The Great Escape

I don't know what happened to me last weekend, but I was super productive. I cleaned the majority of our house, including the bathroom, kitchen, coffee pot and disgusting area behind the coffee pot, microwave (inside and out), pulled weeds, washed, dried and put away a load of laundry, swept, and wrapped our spare change to put in Amelia's savings account... $37 worth. I also cleaned Amelia's room and then organized the spare room so I can start utilizing it as a craft room/office and complete projects like this more often:

My friend's wedding invitation and program are inside the ornament.

It was terrific that I could get all of this done because on Monday, Amelia started to seem a bit off. Fussy, poor appetite, impatient... something just didn't seem right. By Tuesday, she was throwing her morning milk up on me and sleeping a lot during the day:

We think it was either a little stomach bug or some sinus/allergy issues that were making her nauseous. This lasted all week- the week before students start at the online school I am a 12th grade guidance counselor for. You know what happens when you are a high school guidance counselor the week before classes start? You get several phone calls per day about schedules:

•  Why did you schedule me for this? (You need it to graduate.)
•  Why didn't you ask me what I want to take this year? (You were supposed to complete the scheduling survey in May.) 
• Why am I a junior this year and not a senior? (You keep failing all your classes, we don't just hand out diplomas out, OK?!?)

Did I mention that I had three cavities filled this week too?

Yes. It's been a super week. I have to get the hell out of here. And I am, with these lovely ladies:

Amelia and her BFF Bela at our local county fair.

Let's get this party started...

Just Ten Minutes...

For the past two days I have been at a conference for work. It was a bit slow, long, and man, oh man, did I forget how hard it is to be in chair listening to a speaker all day. I kept thinking, how in the world did I survive seven years of college?!? Today I am with Amelia all day long while Jon works and then goes to a gun expo. I desperately want to sit on my butt all day, doing nothing. Then I realized, that's not what I really want to do but instead is how I feel after enduring a lot of stress lately. Because I feel emotionally drained and can't escape to the gym, the couch has been calling to me... "Amanda.... come sit on me... watch mindless TV.... eat thin mints all day..."

Alas, some part of my brain objected. Perhaps because my house looks like this:

Perhaps the area that most makes me frustrated is that middle picture of my laundry. I hate laundry. It rarely gets put away. It was supposed to be my New Year's resolution but instead it continues to be one of my unresolved housekeeping issues. Sometimes I watch Hoarders to make myself feel better but mostly I am disappointed at my inability to keep our bedroom from looking like an unkempt clearnance rack.

The pack and play, on the other hand, is something that just plain needs to go. I am clearly using it as an oversized hamper. Amelia doesn't fit on the changing part of it anymore, and Jon wants to move the crib downstairs to put in that spot in an attempt to get Amelia to sleep by herself.

Thinking about all those pictures above about made me go into a procrastinator's slump. How can I clean all this up?!? And of course, I think of how I work all week and that I want to relax, but that exact thought is why my house looks like this. I think that thought all weekend, and then by Monday, I've run out of time and made no progress with cleaning.

One thing that stuck with me from my conference was this tip on time management-- any task that you want to procrastinate on, just tell yourself to do it for ten minutes, and then you can stop. It sounded like pretty good advice, so at 9:45 a.m. I got to work and by 11:00 a.m. I was able to take these pic's:

I still have the laundry mountain to work on, but I'm pretty proud of myself for getting all this done. I also cleaned up the kitchen counters and threw a load of dirty clothes into the washer. When Amelia gets up from her nap I'm going to sanitize the pack and play and put it away. I feel much better now that I've accomplished a few household tasks this weekend.

And it only took just a little longer than ten minutes :)