The weekend, a birthday & BBB day 3-4

Day 3 - Do what we have already done (shine sink, dressed to shoes, read 2 minutes of messages) - check!

Day 4 - Write these things down (on sticky notes) and continue shining sink & getting dressed to shoes - not going to do the sticky notes...it's the beginning of the control journal which I already have done from before

I didn't do any 15 minute decluttering but did get the house sparkling clean for Sam's birthday party.

My parents came for his party. We invited all 9 kids in his kindergarten class & we had 5 come plus 2 little siblings. I was kind of disappointed for Sam, he really wanted everyone here. But that made for a total of 10 kids & man was it loud!!

We had blast but were relieved when it was over. I'm not inviting that many kids again unless we are meeting at the park or something. We got through it with games & stuff but when we let them play upstairs for a bit we had kids throwing toys & one jumping off of the top bunk! Yeah, put a stop to that quick!

So my baby is 6 years old now. *sniff, sniff* He likes to tell us about every half an hour. "Hey mom, guess what?" "What?" "I'm 6!" But today it's changed a bit. "Hey mom, I'm almost 7!" He's so sweet! I wish I had gotten a shot of his face when we were all singing happy birthday to him. I've never seen him so excited. I just can't believe he's gotten so big! I have never been sad to have him grow up before this. Now he's such a boy, such a kid and my lil chubby cheeked baby lives only in memory. I love to see him develop & learn new things but he's just changed so much this past year, school makes a huge difference. But he will always be my snuggly boy. He thrives on psycal contact & prefers to be all squished together in the recliner for it. I cherish those times more than anything!

We had a good visit with my folks. After the kids went to bed Saturday night they introduced us to the game of farkle. It's a blast to play even when mom wins 2 games in a row. I think farkle makes a good alternative cuss word too!

My parents & I took the kids for a nice long walk Sunday morning. We went on my usual route but mom & the kids picked wildflowers & grasses the whole way so it took about twice as long. Now I have 4 tiny bouquets of pretty weeds in my kitchen. I love the fields around here. There's lots of bachelors buttons, wild lupine, and assorted who knows what scattered all over.

After the walk my dad's hay fever went nuts & they had to leave early. The kids were sad but we worked/played outside for the rest of the day so they got over it soon. I got another lil flower bed dug up & will plant it this week. I also planted another pot of string beans & spent a good hour laying with the kids in the grass looking for bugs in my new flower bed.

We managed to keep the house clean all weekend so this morning is easy-cheesy for me. I don't have too much on my list for today 'cept for a lot of errands. We'll see how it goes with all 3 kids in tow. Sam's school is out for the year so it's time to get used to having 3 kids home all day.

Well I hope y'all had a fabulous weekend. I gotta get hopping on my list-o-stuff & head out for hours of torture my running around with the kids.

Have a great day!!

BBB day 2.2

Do over day today!!

From now on I'm only concentrating on my babystep & my de-cluttering. I need to keep it simple right now & throwing in the pressure of doing my whole to-do list (no matter how small) was just too much for my poor damaged psyche.

So BBB day 2 is Get dressed to lace up shoes & read 2 minutes of her e-mails. (There are a lot of e-mails with FlyLady.) Check. Except that you're supposed to do this in the morning. I did it at about 2:30 PM. She also includes do your hair & face in this...hair done, face is done all the time as I don't wear makeup (I know, weird) except for Sundays & special occasions.

I am walking with BFF today but not until after the last tee ball game. I'm picking up the boys from school in a few minutes (so I better get this done quick) and we're gonna eat early at her house before the game. She is taking my place tonight at a meet-n-greet for the committee that is trying to get some kind of health care clinic here in town (Woo-hoo!) We both wanted to go to both things but since that's impossible we shall devide and conquer.

I'm doing my 15 min de-clutter after the walk.

And PTL, I'm having a MUCH better day today :)

BBB day 2

So yesterday was a 1-step-forward day & today has been a 1-step-back day.

I did not even look at what my babystep was for today.
I did not do my 15 minutes of de-cluttering.
I did do my grocery shopping. (hard to ignore that one)
I did not walk with BFF. (raining or we would have)
I did not do laundry.
I did not clean the bathroom.
I did not work outside. (again, raining)
I did blog. (like I'd miss blogging, duh!)

**sigh**

I was tired, kids were grumpy, it was raining, and I had to do grocery shopping with grumpy kids. So. Not. Fun.

And now here I am, spilling my guts to you. I could lie through my teeth (or would that be fingers?) & tell you I got all my stuff done & hooray for me. But I'm all about being honest & transparent so I'm showing you all my lazy pathetic glory. Yuck!

But tomorrow is another day. A day in which, as FlyLady says, I am not behind!

BBB day 1

So today was babystep #1, Go Shine your sink.
(for the official directions, click here)

Unfortunately my sink will not actually shine. It's a very old porcelain sink & has lots of stains I can't get out now matter what I try (and I've tried everything!) But I went ahead & 'shined' the dang thing & it looks much better now. The stains are still there but overall the sink is much brighter.

Here's my to do list for the day:

Find control journal, do day 1 baby-steps, de-clutter 15 min
Walk with BFF @ 9 - bring invites to Mrs. L’s room
What’s for dinner?
Laundry
Clean bathroom
Work outside, plant beans, water, string on porch
Blogging - Sundays FLY post, fix link to Janae & Kelly, reading, PPP

So what did I get done?
















Here I am with my Control Journal, so obviously I found it & I already talked about my sink.

I also did 15 minutes of de-cluttering my desk, walked with BFF, got Sam's invites to his classroom, got dinner planned & worked on Sunday's blog. Not everything on my list but not a bad showing overall. (And I added an unexpected meeting to the day - I'll talk about that more in another post, it's something I'm really excited about.) I did drag my feet on the sink & de-cluttering but when I finally got my butt in gear did them it felt so great. FlyLady would say "I'm so proud of you!"

I need to work on not procrastinating. I would have gotten much more done had I just jumped right in. But I need to remember I'm taking babysteps & working on things 15 minutes at a time.
First day down, now to see what Tuesday brings :)

Feels like I've done a marathon

So yesterday was clean the house day. We say that every weekend but this time we actually did it. Well, we didn't pay much attention to upstairs or our bedroom but the rest of the house looks great - yay us! I cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the rugs (& the spiders - eww), picked up the living room & helped to do a detailed sweeping job. Chris picked up the family room, helped with the sweeping, and cleaned most of the bathroom, did you get that? He did the BATHROOM!!

We were motivated to do all this because we are having Sam's birthday party on Saturday, (he turns 6 on Sunday - my baby is getting so big! *sniff*) and we have invited all 9 of his K-kid classmates to the party. (Yes I may need to be committed afterward but I'm sure I'll get lots of blogging material out of it!) I don't know most of the parents so I want the house (at least the part they will see) to be sparkling.

I should add that we got all this done while watching my BFF's 3 boys, ages 6, 3 & 18 mo. For once the kids played nicely together & we had very few fights. I hardly had to get involved with the older kids at all & the lil guy hung out with Chris & I. I always love playing with toddlers...especially if they aren't mine!

I have a few jobs to finish during the week, like scrubbing the toilet (but I'm NOT complaining), picking up the kids rooms and such but other than that it's just upkeep.

Today I'm starting on my beginner babysteps so stay tuned for that tomorrow.

Starting over

I am not known for my housekeeping skills. I have never been a 'cleanie' & most likely never will. There is always a load of laundry (or 2, or 3...) waiting to be folded on the couch, dishes to be done in the sink, toys, books & assorted stuff strewn all about the floor. I would rather do just about anything (blogging, duh!) but clean. We are clutter hounds, my hubby & I, we don't really like it but we seem to be powerless to keep anything picked up for long and we are passing this fabulous trait on to our children.

(I am being VERY transparent here...please be kind!)

A couple of years ago I stumbled on a website that has the potential to change the life of someone like myself. If you look over at my sidebar & down a smidge, you'll see a cute new button. That lil lady with the wings is the FlyLady & she's one of the most amazing women I know. I (sorta) followed her routines for a few months here, a few weeks there, always falling off the wagon eventually but knowing what I needed to do to jump back on.

Last year when Chris started with the bricklayers union I started to fall apart. The company he worked for was in Spokane, but at that time we lived in Kittitas, 3 hours away. Long story short, for 6 months he spent his weeks in Spokane & his weekends at home which I could not handle. I not only fell off the FlyLady wagon, I lost sight of how to get back on & the will to do so. (By the time we moved here I was very close to having a complete nervous breakdown.)

So now it's 8 months later & my house is seriously driving me nuts. I'm tired of living in a dump. I'm tired of crisis cleaning every time someone visits. I'm tired of living in CHAOS (see previously mentioned cute button.) It's time to get back on that FlyLady wagon. I'm going to dust off my old Control Journal (after I find it), shine my sink & start over again with the Beginner BabySteps.

To keep me accountable, I'm going to blog about my journey. I plan to post about what I did the previous day, how I'm feeling etc. If I miss a day I invite you to ask me why the freak I'm slacking off if something is wrong. I feel like I need someone (other than my husband, he'd just get in trouble haha!) to help me stay on track & who better than my pals out there in bloggy-land?

If you are a SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive) like me, I invite you to join along. For all the BO (Born Organized) ladies out there, you might gain a little insight on how us SHE's operate. And if you know a SHE that could use a little encouragement please share my blog with her - who knows, it just might change her life!