I made some resolutions at the start of this year.  I am working at them, at my own pace.  This week I feel like I am falling behind.  We had a lot of snow early last week.  I missed two days of work just digging out from under it.  My husband, who normally does the shoveling, hurt his back, and is still recovering.  So I did it myself.  It was a lot of work, and the reason I missed the second day is because I spent more than 4 hours shoveling, and it exhausted me.

So I rested for 2 days, when I wasn’t shoveling.  Eat; shovel; sleep; repeat; for 2 days.  I didn’t get much done inside the house for those days.  We managed.  We averted the crisis of having no Pepsi in the house for my husband.  It was a close one, though.  He doesn’t enjoy coffee, he likes Pepsi.  I enjoy coffee, and today, I am home without the car, so I can focus on what needs doing inside the house, and drink a lovely bucket of coffee.

I prep cook on the weekends.  It is on my list of things to do.  I need to get at the dishes and laundry.  I want to finish the kitchen and move on to other rooms, but life happens.  Other projects have popped up in the last month, so it was not a productive couple of weeks in my kitchen.

If you are following my blog, you are familiar with the Tish-ism in Bouncing the House.  It is what I do.  I crank the tunes and clean.  This is in my plans for today.  But where do I start?  There is SO much to DO and only ONE DAY.  I am a weekend warrior when it comes to cleaning, and someday, when I am more energetic or have things under control so that I only need a half hour a day in the week for maintenance house cleaning, that won’t be the case.  I will be able to manage it this way at some point, and then I will have the time I need to focus on writing and crafts.  What I WANT to do.

At the start of the year, I decided on three things as my resolutions.  Work on me by living a healthier lifestyle, clean my house, really clean it, top to bottom, and write a book.  I will not begin writing in earnest until the house is done.  I will never get the cleaning done if I jump into writing and get lost in my creativity.  I have a plan, but it takes dedication to stick to it and get it all done.  One thing at a time, one project at a time, and one day at a time.

My creative mind travels in circles, and this can be distracting when I am working on something.  I start loading the dishwasher, and go through the house to collect dishes.  I find empty bottles and cans that also need to be relocated to the kitchen for rinsing and recycling.  I fill the sink with really hot water, dish soap, and dishes that don’t go in the dishwasher.  I wander into the bedroom and find laundry that needs doing.  Get the laundry started.  And realize that the dishwasher door is still open, the dishwasher is still not full and running, and the sink now has cold water with bubbles and dirty dishes in it.

So I add more hot water to the sink of dishes, and finish loading the dishwasher and take a break at my desk for a few minutes, only to realize that I lost track of time and the water in the sink, which was too hot when I sat down, is cold again and the dishwasher is finished and needs to be unloaded and the clothes in the washer need to be put into the dryer and a new load put into the washer but there is a load in the dryer that needs to be folded and put away.  That was a long and busy sentence on purpose.  It is demonstrating how I get in a loop.

Putting things away is a hard thing for me.  I get so far with the cleaning and I just leave it for later which essentially is never and the clean clothes get piled up and the dishes are just used straight from the dishwasher so they pile up again as the dirty dishes can’t go into the dishwasher if there are clean dishes in there and you get the idea.  I go in circles, constantly, if I let myself, and when I do this, the chances of me finishing anything are slim.

What do I do to fix it?  Well, I am stubborn, and that means if I make myself do all the dishes, I can get them done.  If I don’t start ten other things at the same time.  Some of the chores in my list are the kind you start and have to walk away from, so I try to get them going first.  That is also a trap.  I need a break, and I lose three hours.  I have no concept of time at all.  

Turning the music up LOUD helps, as long as I don’t turn it down on a break.  I can’t sit at my desk for too long if the music is loud.  That is another tactic I use.  It works if I don’t just grab the remote and turn the music down so I can spend more time at my desk procrastinating from the things I really should be doing.

Another thing I am going to implement today is a list.  I find crossing things off of my list gives me a small sense of accomplishment, it means I finished that thing on my list.  I make lists whenever I travel, and go over them several times to be certain that I don’t forget anything, and I cross items off as I pack.  I don’t forget things when I have a list made.  So I need to make more lists.  This can take time and be distracting.  I can put too many things down and never get back to the list, because I need to start a new one.  Or I can just spend too much time making the list and get nothing else done.  Not productive at all.

I think today I will be making more than one list.  I also think I need to make lists more frequently until I get things back under control.  After all, that is one of the goals here, to get things under control so I can let myself do the things I want to do.  I will make two, on a small piece of paper.  One for cooking and one for cleaning.    If I just use both sides of a small piece of paper, I can flip it over, and not waste paper that way.  If the list is small; maybe, just maybe, I can finish everything on it.  And that would help to get me going in the right direction again, and help me get back on track.  OK.  Time to make my little lists and get my day going in the right direction!  When I finish them, I have two writing projects that do need my attention.  That will be my reward for getting the chores done, I can then work on some other projects that will make me feel good about working on them, not just to finish them, as I may or may not finish them by the end of the day.  Getting time to work on them, though, will be a reward I can work toward.  Progress is progress, and that is my ultimate goal for today.