So Far, So Good

Day 3 of my "Not Be A Crummy Housekeeper" plan and I have figured something out about myself--I work in crisis mode but not as much in calm mode.

Some of that is not surprising, I used to do emergency management stuff.  However, my house is clean, it only took me a few minutes this morning (because today's room was the living room and it was already tidy, just needed dusting).

Soooooo......now what do I do?

The thing is that I think I find things to do when I am under pressure to do something else.  Need to mop the floor?  Hey!  Let's write a book instead!  Clean laundry piled upon the couch?  Hey!  Let's play video games!  Kitchen in need of work?  Hey!  Let's cross stitch pretty hankies for everyone we know whilst we binge watch Pride and Prejudice!

Now that I am not trying to avoid anything, I have no idea what to do.  It is the classic "I only want it when I can't have it" nonsense that is the root and bane of human psychology.  I think the adrenaline plus dread of a chore hanging over our heads adds to the rush that distraction gives us.  Now I don't need to be distracted so there is no energy that I am diverting from a stressful task to pour into a fun one.

Gah.  Is this what organized feels like? ;) ;)

Today I tidied and swept, dusted the living room, wrote over 1900 words discussing the Syrian Refugee Situation, watered the plants, drove to Tennessee with TWS, came back and stopped at the feed and seed for scratch and flock raiser, drove to pick up a present, went to the pet store (they did not have the food we needed), drove to the vet to get the food and register MicroMew for his shot series, etc, went to the grocers to get our Thanksgiving meal supplies (OH!  and new cleaning supplies!....wait, did I just get excited over cleaning supplies?!?  Who am I and what have I done with me?), came home, put groceries away (including 4 tubs of ice cream, three boxes of ice cream bars, two boxes of chloraseptic, and one bottle of Robo--there is a cold in the house), then ate lunch.

I actually just volunteered to help The Boy clean his room.

Confessions of a Crummy Housewife

I am not a good housekeeper.  Let's just get that out into the open.  I am a ROTTEN housekeeper actually.  Oh there is not gross stuff, but there is not order or tidiness either.

Now, I am good at many things.  I can help you paint a house.  Help you write a book.  Can help diagnose your illness, help you train your kids and cats.  I can help you improve your relationship with your sweetie.

I can plant a garden.  Cook over a fire.  Help cure your panic attacks.  Discuss literature, the Lord, and theoretical physics.

I can bake bread.  Skin a moose.  Write a poem.  Deliver a baby.

I can even tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue.

But I have never kept a clean house for more than as long as it takes to have company come and go.  Actually there were two times I would clean:  if company was coming or if I was upset.  The kids could see if I was upset so in those "50 year flood" type of time when I cleaned the house spontaneously, they would ask "Who's coming over?".

There is just so many other things that seemed more important.  I spend my time in my head.  My environment just needed to be sterile, not tidy (you might could eat off the floor if you could find it).  I did not care where my shoes were (until I couldn't find them) or if my bed was made.  As long as nothing was on fire or a health hazard, I didn't need order.

I am a grown adult.  It is about time I learned how to keep a house.

I started small--making sure my bed was made every day.  I don't even remember why...one day I got tired of our room being messy and put away a ton of clothes, shut drawers, wiped surfaces.  Made. The. Bed.

And thus it began.....

And every day for the past month I have made my bed before leaving my room in the morning EXCEPT on laundry days when I was going to strip the sheets.  Then I made the bed when they were done.

TWS, with a gleam in his eye, asked if, perhaps, this would carry over into other rooms.  Oh that poor man.  That poor, type A, logistician-by-trade, completely organized man.  I imagine that it was hard to live with his own personal tornado, but he understood that it was not a deliberate thing.  For example, when I get out of the shower and start putting on clothing, my towel actually ceases to exist.  I do not see it.  I do not remember it.  I do not think about it.  It phases out of my existence until it is time for the next shower.  Not on purpose, it just happens.  So I have literally 3 seconds before dressing to remember to hang my towel.  It got to be a habit, so now I do it unconsciously.

WHICH leads me to both my new Word of the Year for 2016 and my game plan:  Diligence.

We, thankfully, just had wonderful company come by, which meant, of course, panic clean.  The rooms were straightened, the floors scrubbed, etc.

Now I just have to keep it that way....which is what I have said before for oh, about 30 years BUT now I have both guilt and a plan :D  TWS never complained about a messy house but he did, after 21 years of marriage, hint that it would be nice.  He is too fabulous for me to deny him, so wishing became guilt which became a desire for diligence for the gifts the Lord gave me which led to prayer which led to plan. (love how that works!)

Because everything is not exactly 100% organized when i am starting, I still have a little backlog to do.  But those will be done on the days of the plan.  I divided the house into specific chores and assigned them a day.  Now, I have done this before, but this time, a)I am starting out after a panic clean and b)I started getting practice by the daily bed making thing.  I have worked out a HABIT, which is what i was missing.  The "bed making" is the starting line for my cleaning for the day.  After that, since I am already "cleaning", it was no big thing to add another chore, for example, sweeping.

Today's chores were:  bathrooms, water plants, tidy, and sweep.  In the span of 2 1/2 hours, I have:  scrubbed both bathrooms (toilets, sinks, shower, walls, floor, counters), washed the dishes (dd's chore but she went to bed feeling poorly last night), baked brownies (for her finals week), swept the house, made the bed, did a light tidy through the house (instead of a deep clean which will happen on the assigned days, for example, today was the day for a deep clean of the bathrooms), took out some trash, read, posted on fb. 

Except for watering plants (which I have not done yet as I need to figure out when citrus need to be watered), I am done with my chores for the day.  I have even painted my nails!


My house is tidy enough for drop by company.  Maybe not "stay for a week company" but definitely drop by company, which frees me up to be hospitable.  Not only that, but the rest of my day is clear!!!  WOOHOOO!!!

I could work on the list for tomorrow, but I am choosing not to.  Today was good enough for today.  This needs to be a habit, which means I will need time for those days when I have appointments or tasks, so I need to get into the "little every day" not "binge clean" which is my usual :)


If anyone reads this and has a trouble area (cleaning, exercising, etc) let me know.  I could use an accountability buddy.  I really want this to be a "thing". :)



My little helper who actually is not as much of a help as he thinks he is ;)

Daily Done 5Nov15

-Ran two trailer loads of moving trash to the transfer site.  We had never gotten rid of all the boxes and papers from when we moved in.

-Helped The Boy with his novel.

-Folded laundry.

-Tidied.

-Worked on Christmas planner :)

-Spent a huge amount of time messing with my blog background, only to go back to the background I already had :D

Daily Done 4Nov15

It was very much a low ebb day for me. :)   Felt rather off, slightly ill.  I think it is from the weather fronts that are coming through as we all are slightly headachy and off balance.  Plus, it has been very overcast for several days but not dark and stormy (which is fabulous) nor bright and sunny (which is fabulous).  It is the kind of bland overcast that is a blessing as it is trapping warm air at the ground, but does not energize the motivation :)

So I did not do a great deal.  But I also decided not to stress about it. :)  Some days are just like that.  I did not do a ton of work, but I tried to do steady work.  Later in the evening I almost begged out of going to supper with TWS because I felt weary, but I decided cheese sticks sounded too good to pass up and went :)  So glad I did!

There is such an interesting balance that we must strike between doing when we don't want to and resting when we should.

-Misc Household (make bed, etc.  I actually am trying to get better at doing this every day.  Usually I am so excited about my day that I run out of the room without making the bed, but I am trying to be more diligent :) )

-Sweep floor

-Tidy

-Read part of The Boy's first novel to help him with the NaNoWriMo he is doing this month.

-Write--today it was a long fb post regarding the necessary balance of love and logic in a child who is feeling very emotional about something that is not true.  It was a very interesting discussion with another woman who seems to put the event of emotions as more important than the resolving of them, and our discussion went round and round with her believing I was not validating emotion and me believing that it was more important to heal the pain of a wound that did not exist than to validate errant feelings.  If I, in error, thought my dog died, I feel it is much kinder to say "No, wait, your dog is alive!  He is in the other room!" than for someone, knowing full well that my dog is alive, to say "You are feeling very sad which makes sense if you think you dog has died.  I validate your feelings of sadness.  Let me hold you while you cry."

Oh we must be gentle with hearts!  But we must not allow them to dwell in unnecessary pain as that is not kind AT ALL.  Validate the truth and help the heart work toward the understanding of it!

The thing is emotions and "gut feelings" are not reliable.  Seriously they are not.  Gut feelings are like driving abilities:  everyone, myself included, thinks they are an excellent driver :)

But emotions and gut feelings are too complex and too easily swayed to be 100% trustworthy.  Hormone levels, illness, tiredness, time of day, blood sugar levels, all of these and so many more impact emotions and our "guts".  We can only see our perspective, our moment in time from our vantage.  We cannot see what other people are thinking or feeling.

I am not saying we should never rely on emotions.  Emotions are incredibly valuable for loving and tenderness and gentleness and humbleness and kindness and sympathy and empathy.  I am saying that we have to be wise enough to understand our emotions are not 100% valid all the time and to listen to those who love us and to be diligent to look at the logic and reason of a situation, as well as the emotion of it.

-Work on Christmas Book--ok I basically just printed out two calendars and looked for events to put in the book :)  I have a FABULOUS surprise waiting for the children in January :D

-Entertained our neighbors who came to look at bracelets that TWS makes as they want them for Christmas presents.  Then we took them out to feed the ducks.

-Went to supper with TWS to Applebees, then to the Nestles cookie shop for dessert whilst the kids were at youth group.

Daily Done 3Nov15

-Set up cat crate.  Our cats sometimes get caught in the screened porch at night.  With the weather getting colder, I don't want them to freeze and/or suffer.  I found a seat cover that we used for the dog which I will wrap around a cat carrier that is under the daybed on the porch.  Inside will be a sheepskin pad.  The cats love to go find hidey holes, so this should keep them warm enough til morning in our southern winters.

 -Run to feed store for scratch for ducks and chickens

-Tidy living room

-Bleach whites

-Fold laundry

Daily Done 2Nov15

-Wrote in this blog and spent time with the Lord.  I don't want to sound pious!  It REALLY is just one of my favorrrite times of the day to curl up in the quiet with coffee and pray and read.  It is not "I am a good Christian, so I am pretending this is fun because I should" but actually is so enjoyable....I think because I am starting to let the love of God actually soak in.  I find I put so many barriers up to His love because I feel guilty or like I am in trouble, but I am learning that is not how God sees me.  He sees me perfectly through the blood of Christ.  Yes, He gently corrects me when I am wrong, but He LOVES the me that is me.  So yeah, it is fun to be with Someone who loves you :)

-Baked peach pie (I had made and frozen it in the summer, took it out to bake today.  Love looking like I have been industrious when I just popped something frozen in the oven ;))

-Made my gift list (jigsaw puzzles and biosilk if anyone is interested :) )

-Cleaned kitchen, including bread baking station.

-Did laundry

-Reassemble bed kits.  I reuse those big plastic bags that you get with comforter sets to make complete bed kits of pillows, a whole sheet set, a blanket, and possibly a mattress pad.  This makes it really easy to get ready for guests.  I will store these in Maisy, our pull behind trailer, in case we have to evacuate due to weather or whatever (plus I am running out of room in our house to store things).  I have two queen kits, two twin kits plus another two that would be more for little kids (smaller blankets), and several towel kits.

-Dinner:  baked breaded pork chops, baby carrots, cheese Texas Toast.

-Supper:  "fend fer"

Daily Done 20 May

Part of the reason for the blog is to sort of keep track of what we are doing to get the land working as well as to provide some insight (and hopefully make the learning curve easier!) for anyone who is dreaming about living on a farm or is starting to.

PLUS I think we all (mostly me) can be surprised by what we can do when we get off the computer (after I finish writing this one more post, baby!), and start doing things :).  This is sort of new ground for me, as most of my work has been in my head, not with my hands.  

So I thought I might start posting "Daily Done"'s at the end of the day to sort of give a very quick overview of what we worked on today.  Some days it will probably sound amazing, and some days it will be more like "I watched all three versions of Pride and Prejudice that we own.  And napped a lot." :)

I had thought of putting a list of what I intended to do a specific day, but the Lord directs my steps in often very different ways than I had planned :).  Much better to say what I did accomplish than what I planned to accomplish. (By the way, this works excellently as a motivation tool.  Instead of writing down to do lists, which are often daunting and never ending, I started writing down "What I Did" lists.  It showed me what I was doing well at and when I was perhaps not working as diligently as I could have been :) )


My Daily Done:
-Retrieved the crawdad trap from the upper pond.  Catch:  3 crawdads.  Released them into the big pond.
-TWS and I laid probably over 400 ft of water pipe, gluing and attaching.  I decided I am queen of the water pump that we had to use often to try to get the excess water out of the 3 ft deep trench that the pipe goes in.  We also installed several faucets and ran some electrical wire up in the well house.
-Harvested strawberries, but only got a few and they were not great.  Realized that I need mulch under the plants, as the wet clay is coating the leaves and rotting the fruit where it touches the ground.
-Made a Lowe's run and got out of there spending about $38.  Bought two tyvek type suits for removing the poison ivy that is growing with our muscadine and honeysuckle vines.

I am tired!  Good night my dear friend!  Sleep well!