Monday Flylady Blessings - focus makes fabulous

... Lack of focus ... lately, lack of focus ... So 15m to get in touch with it ;)

I know I am tired, but I do have to open my new CJ ... get myself a cup of tea, and try to let the first wave of exhaustion pass by ... Ok still feeling very very ready for bed, but the tea and the pamper show of Diane gave me that little push I needed to open my CJ!

1. Check calendar: Ouch! Tomorrow first swimming lesson of Dd? Lets check mails ... Ok that was a close call ... I hope that will work out fine as I also have a dentist appointment on the calendar, but no time? Very smart! Ok lets, check if I have dentist phone number to call in tomorrow!
2.  Prepare lunch ... do I have to? Ok first 15 m are over ... in Flylady fashion I can reset for another 15m ... and an extra cup of tea to soften the pain.Go!
3.  What's for dinner? Crockpot curry ... Ok, no defrosting needed, and can still change into my mac and cheese, because we had chinese sunday ... Will see how timeshedule with dentist works out.
4. Load washing machine ... done it already ... now that's fun :)
5. Fold and out away clothes ... not all of it ... but going to be nice to myself and call it a day.
6. Lay out clothes ... I'll do that before crawling under my clean sheets :)
7. Clean up after dinner ... lucky ... dh covered that :) just a few things left.
8. 5m home rescue ... maybe while going upstairs, but a lazy version for sure ... thinking my bbr is kinda long by now.

Ok, this ain't babystepping it ... I had a smaller plan for this lol ... But still happy that I pushed a little... and I certaily will love it in the morning!

Toddlers thursdays - chores

Did you help out doing chores when you were a kid? I didn't ... not in a routine way. My DM(mother) was a p* BO ... the idea of doing something any other way of the "right way" would totally freak her out lol. So I did almost nothing except for some rare close to mothers day moments.
I would like my kids the value of a common "home" where everyone shares responsibilities to bless the house in their own way. It's beyond a doubt, that as long as my routine are still this premature ... it's hard to expect them to have rock solid ones ... especially because their routines depend greatly on mine lol. But at least they start to get the idea that ...

1. after school: we change shoes, hang jackets and bags, wash hands
2. before bed: we pick up toys for one song (thanks Flylady and Housefairy), wash and brush teeth, have a story, drink some water ... go to bed
3. in the morning: wash and brush teeth, get dressed to shoes, eat Bf, take meds

You can imagine how proud I was when yesterday my DD4 was explaining our routines to my DM who is staying over to help me out while DH is away on a business-trip :)

Monday Flylady Blessings - control journal (CJ)

A few months back, I saw my fragile and premature routines slipping through my fingers and alongside my path the flylady train was riding slowly, reaching out my wings I somehow managed to lose. How could I have fallen off again! And before jumping back on I realised that I would have to lower my pace. Maybe I would lose some wagons of the train now and then, but hey as long as I could stay on board it would be an improvement right!

So I let go of my p* and thought about a smaller objective than the official babystepping. I planned before I started playing. What would bless my life most right there and then. Not the official monthly focus, daily mission, first babystep ... I needed to adapt the system before I would drawn in my feelings of being overwhelmed. It was laundry. It took me until today to adapt my routines to a new balance. Not a P* one but one that no longer suffocates me. I will be still working on it to get it to a subconscious routine, a routine that is set so solidly that not doing ii would be unnatural ... but hey ... lots of one-loads-a-day ahead to help me obtain my goal ;)

Then I added another wagon. The swish and swipe, which rescued my bathroom from the chaos which had set in at a speed I couldn't have thought as possible! And as an extra boost leaves me with an enormous feeling of control. I just love knowing by bathroom and toilets are clean ... and with almost no effort at all. Only making sure my supplies are in place seems to be the "hard" part, and still needs some better coordination.

Then I realized that many of my problems, as warned by the Flylady, are rooted in a bad evening routine and a bad attitude. Si I tried to address it. And as with the other wagons, they are not yet steadily fastened to the flylady train. I started by being very firm about the laundry. Making it in a 15m ritual, adding some folding and putting away after loading the washing machine. Well not as firm lol, but more like an activating idea that I should not let it grow out of control, making sure that somehow through my day I would start "seeing" the other laundry babysteps and just DO it lol. And as a last chance doing it while the kids are dozing off after their bed-night routine.
And lately many pieces of the puzzle started to come together in a very intuitive way, my evening routine is becoming better and better ... I still give in some nights to Princessy and call it a day before my BBR is finished, and sometimes my daily routines get messed up by out of the ordinary activities, blowing me and my premature routines of my feet. But still ... my home is making me feel good lately ... the guilt and the p* drive have become less prominent ... my wings are getting stronger ... and the Flylady voice is whispering that I'm doing just fine.
And now? Well last week I was doing some shopping at one of my favourite places. And I was wondering if I could treat myself to some new supplies, knowing I have whole room of unloved binders, notebooks, pencils and papers ... I gave in to a new simple light blue binder, pretty paper with pink and green flowers with tab-sheets to match. I decided right then and there to redo my old and hardly used control journal. Now it is time to get some routines on paper. And to start some time-management. I already realized that my computer time had to be restricted, and managed to free up some much needed time. Now I have to see how I can divide it over family, home and school. And my control journal will help me :)

Monday Flylady Blessings - Twisters

When I first found Flylady more than 5 years ago after googling some SOS organizing searches, I pretty much mastered crisis cleaning. Followed by a period of intense babystepping myself to routines, but after a while getting sloppy and falling off the wagon till another chaos aha moment kicked me right back on again.
Although many routines don't seem easy to master ... the falling-off-jumping-back-on routine has become easier lol! Especially thanks to my many flybaby-twittering-twisters. They keep me motivated, inspire me with all kinds of blessings, offer advice when going through rough patches ... But most importantly they all have such immense personalities! They really bring laughter in my days! And when mummy is happy ... the house gets blessed. I join in on T(op)O(f)T(he)H(our) reporting about what we managed to get done in an hour time ...and in the meanwhile enjoying a little coffee-machine-chat (as Diane would say) :) We share our P(lan)O(f)A(ction/ttack), which is so important for me, cause most days seem to roll by, and without one it's so easy to let the she in us take over control! We share recipes. Get all excited about watching a movie (together). Start funny projects like making sourdough starter from scratch ... I love my flybaby twisters :) Thank you all for being there!

Saturdays blessings - S

The S from Stress was requesting my attention on Saturdays balancing acrobat' s act. The juggling of fun and blessings doesn't come natural to me. Till suddenly I had a flylady whisper ... ok not so sudden ... and ok I might already have had lots of hints pointing in the direction of a possible solution ... but somehow some messages are hard to digest. The sinking in process is time and energy-consuming and the bricks of truths somehow get pulled back up to the surface ... waiting for a new AHA to start sinking in AGAIN! Lol!
Anyway for my stressfreesaturdayfunandhomeblessing I need the S from small. I just need to see the bigger picture through the small pleasures. I love my timer for breaking time into manageable sessions varying from 5m to 15m, sometimes in sessions of 45m or an hour. They are very concrete. No escaping the buzzer. Both rescuing us from Princessy and the inner hyperfocused cleaning/organizing/creative banshee ;)
But why love the Small Slices of time, but whenever it comes to my children, food, my relationship with dh, schoolwork, fun activities I tend to get stuck in the all-or-nothing-trap. All my dreams tend to be big, bigger, biggest lol. I don't have to explain the becoming overwhelmed-guilt-self pity -chocolates-in-front-of-telly-syndrome I guess ...
So up till now, after being energy-deprived due to being ill, I tried to overfocus the fun with the family I wouldn't allow myself anymore to give in on family life because of work Or better because of my perfectionist views om what a teacher should do, or what a principle may expect from my work. I would put my health, my family, centimes first. Weekends are family time. But somehow this focus ended up putting my health last because I started to neglect my schoolwork, plan and play for the home-blessings ... bringing in the Stress ...
No my family, my kids don't need whole day outings to the coast, theme parks etcetera every weekend. Small pleasures can make a child's day. Small gestures can put a smile on dh face. And I guess the end result won't be small at all if I manage to keep these insights in mind!
So yesterday I first had a session of poor-ole-me, because there was "lots" of home to be blessed and "only" an evening outing to my school for dinner. Luckily I remembered this kids-magazine subscription with lots of fun activities. Small fun activities. Easy activities. Up till now I had procrastinated about using them. Because I first wanted to scan the magazine for re-use. Because there were some activities which needed special materials. Because I only had a few minutes to spare. Because I didn't have t... Hit me hit me hit me lol. Actually please don't, who knows I might forget what I (hopefully) just learned :)
So I gathered the kids and asked if I would read a story (mostly I only read a bedtime story) ... they were thrilled ... Ok no lets burst the pictureP*idyllic scene ... dd was thrilled ... ds saw the story and though about all the other books we have and started to get them out of the chest lol ... anyway I read for about 5m and both kids were happy! I could go on with my home-blessings. After some time I did another activity with them: 10m! "When will we do the next one?" I was dreading the question for quite some time. But she accepted my answer, that first I had to work a bit and that I would join her in a bit for another activity.
At the end of the day, my house wasn't picture P*, the resume of the day wasn't impressive ... but I certainly was impressed by my new love for the Small :)