ah, order restored.

The last few weeks have been pretty chaotic in our house, what with adding a dog to the household, going out of town for a weekend, and me injuring myself. As a result, things (and by things, I mean laundry, junk mail, picking up the everyday clutter, bill-paying, grocery-shopping) were just starting to pile up. I don't think I realized until yesterday just how much if was affecting me and my mood. Getting ready in the morning when I didn't have much left to wear, trying to plan my food for the day when we didn't have good options in the fridge, and coming home each evening to a house that looked like a bomb had gone off was all leaving me feeling somewhat unempowered, if that makes any sense. Yesterday morning was really the tipping point, and the morning was so rough and disorganized that I got to work nearly in tears with frustration.

So anyway, as of yesterday, my back has taken a turn for the better. It still hurts, but it is much more easily managed with advil. I decided last night to start taking control of the things in our house. As soon as the girls were in bed, I got a load of laundry in the washer and began folding some of the enormous mound of clean clothes that has sat on the folding table for weeks. Having made a significant dent in the folding, I then attacked our bedroom. Generally, I am kind of freaky about our bedroom being neat. Even though it is the one room that no one but us really sees, I just need it to be tidy, organized and peaceful when I get into bed each night. So, it hadn't been that way since we returned from Maryland. First order of business was to finally unpack. Then, all of the clothes that were scattered around the room were picked up and put away. The sheets were changed and the bed was made (first time in over a week). A little dusting and straightening up over the things on my dresser and voila! my peaceful haven of nocturnal nirvana was back.

So, at this point, it was almost 10pm (my normal bedtime), but I couldn't stop there. I moved on to the kitchen, where I sorted through the pile of mail and chucked out what was junk and filed what was bills. I then cleared off all the counters entirely and bleached them down. At this point, the dishwasher was done and I went ahead and emptied it (I normally do that while I'm waiting for my coffee in the morning, but I figured I'd get a leg up and do it at night). Two more loads of laundry got washed, dried and folded during the course of all this. Finally, at 11:30pm, I felt my batteries dying, so to speak, and I headed to bed.

This morning, I woke up and in spite of having less sleep than normal, I felt much more refreshed. I'm certain it has to do with my environment. I felt sort of back in control and back on track...I put together a small grocery list--enough to tide us over until we can do our big weekend shop--and Evan is going to hit the store today.

My goal for tonight is to finish the laundry, have Evan take the dog out and give him a good brushing while I vacuum, and pay bills. I think once those things are taken care of, I'll really feel like all is right in the universe.

cleaning

I'm on a cleaning jag...I think I'm even taking a morning off this week so I can get some uninterrupted, much-needed, heavy duty cleaning (steam cleaning the carpet, mopping the wood floors) done. We are in desperate need of it! I

'm also planning on doing my quarterly slash and burn routine in Sadie's room. The kid just has all these little pieces of ... nothing scattered about and stored in every spot in her room. To you and me, they are useless pieces of crap (eg. broken shells, rocks from the driveway, ribbons and bows from presents, pine cones...you get the idea), but to her, they are part of her 'collection.' Honestly, I blame Disney. Ariel, from the Little Mermaid, to be specific. She's a bad influence, I tell you!

I'm sure one day, when Sadie is older and collecting something interesting or valuable, like stamps, coins, original movie posters, or butterflies, I won't be so cavalier about her collections, but until then, every three months or so, the collection gets trashed.

Anyway, so that's the plan for this week. Floors and Sadie's room. I'm really trying to stay on a good routine with cleaning, yet not overwhelm myself and spend every weekend just cleaning, so I find that making small weekly goals (focus on a room or a particular chore) helps.