assignment is my super awesome mom. She knows how much I've been struggling so she's agreed to help be my motivation, sounding board, and coach. Unfortunately she doesn't live nearby, but for the rest of the month we will be checking in by phone or email each morning and evening so we both know what's going on.

Now, when I've been working and cleaning for hours and hours (or, you know, like 10  or 15 minutes) and am ready to quit, I will remember that someone actually EXPECTS the assignments to be completed by the end of the day. She will have seen the "before" pictures, she will have seen my very specific list of items to focus on, and she will EXPECT to see the completed "after" pictures.

And I will keep going.

Apparently (for me, anyway) the fear of disappointing someone is the biggest motivation out there.

So here I go. Wish me luck!

How to Keep Houseplants ALIVE

It's been over a month since my last post. If you've been following along, you know I've really been struggling with getting my house clean. I'm still having a lot of trouble, but I'm really trying to work on it and hopefully I will have some positive posts about it soon. Hopefully.

Anyway, I don't want this blog to be all about my struggles with cleaning so I figured this would be an excellent time to begin branching out. Today we are going to talk about keeping houseplants alive...

I do not have a green thumb.

Far from it, actually. I can't even count how many plants we've gotten over the years that we have eventually given away or just tossed. They always die! I don't know anything about soil, or fertilizer, or what kind of light plants need, and I ALWAYS forget to water. Or I'm so obsessive about watering that I do it way too often and basically drown the poor thing.

According to its tag, this plant was a succulent, which I believe is in the cactus family. That's right, I killed a cactus. It was supposed to be easy to take care of and great for beginners... I still have no clue why it died.

But I figured out the secret for houseplants (at least for me, anyway). I am so excited to finally be able to keep them alive! What is my secret, you ask?

I bought a houseplant.

No, don't roll your eyes. This isn't about how I did my research and now I'm a houseplant genius. Quite the opposite, really. Over the winter I happened to stumble across a group of HUGE house plants that were so root bound they were being sold for almost 85% off. I had plenty of empty planters in my garage (from all the other plants I'd let die over the years) so I decided to give houseplants another chance.

After putting them all in new pots and giving them a nice drink, I was happy to see that they looked perkier than when I had bought them. One in particular seemed to liven up. I figured it was just my imagination, but later in the week it started to look sad again. The huge leaves seemed to droop ever so slightly. I shrugged and went ahead and watered it, and all the others, and went about my day. And then later in the week it started drooping again.

By this point I was no longer sure I had an overactive imagination, so I looked the plant up online (see how bad I am with houseplants? I had this plant for almost a month before I even bothered to find out anything about it). I was pretty surprised when I read that the leaves on this plant really do start to droop when it is starting to get thirsty! 

I ended up putting the plant in my entryway so I have to walk past it every day. And anytime I notice it starting to droop, I fill up my water pitcher and give it a nice drink... then I go around the house and water all the rest. I know, I know, they don't all need the same amount of water, and I still need to learn about proper lighting and soil and fertilizer blah blah blah, but for me this is pretty much a miracle. I've had these plants almost four months now, and they are all still alive!

I can't be the only one with houseplant problems and I knew I had to do a post about this, so I went a few extra days without watering so I could take a pic for the blog. 

Doesn't it look so sad? I took the photo at 8:30am (on a cloudy day, sorry for the bad lighting) right before I gave it a nice long drink of water. Then I took pics again the next day, exactly 24 hours later...

Isn't that crazy?!? Even though I knew it would happen, the vast difference in the "Before" and "After" photos still surprise me.

The plant is called a "Peace Lily" and you can buy them anywhere. These aren't plants that are only sold at fancy schmancy garden stores, you can find them at any regular grocery store. And they are amazing. I love this plant. I can't wait till it's time to repot it, because then I can divide it and have more all over my house!

Hopeless and Alone

The last few weeks have been a struggle for me.

Every day seems to be nothing but avoidance, excuses, and a whole lot of backsliding. It is SO frustrating, because I was doing so well for months, and I don't know what has changed in my life to cause the change in my mindset.

I really wanted this to be a positive and uplifting blog, full of inspiration and ideas and encouragement, but how can I make a blog like that when I'm constantly feeling like I'm just not good enough and I'm just not doing enough? When I'm constantly overwhelmed and always feel like its all just too much?

I know, I know. Baby steps, right? One day at a time, one thing at a time, just keep up, don't worry about getting ahead... but it feels like "just keeping up" doesn't show any actual progress.

Everything just stays the same.

It doesn't help that with a hubby on the night shift, two constantly sick kiddos, and an average outdoor temp of 30 degrees, I am basically confined to the house. So even though I tell myself every day to "just keep up" and not worry about anything else, I still SEE everything else.

Constantly.

Every single day.

And I see it all not getting done. I don't see it ever getting done.

Gradually, little by little, day by day, it wears on me. And I start to lose hope again. I get more and more frustrated, more and more overwhelmed, more and more lonely, more and more depressed. Because nothing is happening. My house is on hold, my days are on hold, my life is on hold. Always. Something needs to change, but I don't know what. I don't know how.

I feel lost. I feel helpless. I feel alone.

                                    

I don't WANT to

When I started this blog a few months ago, I fully intended to conquer this house and all of my messiness issues. To start at the beginning and work my way through. But I can't seem to get over that initial hump. 

The one where I know what I should do. I know how much the boring day-to-day stuff will help, I know that putting things off will only make it harder when I finally get around to it, I know that it's all about baby steps, but I still never do it. 

Logically, I know that the time when my son is in preschool for three hours and the baby is down for her nap would be an ideal time to get caught up. To do the non-negotiables that I was supposed to do last night (or last week). But when I finally do get those few hours of time without someone demanding my constant attention, all I want to do is nothing. 

I want to sit and watch a tv show, or read a book, or color (yes, I still love to color), or something equally easy on my brain. I don't want to clean!

It is baffling to me how people are able to get past this. M says that when he sees something that needs to be done, he just does it. Because it needs to be done. 

Except it doesn't. 

He sees a counter full of dishes and immediately commences to washing them, because they need to be done.

I see a counter full of dishes and walk right past them, because there is still one bowl left in the cabinet for my cereal. So obviously, those dishes don't need to be done right now.

Wait. 

Okay, I just noticed something. 

When I wrote what I would do, I specified that dishes don't need to be done right now. But I didn't do that when I wrote about what M would do. So maybe that is the difference? M thinks "well yes, they don't need to be done right now, but they DO need to be done eventually... might as well do them now before it gets any worse." Hmm... I will have to follow up with him to confirm.

Either way, that still brings me back to one of my main problems, and my biggest "excuse" when it comes to things like housework. I just don't want to do it.

So I don't. 

And I am starting to realize that is kind of important in this process. 

I do want it to be done, I do want it to be better, I do want to be less stressed and less distracted, I just don't actually want to spend the small amounts of free time I have actually doing it. I glance at a counter full of dishes, or a table full of clutter, or a pile of clean laundry and think "eh. Not interested." Then I promptly forget about it and move on to something that IS interesting.

How do I make myself want to do it? How do I see something that I don't want to do, that I know doesn't actually need to be done right now this second, and make myself do it anyway?

Avoidance, Excuses, and Backsliding

If you've noticed that I've been MIA for almost two weeks you probably figured that I've decided to just give up on this whole blog thing.

Well my dear (non-existent) readers, you would be incorrect! Here I am!

Over the last few weeks I've had a lot of issues with pain, at one point it was even excruciating enough to send me to the ER to make sure I didn't have a herniated disc or something equally awful (I didn't). But the main reason I haven't posted is because I was embarrassed. And I felt guilty. And slightly ashamed.

Because, during that time, I slacked off. A lot.

I didn't keep up with the dishes. I didn't keep up with the floors. Or the laundry. Or picking up toys. Or bathing the children regularly... and I just didn't want you to know.

To be fair, it's not like I was partying or anything, I really was in a lot of pain and spent most of each day laying flat on the floor, trying to move as little as possible. And building legos with the kids.

A LOT of Legos.

But still, I kept feeling like I should be doing things, especially since I had gotten into a bit of a routine when I started this blog. And I knew that I was using the pain as an excuse to do nothing. I let the dishes pile up and I didn't enforce our "pick up what you take out" rule with the kids.

Which made me feel so guilty.

Sure, I was having a rough time, and in a lot of pain, but did that really mean I couldn't do anything? Nothing at all? Seriously? I was ok enough to get a bowl of cereal, but not enough to put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher? I was ok enough to lay on the floor and help the kids build Legos, but not enough to make sure they put them away?

Excuses.

I could have done those things, a lot of people would have, but I didn't. Because I just didn't want to. I was in pain and grumpy, which makes me want to do absolutely nothing. So I did nothing, and the house fell apart.

Then M (who is on the night shift and sleeps during the day) spent two of his nights off doing as much as he could to catch us back up. Which, of course, made me feel worse. Because it looked so much better, and I had done absolutely nothing for days. Even though my back had started feeling a little better, I had still done nothing.

Who wants to write a post saying their husband spent his days off work cleaning up messes that weren't his? Messes that I should have at least attempted to take care of myself?

A few days ago I decided enough is enough. The whole reason I started this blog was to hold myself accountable, right? So I can't just not post because I backslide. If I ever do get readers, I don't want them to think I was able to fix this overnight. Because that is definitely not going to happen.

So that's what I've been up to. Pain, an ER visit, more pain, narcotics, and a whole lot of slacking off, making excuses, and feeling sorry for myself.

There is no happy ending to this post, because sometimes life just sucks and you make stupid decisions based on flimsy excuses - or don't make any decision at all, which sometimes I think is just as bad. What about you?

Motivation Tips for the Domestically Challenged…

Don't put off a two-minute task now that will turn into a twenty minute task later

As soon as you wake up in the morning, force yourself to SMILE and say - out loud – “today is going to be a good day!” It may feel weird, but it will give a positive start to the whole day. Try it!

Perfection is overrated. 

It's okay to fail!

Failure is the opportunity to begin again. Only this time more wisely - Henry ford

Instead of focusing on how far you have left to go, look at how far you've come and how much you've accomplished