It's been months since I posted. I'm like that, unfortunately. I start off going great guns, but any project that requires a "slow and steady wins the race" attitude is one I'm not likely to complete.
At least, that's the way things werre until a few weeks ago. I posted on my main blog about the change that's come over me, but I didn't entirely say why I've changed.
I've changed, if you'd like to know, because I got tired of living the way I have lived. My writing wasn't happening, my music wasn't improving, and my house and finances were still a mess. I'd make an occasional effort to fix things, try to do it all at once, and end up being burnt out.
Then my friend referred me to FLYLady.net. Now Marla the FLYLady and I don't agree about everything, but there were things she was saying that resonated very deeply with me.
Like trying to do it all at once and do it perfectly was causing me to not do it at all. "Perfect" and "perfectionism" are swear words, according to her, and I couldn't agree more.
Looking back through this blog, I'm struck at how I was trying to do it all at once. FLYLady says, "Fifteen minutes at a time. You can do anything, fifteen minutes at a time."
And so I have. Over the last three or four weeks, my home has gone from a huge mess (almost as bad as the pictures from a year and a half ago), to a haven. Not a perfect haven (I still have to tackle the basement, parts of the office, and the upstairs hall closet, and I still haven't reorganized the kitchen after we changed things around for the babysitting gig), but I'm getting there.
Fifteen minutes at a time.
I lost two pounds in the first two weeks of shining my sink (which is FLYLady's first baby step). I wasn't eating out. I don't even eat meals at my computer desk any more. Instead, even if I'm by myself, I eat meals at the dining room table.
I have new living room furniture -- a matching sofa and chair in excellent condition. No, I didn't win the lottery. A man from my church moved into a retirement home, and another man from my church loand the use of his truck and his back, and we got the chair and sofa home.
I gave the cat to Bill, and I won't be getting another one anytime soon. Definitely not before my house is as clean as I want it to be, and my finances can handle both the feeding and regular vet check ups. And it will be a short hair.
In the meantime, both Phil and Bill are happy, and I can still go and visit my sucky cat and pet him. All the benefits, and I'm not having to sweep up gobs of cat hair every day. Which has been very good for my breathing!
I've given up having set projects for the week. Instead, my goal is simply to do fifteen minutes or more per day of home maintenance. Doing it this way works for me -- so far, my bathroom is back to being clean and shiny (minus the toilet paper origami, which was only to bug Ally anyhow), my clothes closet has been cleared out of over 80 items that I didn't wear because they either didn't fit, were in tatters, or looked terrible on me, and my arts and craft supplies have been organized to the point where I can actually take note of what I have, and use them!
My mind has slowly been clearing of clutter, too. I've been able to develop possible strategies for dealing with my financial mess (which really isn't much of a mess any more), and I've begun writing every day again.
Which means, I hope, that there will be more regular posting on this blog in the near future!
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