Mess | Goddess in Progress

Archive for mess

Behold, my shiny sink

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (21)· June 16th, 2011

[And now, on a completely different note...]

I’ve really gone off the deep end this time. My husband is humoring me, but thinks I’m a little nuts. In the last five days, I have become obsessed with shining my sink.

I’ve mentioned it before, and those who have ever been to my house can attest, I am not a particularly neat person. Not filth-and-squalor, just clutter. Piles. Haven’t-taken-out-the-recycling-yet kind of mess. In addition to the general feeling of “I wish my house was cleaner,” I also felt like this situation needs to be addressed because, at some point in the next year or so, I believe we will try to sell this house. And that means staging, showing, cleaning, and packing. And it gives me heart palpitations just to think about it.

But if I have learned anything about myself, it’s that I like a plan with structure. I like rules, I like small steps. I like it laid out for me. I can’t lose weight by simply saying, “I’m going to eat more vegetables and less dessert.” I need to count my points on Weight Watchers. I can’t up and run a few miles just because I feel like it. I need to follow Couch-to-5K.

Enter, FlyLady.

For those who may not know about the FlyLady system, I described it to a friend of mine as “Couch-to-5K for cleaning.” You start with little steps. No need to think about running three whole miles, or decluttering your entire house. Day 1? Just shine your sink.

Shine the sink? Seriously? This is going to help me clean my house?

It would seem so.

In our house, it had long been the “deal” that, while I am in charge of all of the groceries and cooking, M is in charge of dishes and cleanup. Works for me, I hate doing the dishes. The trouble is, that often leads to a sink nearly overflowing with dishes by the time M gets home from work (since I’ve been too lazy and distracted to keep up, and have justified it with “it’s M’s job”), and a full dishwasher that hasn’t been run, and yesterday’s skillet never actually got washed in time for tonight’s dinner. Frustration abounds.

As of this week, though, I am nuts for an empty sink. For as much as I have always hated doing the dishes, it turns out it’s not that bad when you just get it over with immediately. And as silly as it seems, it really does make me a little calmer to go to bed with an empty (and shining) sink.

It’s already having a bit of a ripple effect. Spending all that time emptying the sink, I found myself annoyed with the state of the window above it, so both kitchen windows got cleaned, inside and out. There’s less crap left on the kitchen table, and I got rid of a bunch of old papers taking up space on the counter.

There’s still a long way to go, both in the program and towards the mess that is still the vast majority of my house. But using this tool as a way to chip away, bit by bit, I might just see some real progress.

Any other FlyLady devotees out there? Anyone want to hop in and do this program with me? With a buddy or two, I might be convinced to do before and after pictures of my messy house…

Comments (21)

Categories : Home, Just me

Tags : cleaning, clutter, FlyLady, mess, shiny sink

This is how we’re teaching our kids to live

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (16)· April 19th, 2010

My husband walked into the playroom/office. Stopped. Shook his head. Sighed.

“This is how we’re teaching our kids to live?”

It’s a mess. It’s always a mess. Our house is cluttered. Some days, some rooms are better than others. And it’s not like we’re dirty. We’re not candidates to be on the next episode of Hoarders. It’s just that there’s too much stuff, and it’s all over the place. It’s a mess. It’s always a mess. And this is what we’re teaching our kids.

M and I share the blame for the clutter. Oh, sure. It bothers me more often than it does him. He’s a guy, after all, and somehow has that selective vision that many of his gender share. And he’s arguably the one more likely to be a pack-rat who holds onto more items for mysterious sentimental or “just in case” value than I would. But I haven’t kept up with it, either. I can come up with reasons, of course. Not enough hours in the day, some lame idea that it’s not up to me, blah blah blah. It doesn’t matter. This is my house. This is my life. And this is what I’m modeling to my children.

It was when he put it that way that I really got smacked in the head with the seriousness of the situation. It’s not just that it’s kind of embarrassing when my mom comes to town, or that I’d rather have playdates in my yard than in my playroom. Though that, in itself, is bad enough. But the fact that I am very obviously modeling a behavior that I do not wish to see in my own children… well, there it is.

Obviously, you can think this way about nearly anything and it will either give you a pat on the back or a smack upside the head with regard to what you’re demonstrating to your kids. I’m going to try not to make myself crazy by examining every last facet of my life, all at once, with this question. But for now, I have to look around at my house, and think long and hard.

And so, let operation OMG PURGE THE CRAP begin. No room is safe. Toy purge. Clothes purge. Garage purge. I need the space. I need the air. I need the order. And I need to not teach my children that this level of mess is acceptable.

Comments (16)

Categories : Home

Tags : clutter, mess

Thursday Theater – Chili Night

By Goddess in Progress · Comments (9)· March 19th, 2009

Welcome, once again, to Thursday Theater! Every week, we are here to practice our mad video skillz and take some time to document things in movement and sound.

Please add your links (preferrably a link directly to the blog post that contains your video) to Mr. Linky, and play along! Also, anyone using Vimeo for video hosting is encouraged to join the group I’ve set up for us.

This week’s optional theme is: FOOD! I also presented a challenge to you: make your clip one minute or shorter. More on that challenge in a moment, but first…. my video for the week. Last night was chili night at our house, almost always a hit with Rebecca (Daniel wasn’t into it). And tons of fun as long as you remember that chili night very quickly becomes laundry night. Check out how Rebecca has learned to blow on hot food, her commentary on making a mess, and her attention to detail when it’s time to clean up.

Chili Night from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

Now, why did I try to have you get your clip in at under a minute? Because I think, here in the blogosphere, many of us suffer from under-editing. Hey, it’s the nature of the beast. “It’s my website, and I can do whatever the hell I want.” And that’s cool. But what I’m saying is that sometimes you need to consider your audience and edit, edit, edit.

This is especially true in the context of posting video. Consider your audience. If you’re sending a video to the grandparents, they probably don’t want you to leave out a single second of your two-month-old’s day. Just set up a live webcam and they’ll be happy. But for the blog… let’s put it this way. I have 120 feeds in my Google Reader that I try to keep up with. I write for three or four blogs. Oh, and I have two toddlers who need love, attention, snacks, and a ride to gymnastics. As adorable as everyone else’s kids are, I really only have the available attention for the Cliff’s Notes version when stopping by your blog.

For this video, I started out with more than five minutes of footage of Rebecca eating chili. Way, way too much. It’s not that interesting, even to me. But getting it down to 57 seconds wasn’t easy. I had to keep asking myself: “what’s my point? What story am I trying to tell, and does the entirety of each clip contribute to the story?” OK, yeah, it’s just a toddler getting chili all over herself. But you know what I mean. I had some other bits of Daniel doing funny things with his spoon, and more cute clips of Rebecca blowing on her hot food. I thought they were adorable, and you might even have agreed. But to keep them all would have made the video too long, and lots of people watching would just have checked out. This way, I’d like to think, I got my point across before people got completely bored. It’s far from perfect, but that’s what practice is for, right?

Comments (9)

Categories : Feeding, Toddlers, Video

Tags : mess