Due Dates

It seems that getting things done is easier when you have a short term real date that you need to accomplish it by.

Cleaning Plan Over View

Wednesday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Find Alarm Clocks
4. Load DI into van
5. Quick Clean back
6. Clean off Carport
7. Run Van Load
8. Visiting Teaching

Thursday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Send bank statement
4. Find pay stubs and send
5. Declutter out Storage Shed
6. Run DI Load if needed

Friday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Continue Storage Shed Declutter
4. Get rid of the rest
5. Run DI Load

Saturday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Clean out Storage Shed
4. Neat Stack Boxes Left
5. Match a lid to each bin
6. Get Rid of extra Bins/ Lids

Monday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Declutter downstairs kitchen
4. Start decluttering out boxes in pantry

Tuesday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Continue Pantry Declutter

Wednesday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Fill up the dumpster

Thursday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Restart Office Declutter

Friday 9th

Lets hope we close this day

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Continue Office Declutter
4. Pack up K12 Stuff

Saturday

1. 5 min maintainance
2. Quick clean Fr, Kt, Hl, Bth
3. Super Saturday, you earned it, enjoy it!

Monday

1. Tear out carpet in new home
2. take out fridge
3. cut out bad drywall in basement

Tuesday

1. Clean yard in new home
2. throw away wood pile
3. take down moldy dry wall in out building

To Do This Evening

1. Wash laundry - Done
2. Make a snack - Done
3. Call Visiting Teaching companion - DOne
4. Make dinner - Papa Did this for me
5. Have DH Sign the Documents - Done
6. Get ready - Done
7. Go Visiting - Done
8. Fax Documents - Done
9. Pary for Guidance - Done
10. Make a Plan for Tomorrow - Done

Avoiding Crisis Living

Well I just stumbled across this little lesson, while using google to make sure I was using the term "Crisis Living" correctly.

Avoiding Crisis Living, “Lesson 44: Avoiding Crisis Living,” Young Women Manual 3, 160

1. Establish priorities. Each week or each day, consider what you have to do; then decide which things are most important. Do the most important things first.

2. Eliminate unimportant things. You may find that some of your activities only waste time and do not add much to your life. Eliminate the unimportant things.

3. Improve work and study habits. Discipline yourself to work and study hard. Start on long-term projects well before they are due.

4. Recognize your limitations. Remember that no one can do everything. Be realistic in your expectations of yourself. Avoid comparing your abilities with those of others.

Primary Success

My kids all had their parts memorised perfectly and said them clear and understandably at the primary program today. And all but a few understandable wiggles in my youngest, my boy, were well behaved. I am very pleased with them.

Mama Muffin

What Aluminum Poisoning?

Maybe it does not exist. Maybe it is the medical fad I am caught up in right now. It offers such a pretty picture, such an easy way out. I can just claim all these problems are caused by aluminum and then feel that explains it all away.

My worst childhood memories are around cleaning and my mother. I was always well known for my inability to clean as a kid... Then as a newly wed I went through a depression as I worked through all the feelings I had around cleaning. At this time my husband could not mention cleaning to me without me being depressed for a month... Then my excuse was I could not clean because my home was too small... Then my excuse was that my daughter took up too much of my time... Then my two daughters... Then my excuse was my stress level as I added in my son and adopted daughter at the same time. My excuse continued to be stress throughout the long drawn out legal battle with my adopted daughters birth mother... Then the condo remodel was my excuse for a disorderly home... Then my difficult pregnancy was my excuse. Then my new baby was my excuse... Then my move was my excuse... Then living with my MIL and having family drop by unannounced was my excuse... Then the stress of kids again... Then the seasonal flair up as my MIL came and snowbirded in the basement of the home we rented from her... Then the miscarriage... Then the fire... Then the mental break down... Then the Thyroid problems... Then the anxiety... Then the move back in was my excuse... Then....

Ah, then I remember that brief golden time. I had all the insurance money to get the home set up the way I wanted to after the fire. I only unpacked things as I found homes for them. I bought all the best home organisers. I bought home decorations, for the first time. My home was organised to the T, and decorated to the T.

Then the holidays... Then another miscarriage... Then another miscarriage... And finally, a limp half alive Mama wondering if she had the will to live... Then... A year and a half later my home has not recovered because I lost faith. I mean... My next excuse for not being clean was a lack of faith... Then I choose to have faith, and just like C.S. Lewis described in the screwtape letters, I felt the sweet joy of early success. Followed by the gut wrenching, you must prove to all existence that you can make it on your own, on principal and personal strength alone, it must be your victory... Then my excuse was my work schedule... And now... Now it is aluminum...

Aluminum is such an easy answer, like thyroid, like anxiety, like many others. It has in it all the elements. All the personal weakness I have struggled with for my life are right there, wrapped up in aluminum poisoning. It is so easy to see how my stress caused me to stop cooking from scratch. How my family ate more fast food, and out of more boxes, then I would care to say. Ok I can say. I do not even plan on real cooking any more, I have come to the conclusion it requires more of me then I can give. My meal plans are.... Open a box, mix in required ingredients, cook for as long specified and eat. Except for when they are not, then my meal plans are load up the kids, pull up to the drive through, order, pay and eat. Seriously years ago I was appalled at others who ate like this. It makes sense that averaging one box of muffin mix a day for a year and a half would have its negative effects... doesn't it?

My sister once described to me a personality type that wants to live their life in constant crisis mode. She did not say it, but I though it, doesn't that just sound like me? My next thought was. What is a person to do. Does anyone else know what it feels like, to throw every ounce of your effort at life, to give it your all, and to come out a failure over and over and over and over and over again. At some point that person has to decide what they think of themselves. Are they infact a hopeless failure. In which case, the solution is sit down and let the tidal waive of life over take you. Success is not possible, so why try. Then it does not take long for such a hopeless failure to realise just how miserable being hopeless is, and maybe trying would at least be a little bit better. Oh the other choice. Ask yourself why at the end of it all you ended up as a failure. Reason it through, and see what stoped you from your success, and hypothesise about ways you can try something different, in hopes to get a different result. Basically try, try and try again.

I read on a blog the other day that life is about singing in the rain and dancing through the storm, not waiting for it to pass. I get that, I see now that life is a storm of experience that waxes and wanes.

So then I guess I could ask. Why is it that you feel like a complete failure and completely inadequate if you fail at organization. Why is it that organization is the all magic attribute that decides if you are valid and successful, good and worthy, respectable and valuable. Why not all your other attributes?

Then I hear in my self the answer, organization is the foundation to a good life, everything good in life needs organization to thrive. And I hear... A persons level of organization and cleanliness is a reflection of that persons character. A clean and orderly person has a clean and orderly character, a disorderly and dirty person is obviously lacking greatly in character... And then i think of all the extremely well organised people that have made me feel like a pile of heap. And I remember that I value being considerate to others over being organised. I remember that I have seen quite a few people who are the picture of organization, that lack in character.

So now I ask my self, after all these years, where do I find that place? That place where I am good in spite of my great weaknesses.

I have had the privilege to visit a few of my highly respected neighbors and see how disorderly their homes were. They were not stressed or uncomfortable. And they were still very respected. Their personal worth was not at risk because of their cleanliness. I then look around and I see that i am as close to heaven as one can get here on the earth. I am in a neighborhood where I remain respected and valued in spite of the many character flaws I have not been able to hide. I wonder if some day my mind will catch up with my neighbors. It would seem I am the one who is most guilty of judging myself.

Whew.... enough of that.... maybe now that I have that all written down I will not have to go through that thought process for a while.

To Do Today

General Overview

1. Get ready for Renee
2. Get ready for Woman's Conference
3. Have kids practice for primary program

Practicing for the primary program

1. find the parts - Done
2. have kids practice sitting quietly while waiting their turn - Done - This went badly the first time, with my son crying because he could not play on the computer.
3. have each kid read their part - Done, Went well because I made picture ques for their parts.

Getting ready for woman's conference

1. find outfits for everyone - done
2. wash outfits - done
3. find shoes - done
4. shower
5. do hair

Getting ready for Renee, the big one.

1. Straighten up back yard - done
2. sweep off concrete - done
3. scrub toilet - done
4. quick clean bathroom - done
5. wash up bathroom - done
6. gather up red and white things - done
7. de junk kitchen - done, mostly
8. de junk freezer and fridge
9. empty out sink
10. wash out sink
11. prep wash dishes
12. clean off counters
13. clean off table
14. declutter front room floor & couches - done over halfway
15. declutter hall floor - done
16. declutter living room floor
17. declutter down kitchen
18. prep and bring up dishes
19. general declutter bedrooms down stairs
20. scrub downstairs toilet
21. declutter downstairs bathroom

What about food??

1. clean out sink first -
2. then wash bowl and pan -Done
3. make cornbread mix that does not have aluminum on the ingredients list, breakfast - Done
4. Instant meal lunch
5. dinner?? buy butter and milk so she can make macaroni and cheese?

The order of the day.

1. Find parts - Done
2. Call kids - Done
3. Have kids practice parts while I make cornbread.- Done
4. Then have kids get outfits while I clean - done
5. Then have kids work outside while I work in the kitchen - done
6. Then hose off cement or show kids how to do it. - done
7. Then we all work together on the general house until they are done - got allot done
8. Then they go play while I finish up.