Trying to get the CHAOS out of my life, no more stash and dash, and I can do anything fifteen minutes and one glass of wine at a time.

It is Tuesday morning and right now I'm at work and it is SNOWING for the second time this winter. Which is a huge deal! Last time the courthouse was closed for three entire days. I'm watching the snow fall and for some reason I feel a huge amount of peace. I guess I haven't realized how stressed, maybe even slightly depressed that I have been feeling lately. There have been two occasions in just this past 30 days that left me in an absolute panic regarding the state of my house. The first time was the day after the first time it had snowed. I was supposed to go into work at noon that day and work a half day due to the weather. When my husband was getting ready to leave he told me that the pipe in the kitchen for the hot water was frozen. Well after a quick look at the sink I realized all of the pipes were behind the cabinet in the wall. Clearly no way of trying to heat them up. I realized I had to call maintenance to look at the pipes because I didn't want to risk them bursting while I was at work. As quick as I possibly could I started a stash in dash/panic cleaning of my living room, kitchen, and dining room. Dishes in the sink, dishes on the counter, clutter, shoes in the living room. Bills and paperwork on the dining room table. I'm sitting there thinking 1. I am so mad at my husband for making me always feel like I'm putting myself in this situation and making me deal with it myself. 2. I'm so embarrassed that I'm am adult and can't handle the daily upkeep of my house. 3. I shouldn't EVER have to be in absolute panic of people coming into my house and seeing it look messy. Since signing up for the Flylady website I had the sickening realization that I am EXACTLY like the people that describe themselves as living in CHAOS or (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome). I promised myself that after that day I would get better and start cleaning up every night so that I wouldn't ever have to feel this way again. Yeah...that didn't really end up happening. You know..the whole road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

The second time that I was panicked again was just this past Friday. My friends and I were doing one of those wine, paint, canvas nights. The girl I was driving with was going to pick me up and I was like "Oh no. What if she comes to the door or comes inside. Once again- this house looks like a disaster. Messy kitchen, living room, dining room, and is my bathroom downstairs even acceptable for someone to use? I'm running around like a crazy person and yelling at my husband who has been working on a paper all day. We are arguing and I feel like such a bad person 1. Because I had spent the majority of the day in bed on the computer. 2. I didn't get anything done that day cleaning wise. I'm transferring my blame to my husband because I know that I was in the wrong. We end up getting everything straightened up and no one ends up coming inside the house but that wasn't even the point. The point is that situation never should have even happened to begin with. I told my husband that I can't keep living like this. I can't handle the stress of working full time, figuring out dinner, making dinner, and then being to exhausted to pick up a single thing or do laundry during the week, and then saving all of the cleaning/ laundry for the weekends. Something needs to change. I had a nice night out and maybe if you are lucky I'll show you my embarrassing painting that I did. Eh...who am I kidding? I'm a glutton for pain-I'll show y'all at the end of the post.

On Sunday I got up around 10, got dressed, put on shoes and knew that I wanted to start organizing our second bedroom which is really just (office/storage/ place where I sort out all of our laundry. The room was a complete and I mean complete disaster! I was scared that things would fall on me when I approached my closet. I set a timer on my phone (reminded myself that I can do anything for 15 minutes- another flylady thing :) ) put on some tunes, and got to work. I was surprised how quickly I was able to go through and organize it and get rid of a lot of clutter. Once my 15 minutes were up I took a 15 minute break and drank some water., and then got back to work. In less than an hour my closet was organized and it had plenty of room for more storage. I looked around the room and felt completely overwhelmed for a moment. It looked like there was sooo much more that needed to be done. However, I took a deep breath and figured out a plan. The first thing I did  was scoop up all of the clothes that were on the floor (sorted or not) and brought them into the hallway. Wow. Talk about a mountain of clothes. Actually, make that two mountains. I didn't allow myself to get distracted and start a load of laundry. I went back to my original mission. So like I was saying even with the clothes gone out of the room I was still feeling so overwhelmed, but I didn't let that stop me. Once again, I remembered some pieces of advice from the flylady book- 1. One item at a time- put away, throw away, or give away. 2. Start in one corner of the room and work your way around. Don't go from one side to the next picking and choosing each thing to organize/ clean. Work your way around in a circle. 3. Once again, only 15 minutes at a time and then a break. So I did. I worked diligently and when the timer would go off I would stop, enjoy some videos on youtube, and once that the break timer went off I went back to work. Before I would restart though I would first look at the closet that was nice and clean, and then I looked at the spots that had already been cleared away and looked sooo much better. I continued to do this for almost the rest of the day. I never got panicked or overwhelmed because I was very diligent with my 15 on/15 off schedule. By 4pm I proudly brought my husband upstairs and showed him everything that I had accomplished. He was SUPER impressed. :) And you know what...I was proud of myself for getting something done and done right.

 I kept coming into the room over and over again just to look at how clean it looked and it made me feel so great. I even brought the book that I was reading into the room and sat at the desk and read. I felt so calm and so incredibly peaceful. It made me think wow- if I can have this huge affect on me in this one room- imagine how I would feel if my entire house looked like this. I didn't do any more that night but I had gotten rid of almost 4 bags of clutter/garbage in that room and I felt like a weight had been lifted.

Yesterday my husband got sick (bad stomach bug) and spent the afternoon and evening in bed. I went to the store after work, came home to check up on him and then went right back out to fill my car up with gas due to the impending weather. When I got home I made him dinner (chicken soup of course) and then went downstairs. I made my own dinner and caught up on some DVRed episodes of Real Housewives-don't judge. Ok...you can judge- my husband certainly does. :p It was 10pm by the time I was done and I looked at my kitchen it would be soooo easy to leave the dishes in the sink and on the counters, and call it a night. But then I told myself that it was that kind of thinking that got me into the situations that I was unfortunately so used to. I told myself 15 minutes-just 15 minutes and I will stop. It is so true that people procrastinate and put things off because they think doing a task will take so much longer than it actually does. I looked at the dishwasher and thought putting away the dishes will probably take 15 minutes alone. You know what-it didn't it took 6 minutes. I had time to unload, reload, put away the spices that I had used for dinner, clean up the counters, and shine my sink. 15 minutes. This morning I got ready in ten minutes again- as usual. I was rush, rush, rushing but I at least had time to make my cup of coffee, and I looked into my clean and shiny sink and laughed because there was just a single, solitary spoon sitting in it. I looked over at the coffee table and saw plates and cups on it from my husband's breakfast but it just actually made me smile instead of putting me into a rage when I usually clean and then it gets messed up. I was actually HAPPY that the coffee table was messy and a spoon was in the sink because that my meant my husband must have been feeling better and was able to eat breakfast. It honest to God made me smile.

I need to remember things like this. I need to remember my 15 minutes can achieve results and most importantly I need to start working on those two mountains of laundry- it's like the blob- it's going to eat the entire hallway soon. Wish me luck tonight so that I keep working and don't get discouraged and realize that I am seeing results! Also, I'm reminding myself to read this if I feel tired and don't want to clean tonight. I need to remind myself how good cleaning makes me feel about myself. :) As promised...here is my painting. :)

Trying to get my act together and magical lists.

I don't know what it has been about me lately but it seems like I cannot get my ducks all lined up in a row for the life of me. I've always been a procrastinator but I just feel like it is all getting out of control lately. Every morning I wake up and don't get out of bed until the last and I mean last possible minute and then completely stress myself out by getting ready. I'm talking about waking up less than ten minutes before I leave my house-that bad. Did I get my outfit ready the night before? No. Did I think about what I was going to wear in the morning. Yes- but do I have any idea where that cardigan is that I need to wear so I'm not wearing an albeit cute, but sleeveless dress to work in 36 degree weather? Nope. The only thing  I can usually be counted on is to know where my phone and charger is in the morning. Do I get my lunch ready the night before? Nope. If I'm lucky I grab a frozen Stouffer's entree and run out the door. If-I'm lucky.  Otherwise I'm scrambling in my pantry trying to find something I can take with me-if I even end up eating lunch. Now how about this? Do I even make coffee in the morning? Not unless I wake up earlier and have some time. Here is the most embarrassing thing. I own a Keurig and I don't have a single minute to spare while the water heats up to make the coffee. I usually run out the door with a can of Pepsi in my hand to get my day started. It's that bad. Then I rush, rush, rush to work and usually end up showing up five minutes late on average. My new start time might as well be 8:35 but then if that was the case I wouldn't make it in until 8:40. See what I mean?

Then I'm at work. I'm usually busy but not overwhelmingly so. Usually I have a moment to check my facebook or read an update on a blog. I also try to keep up with my emails. It can get overwhelming fast. About a year I discovered this website called flylady.net. It is supposed to help you establish routines, cleaning patterns, getting rid of clutter, and regaining control of your life. A ton of people swear by it. I started off by reading her daily emails and I even bought the kindle version of her book and some of the cleaning supplies on the website. She starts off by saying the very first thing to do is clean you sink and keep it clean every single day. I can't even seem to do that. I'll do it for one day-get inspired. The next day my husband has left dishes in the sink and I'm already over it. I read all these testimonials of people with clean houses-organized lives and I think why am I so lazy-why can't I even commit to decluttering or organizing for 15 minutes of the day. I'll read the daily emails from the site and I get so inspired and called to action and want to clean and...I'm still at work. So I can't. I finally leave at 5pm after working 8.5 hours without a lunch break. We don't close the office during lunch so I have a "working lunch" meaning eat at my desk for 10-15 minutes and continue to work. I don't have the opportunity to run any errands and I don't even really have the chance to leave the office, relax for a bit, and basically recharge myself for the afternoon. I just keep working and trying to desperately to come up with an idea for dinner. Because of course we haven't meal planned, haven't gone to the store in a while, or if we have we didn't preplan meals before going to the grocery store. I mean is this supposed to all fall on me since I'm the woman or should I be getting more help-more input from my husband?

Now I'm driving home. Traffic is bad as usual on the main street I have to take home. There isn't any back ways to get home and I just need to choose the lesser of two evils to make it home. I get home after about 20-25 minutes. If I'm lucky I don't have to stop at the grocery store. If I'm not-I usually get home around 6pm. I get out of my car, check the mail, open the door, drop all of my stuff on the ground. Now I usually need to start making dinner. My husband comes home I'm frazzled and not even really happy to see him since I'm so busy cooking. We eat dinner in front of the tv which probably makes dinner last much longer than it should. Now I have no desire to clean, no desire to do laundry, and no desire to organize myself. Get my lunch ready? Nope. Do a load of laundry? Nope. But I have plenty of time to watch hours and hours of tv, plenty of time to go online, plenty of time to do anything that isn't productive. I stay up until midnight or 1am because otherwise I feel like I wasted my night/my day but yet I don't accomplish anything.  I need all of this to change. I need some magical list that completes itself as soon as I right the item down. I need to grow and take responsibility for myself and my home. I need to stop acting like such a martyr and suck it up.

Making Deep Confessions to the lady at the gas station, OERS, and those criticizing coworkers.

Yesterday I was tired, running late again, didn't have any coffee with me and I made the quick decision to run to the gas station by work for an energy drink or five. Just kidding...two monsters and a Starbucks (thanks spellcheck- they caught that the s wasn't capitalized) mocha thing. You know the one that comes in the glass jar that you drink down in a couple of gulps and then only feel disappointment and overwhelming shame (jk!) for drinking it so quickly? Yep-that's the one. Of course I rush into the store grab the drinks like I'm on an episode of amazing race and about to not make my time limit and of course the guy in front of me needs to buy his lotto tickets. UGH! When the cashier gets to me she says the customary "How are you?" Usually I respond with "doing well and yourself?" Instead, I just said, doing ok. Then as I was being handed my receipt I was like "You know how it is like get up, go to work, go home, get up, go to work, come home..and is that all my life is?" She looked at me and was like yup- I know exactly how you feel. So there you go- I tell a gas station attendant how I've really been feeling lately. I think I have the cold weather/winter blues to be honest with you. I've had a lot of things go on in my life and I have always been able to have a very positive/cheerful outlook but lately I have just been feeling kind of blah, and stressed, and overwhelmed.

This just seems to have been a bad week for me even though it is only Wednesday. Lately at work I've been keeping a countdown timer on my internet explorer and every hour that goes by is one less until I can leave and go home. See what I mean? Usually things that don't ever annoy me-have been lately. For instance, my coworker likes to ALWAYS be right. ALWAYS. She also likes to tell other people how to do their job and she is the very first one to point out something you did wrong- even when it is trite, pointless instances. Always. Usually I can just let this slide off me like a greased up pig on a porch on a hot day. Yeah I totally just made that reference up-remember I'm from Chicago! LOL! It's just- the nitpicking is getting at me- kind of when someone pokes you over and over and over again until you just want to snap but keep it together for a pleasant work atmosphere. Remember-only 3 of us work in the office. I just need to almost become an ice queen just do my work and not engage. Don't let it bother me. Sigh. I just keep reminding myself...student loans...I have student loans to pay off. lol. Is it bad that my dream job would be working in a  book store? That's all I really want. Sad I know but I'm a simple girl with simple tastes...except when it comes to clothes, purses, jewelry, well you get the picture. I guess I just need to tough it out for now.

All right let's get onto something more cheerful. Getting to leave work. :p
I left work a little early to deposit money in the bank (for work) and to drop off a fedex. Then I went to the store to pick up things for dinner. I got home, dropped the bags on the floor, and poured myself a glass of wine. I prepared dinner and then my husband came home. He finally got his OER back and he got glowing reviews from his LTC and the major, which is really fantastic. I'm seriously so proud of him and he works so hard. While dinner was in the oven I enjoyed a glass of wine. (don't worry it was the same glass that I originally poured-I just never had a chance to drink it while I was getting dinner ready. :p) I spent most of the night plopped on the couch but around 10:00 I forced myself to set a timer for 25 minutes and I cleaned up the kitchen and living room. It wasn't much but it definitely made me feel better when I walked downstairs this morning.  Well I'm writing this from work...so I need to get back to work (obviously) but hopefully this day doesn't end with me wanting to scream or have another delicious glass of wine. :)