Confessional

I have to confess...confess that I'm a lousy housekeeper. Most days if you would drop by my house unexpectedly, you would find remnants of about 3 meals hanging around on my kitchen floor, pots and pans sitting on the counter waiting to be washed, and a sea of toys to dodge on the living room floor.  I like things to be clean and organized, and I can get my house that way, but the problem is I'm lazy. There are so many other things I would rather do than to clean up. The ironic thing is that while I'm ignoring the everyday house cleaning, I've been working on getting things ready for our big move to New Orleans which is a little less than four months away. I've been getting rid of clutter at least and packing up a few boxes. I would much rather do those things than clean up a kitchen. I know that sounds weird.

I've been on a mission for some time now to be more disciplined with my time. I can do good for a few days. Then things get crazy and I'm back to square one. But I'm not giving up. I'm not striving for perfection. I'm just striving for better. Thank God He is so gracious to me. He can help me overcome my laziness that is preventing me from being the best that I can be. I've been learning how to give myself some grace. I know that the reality of having littles running around means that keeping a house pristine clean is out the window. Like a friend of mine said cleaning up after children is like shoveling snow while it's still snowing. That being said though I still know that I can do better.

I'm putting this all out there because it feels good to get my dirty little secret (pun intended) out there, and hopefully help encourage someone else who is struggling like me. So there you go. 

Go for the Goal!

   So, I'm starting something new this week. Something that I've always wanted to do, but quite frankly, I've been lazy about doing it. I've created me a Home Management Organizer to help me be a better steward of my time and household. The inspiration that go me started was moneysavingmom.com's articles on creating goals. Crystal Paine, the creator of the website, has a goal creating document that starts by indentifying priorities. Then from your priorities you have focus areas and then break those focus areas down into smaller goals. This has helped me tremendously.
   I have to admit. Prior to this I was not one to make and live by goals. Sure, I would occasionally write down a to-do list for the day, but beyond that I thought I could be productive without written down goals. Boy was I wrong. Creating these goals has been very inspiring to me. It's kind of like teaching again. I've created Long Range Plans and every week my Short Range Plans are based on my goals. (My NGU professors would be so proud.) I'll share more about my goals in other posts.
  Part of keeping myself organized, I've created a weekly management sheet. On it I have Daily To-dos, Weekly To-dos that I've assigned a day of the week, and a meal plan for the week. So far, this has been really helpful. I haven't perfected living by it yet. It would have helped if I would have gotten up early this morning. I chose to sleep in a little because Ellis was up crying every hour until about 2 in the morning, so I was a little tired. [Side note: what causes a child who usually sleeps from about 8-7 to one night wake up and cry like crazy? My best guess was she was cold because after I added a layer of clothing and rocked her a little I didn't hear anything from her until 8:15 am.]
  I say all this to hopefully inspire you to set some goals of your own. You might be amazed at what you can accomplish.