Spring!

Ok, technically Spring is officially another month and a bit away, but TODAY is very spring like. Even if the temperature online says its 14.

I've been keeping up with the dishes before bed again, and even willingly wiped down the bathroom. This makes a huge difference to my mornings.

I've stripped the bed today, to wash the sheets and take advantage of the weather.

The car has also been washed, inciting dread to all my local Facebook friends.

All but one of the windows in the house are open to get the breeze.

Additionally, with the spring like feel to the air, yesterday I parked at Kmart and walked into work. Its a mere 10 minute walk, that I almost skipped because 'rain was forecast.' So that 20 min walk to and from the car also boosted energy levels.

The weather and energy wont last, so I plan on making the most of it!

thoughts

I watched an episode of Hoarders last night, and even though I spent half the time seeing 'things that are still good' one sentence stood out. That was where the 'professional' said that so and so had just tossed the stuff into a room and shut the door on it.

Guess what? that is what 'everyone' suggests when you are having a rough time (sickness, baby problems, too busy) - but I'm not sure I have ever heard how to get back on track. Say you are a new mum, just home from hospital. A partner who is little to no help and who bitches coz 'nothing is done.' So, you tidy up by shoveling everything into the spare room, where he and the guests never go, the main living are is tidy, but you are still knackered. Baby is fussy and wont be put down for 8 months...you've still been 'cleaning up' by filling the spare room, except, by now, the spare room is full, so you start on the babies room. Baby sleeps with you coz thats the only way you can get more than 5 mins sleep at a time.

You see the pattern here?

Or perhaps you have been ill...done the same thing, but the thought of facing all that stuff is too overwhelming. So you shut the door. Out of sight, out of mind.

So how to you get started again?

I had a baby here yesterday. Hes been here a few times, but yesterday I also had a house inspection. I knew he would be coming, so I did getting organised things before collecting him. It made me wonder how I managed when I had my own kids. Especially the first one. Its hard enough working out how to cook baby food and go to the loo and do STUFF when you have experience. But the first advice you get when lost with a new baby was..let the housework go. Now that I am older, and presumably wiser, Flylady's 15 mins a day would be easily achieved with a baby sling and fractious baby. 20 years ago baby wearing wasn't common, and I didn't know about Flylady. :s

The house inspection was a breeze. I wiped down the sinks and vacuumed. Even finally putting the clean sheets that were washed a couple of weeks ago. he is here to check the condition of the house NOT my housework skills. As nothing has changed, there wasn't anything to report. but is is very nice not to stress out about the housework.

I'm still not even looking at the missions for the day. I should. They would give me something to do. But now that the days are getting longer and also nicer, I feel more motivated to keep things tidy. Laundry can be hung on the line, rather than on the clothes horse inside. The back door can be open to let fresh air in. I guess as long as I can keep the house at a sustainable level, a few months 'off' over Winter is ok.

woo!

I cant say that I am perky today, but some things HAVE been done. I did the dishes last night, and tidied the bench, cleaned the stove and wiped down the sink..and even got out the corned beef.

There was no sleeping with the window open, coz it was too windy and the weights in the blinds bang and crash against the wall. I did take a multi vitamin and a couple of cod liver oil capsules - for the Vit D.

This morning, I told myself that I couldn't get online until the lounge was tidy, so I sorted most of that out to a tolerable level and put the corned beef on. This bit of meat is brilliant in the crock pot.

Before and after shots.

Ugh. Cant sit on the couch or other arm chair. Clothes horse in the way of everything, and the dog blanket.


Only a slight improvement, but better than nothing! Now the cat has a bit of couch to sleep on, and another cat can claim the arm chair.

I am wanting to find a way/place to store the socks I am knitting. Right now they live on the couch, in the bottom left side of the after shot, or on the arm of it. There are four pairs on the go at the moment. That's...more than 27 needles. Nine for each pair, plus however many for the store bought socks I am reknitting which has the instep stitches on a circular.

Anyway, I feel much better about it being tidier. But I expect that is the added vitamins more than anything else. This weeks Zone is the lounge so I guess I am still sort of on track.

tsk tsk

I'm not sure I can claim to be a Flybaby at the moment. I didn't even LOOK at last weeks missions, and I don't think I've done the dishes/shined the sink before bed in at least a couple of weeks. :( The motivation just isn't there! I also have far fewer visitors over winter - likely a result of not being at all sociable - and with the addition of really GREAT books to read on my Kindle...yeah.

I've been going to bed at 6, 7pm to read because there hasn't been anything on tv and to make sure the heater doesn't go on. Sometimes I head there not expecting to go to sleep, but I do. Other times, and this is frequent in winter, I read until after midnight, and still not get to sleep before 2am. On those nights, the last thing I want to do is get back up to do the dishes/sink. And it is really too cold to do it anyway. I don't have the heater on as a rule, so the indoor temperature can be as little as 7C. Getting up to wash dishes for 4 mins isn't worth the cost of whacking the heater on for that amount of time.

We are past the shortest day, and already things are looking brighter. Ok, I realise we have just as much light as we did 4 days BEFORE the solstice...but it still feels brighter :P I also realise there is another 9 weeks of Winter.

Because the temperature has risen the last couple of days - like, its a whole 11C outside, the bedroom window has been open the last two nights. On both of which I actually got to sleep before midnight. perhaps I shall take a multi vitamin, sleep with the window open again tonight and see what that does for the motivation levels. Getting tomorrows tea out of the freezer tonight would also help, especially if I want the corned beef to thaw out.

If improved vitamin levels don't help, then I expect this blog will stay very very quiet until Spring. I don't think I have fallen off the wagon, I'm just in hibernation :D That said though, I figured out the other day that if you 'have to tidy up coz a visitor is coming' then you are well slack on the housework :s

C'est la vie

slackness

Grey days really are NOT conducive to tidying up. I am fairly sure I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, though I am not sure that the Dr has actually said that.

But anyway, with a visitor due today, and one that is allergic to cats I have done a half decent job of vacuuming. But I also got out the front of the house and tidied that up. All the cannas were frost bitten and the other plants were over growing the path. I even tidied up the prunings and hosed down the path.

This is what it looks like now:










That pile of STUFF is going to end up being mulch. If I wanted to get fussy I would cut back the grass. But that is enough for today, it is much improved. It also ties in well for todays mission, I just did the outside, rather than inside...though, I guess I did that too by moving the monitor and baby seat.

:o long time, no see

I want to say I've been insanely busy to make excuses about why nothing got done for a few weeks. There is no excuse really though. I could have found time to do things between driving lessons and dog sitting and emailing someone overseas.

For example, I could have made sure things were neat and tidy before taking the dog for a walk and driving lessons. Its not that hard to wash the few dishes I get dirty. Takes even less time to wipe down the sink after washing them.

I could have even made sure the dishes were done before sitting down to email the overseas correspondent.

I could have even vacuumed after I let the dog out the back to do his business of a morning.

But, in all honesty, I just couldn't be stuffed doing it. Gray cloudy days are NOT conducive to me doing things. By the time I got back from dog walking and driving I was 'too tired' to spend 3 or 4 minutes doing the dishes.

Happily though, with the dog gone, the last driving lesson scheduled, plus the clear day and the overseas chap being at work, I whizzed around the house and had it tidy again in a matter of 5..maybe 10 minutes. And that included wiping under the hotplate rings on the stove. Those things are sharp underneath, as I found out the hard way. There is still dog hair everywhere (doesn't vacuum up very easily), and muddy foot prints in the laundry, but I'll get to those, probably sometime today if the weather stays clear.

Suffice to say..after a few weeks of the house being ever so slightly annoying, waking up to it being tidy is a distinct pleasure.

todays mission

Was to tidy up your front entrance. Well, thankfully, I did that the other day while waiting for the quarantine lady. I even moved the car out of the carport and swept down the walls of the car port. Now that was gross! Old cobwebs and dust and even a dehydrated mouse carcass. Ok, the mouse was on the floor. There is still more that needs to/could be done, but it still looks a hell of a lot nicer than it did last Monday.

I do need to prune the plants back though. They are looking a tad seedy.