Thursday, September 11, 2008

Catching up

I have had a rough couple weeks. I spent pretty much all of last week parked on the couch or in bed with a terrible migrane headache. I struggled just to keep the kids entertained and fed. But got through it and for the last few days I have been trying to get some strength back and now I need to get my house back in order. It is truly amazing how quickly routines can be tossed out the window and the terrible effects that it has. Every room in the house is a disaster and the kids are suffering from lack of routine too. Tempers are flaring, tantrums are worse, and to top all that now they are not napping! I think they are sleeping in later bacause it is not as bright in the mornings now and so they just are not tired enough at naptime. I have to rethink my whole routine structure.

First I need to get the house in order. I am basically trying to work on one room at a time to get it were it should be so that it is easier to maintain with regular daily, weekly, and monthly routines. I had already started to implement these a while ago when I stumbled upon the Flylady website. I love the concept and it is a slow process but it is working.

Anyway, here are the rooms I got through. First, as always, is the kitchen. It wasn't much worse than normal because I have the same routine that I pretty much follow every day no matter what. I cannot stand a messy kitchen - I hate to even pour a glass of water on a cluttered counter. Yuck!

Then I tackled the porch area which is a long narrow room that is usually a disaster area. It is where we keep all the hats & shoes and soon boots & coats. It is also where I have the change table. I still change 15-20 diapers a day so this is an important area!! On the far side of this room I have set up a school area with a child sized table & chairs and a cabinet for all the supplies. This is still a work in progress and I seem to not ever be organized enough to have an effective routine for our preschool program that I want to do. And that is the biggest motivater to get better routines in place.

The next area was to tackle the laundy through to completion. I have a bad habit of not putting laundry away when it is done, so today I changed that and put away clothes while they were still warm. It was so nice and cozy to fold warm clothes and see that they were not wrinkled yet.

Since I started to not allow very many toys downstairs, because they have a playroom upstairs, the living room tends to stay fairly tidy. Usually a couple minutes of picking up is all that is needed. But one of the weekly tasks for this room is to sweep and mop the floors, so I did that.

I also started on the den and the bathroom but there are so many interupptions that I did not finish either of them. I was sort of working on them both all day. Whenever I was in the bathroom I would wipe something down until I had a not so helpful helper underfoot. The major area of disaster in the den is the desk with 2 weeks worth of mail and all my Bible study stuff piled up. I absolutely must get this cleaned off so that I can get back to my Bible. I have not read a thing of substance in nearly 2 weeks and I am feeling neglected. Sure I have listened to sermons on the radio and read a few pages of devotionals, but it is not the same as the reading and studying I have been doing and started to post in here.

I just realized that I have started to ramble and I really should be sleeping. I will write more about my routines as I redevelop them.

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