Messy bedrooms!

Why does it bother me oh so much that the children don't tidy up their room. They used to be awful at leaving the whole house in a tip but now they are a bit bigger they are quite good at taking their things up (even if it takes lots of reminding!). But their own bedroom is a different matter entirely! Most of the time you can barely see their floor. It drives me to despair.

My ever so matter of fact 8yr old daughter says to me "but why does it bother you mummy? It's our room, it's only us who has to live in it". I say to her that I need to get in to put their clothes away and change their bed and she says "just leave them at the door and they will do it!". If I could only believe that I would do it. If I really thought that they would take their dirty sheets off and leave them outside the door on "wash day" and then manage to put the sheets and pillow cases and duvet covers back on again then I would like nothing more than to close their door and let them live in a pigsty. But they are 6 and 8. Not 16 and 18. It simply wouldn't work

Therefore, I nag, they moan, I shout, they cry, I nag some more...for an hour and a half...and finally the room is tidy. I quickly put their clothes away and change their beds and sweep their floor before tomorrow when it is back to being a pigsty again! *sigh*.

My sink is still shiny!

My sink is clean! Can't say as much for the rest of the house unfortunately though. I've had a lazy today - not felt too great - so I decided to give myself a breathing space and have a duvet day in front of the tv. Well, I had a duvet half hour - the rest of the day I pottered, we walked through the woods to the shops, visited my parents, walked home in a torrential downpour and cleaned the kitchen...four times. But the rest of the house is a tip!  But at least my sink is still clean. x

Productive day

I feel like I've had a pretty productive day - which is good for me, as I normally feel like I've not achieved the huge list of tasks which I've set myself and that makes me feel low and useless.

I managed to do the vacuuming, put all the clean washing away, cook and eat dinner before washing and drying up again :-) Also had time to spend an hour playing board games with N too which was lovely as I always feel like I have too many jobs to do to justify stopping to play games. 

By the evening I felt that I could cope with an unexpected visitor if they happened to call by...whereas normally I would ignore the door just in case I had to let someone see my hideously messy house. In fact, I'd actually LOVE my mum to come and see what I've done. She would be SO proud as she saw it yesterday looking it's worst. :-(

Look what I did!

Well, it took me an hour to put everything away that was already on the draining board, wash up everything that was filling the sink and then put away again! Then I had to fill the sink with water and bleach and leave it for an hour - so while that happened I scooped up all the children's toys so I could see their floor and put them in a big box which they can sort out throughout the week (or the box gets moved to the shed!) I also started sifting through the clothes and put them into piles of which goes to which family member. Not managed to put it away yet though.
Once the hour was up, I got scrubbing....well, I wish I'd taken a "before" picture. But here is my "after" picture which I'm pretty impressed with (even if it did take a total of 2 hours to do - 3 if you include the soaking!)

So that is my "Day 1" of flylady completed. I've never spent so long cleaning one area of my house before. And I have to say, it does make me feel very good. I did feel a bit obsessed while doing it as the tap kept dripping which meant I had to keep drying it out and did once actually shout at the tap to stop doing it on purpose! Lol! I've also put the washing up bowl on our useless dishwasher as we're not using it at the moment. So all the dirty dishes have to get put in the bowl in the dishwasher and when it's full, I bring it out to wash AND DRY up. That way all the dirty stuff is out of sight so I don't have to cringe at it every time I look towards to sink. 
I do keep looking round the house and seeing what else I could do...but I have to stop myself. I have study to do. I will do the vacuuming once the children get home from school.

On edge...

It's actually really bothering me that I can't just start work on this whole hideously messy house today. I cleared the kitchen table on Tuesday evening and today (Fri) it's already cluttered again and I'm itching to make a start on it. However, I have made a mental note that I must not do anything over and above what I planned otherwise I won't be able to give flylady.net a proper try. So today these are my tasks:

1. Do "day 1" on the fly lady plan - to really scrub the kitchen sink til it shines.
2. Do at least 2 loads of washing (please don't rain today).
3. Put washing away.
4. Vacuum the house.
5. Write for a couple of hours.
6. Do half an hour of relaxing yoga.

I'll log how I get on.

Flylady.net

A lovely lady on a forum I used suggested I use www.flylady.net to try and organise my house/life a bit. Well, I went there and you know what...it really looked like I *could* work. You need to click on Beginner Babysteps on the left hand task bar and it gives you a "job" to do each day..taking small steps til you've got into some good habits. Certainly no harm in trying...might even ben fun to be honest! Giving myself small jobs to do rather than the mammoth list of things I normally set myself.

What is a perfectionist?

There would be (and has been) some giggles at the prospect of me being a perfectionist. My house is a tip, I'm unorganised (on the surface), I flap and I faff about everything and I'm forever forgetting things.

Does that sound like a perfectionist to you? Naah...me neither.

BUT...

A while ago I read something that pinpointed exactly what a perfectionist was. It described these few things:

• Someone who is an "all or nothing" type of person. For example, they won't do the housework daily but save it up til the place is a tip and then do a HUGE blitz and god forbid if the place doesn't look like a show home after that.
• Someone who is more likely to do fad "quick fix" diets rather than a healthy eating plan because they want to look perfect NOW, not next year.
• Someone who, if they eat some chocolate while they're on a diet thinks "well, I've blown it now so I may as well have fish and chips for tea!
• Somone who is always looking for tomorrow as it will be better than today.
• Someone who changes jobs regularly.
• Someone who always wants what they can't have - "the grass is always greener" syndrome.

Well, all of that is me!

I am really trying to not be like it but to be honest I think I'm getting worse with age.

The reason for this blog is just to keep track of my thoughts and to begin to sort out my life so I can be happy with what I have now rather than what I could have. Easier said than done when you're a perfectionist...but I am trying.