Wednesday, January 11, 2012

A few small changes

I've been doing a few things differently lately. Nothing huge, but my inner voice isn't berating me as much as it can tend to.

I used clean in huge violent outbursts that took care of things from top to bottom. (To be completely truthful, it would only get things done about 98% because by the time my two hours of cleaning were done, a few of those items you never really know what to do with were still lying around. I told myself I'd get them later but I never really did. So they sat around for days and pissed me off.) I liked having everything done at once so I didn't have to clean for the rest of the week.

Life with two kids is so different and the opportunities to devote a large block of time to anything doesn't really exist. The house wasn't getting cleaned up as regularly as it needed. The more I felt things weren't getting done, the more stressed out I was. I hated feeling like I couldn't get on top of things and that my house was a mess. I was beating myself up about it too much.

While discussing "busy-ness" with my discussion group at the moms group I go to a week from tomorrow, a woman said: "When I had kid #1 I said, 'I don't need someone to tell me how to clean my house. When I had kid #2 I said, 'I need someone to tell me how to clean my house.!'" I had to double check and make sure that I wasn't listening to myself talk! She mentioned that FlyLady's methods were helping her feel a little bit more on top of things. ". (This was not the first time I had heard about FlyLady. I scoffed at the need to have someone tell me how to clean my house when my friend down the street had mentioned it some time back.) Since this was the second person I had heard about it from I decided to give it a try.

In seven days of following the suggestions I am feeling better about my house. A bit of effort here and there each day and I can feel like eventually I will be on top of things. The house isn't clean top to bottom yet but changing my perspective on what I 'should' be doing (and how) is helping me feel like things are less out of control. - and be happy with that.

Another place that I have made a few changes is with my computer time. When the holiday shopping season was in full swing I was obsessed with checking out the amazon deals, trying to decide which tv we were going to buy and trying to find the cheapest prices for the kids' presents. While my children were never neglected, my time was split a little more than I liked. All this time at the computer did help me to find the deals I wanted but I did spend more time than I needed to, mindlessly surfing the internets. I'd check facebook every few minutes when there couldn't possibly be anything new. It was a little ridiculous. Once I pulled myself away from the computer, I'd blink my eyes a few times to adjust back to daylight rather than the light from my screen. My brain felt stagnant.

Once Christmas shopping was done I didn't know what to do with myself when I didn't have anything to buy on amazon! I continued to check reader and facebook more times than necessary. I was wasting time and my brain was still mush. I'd have more time for things if I let the internets stop sucking it away from me. So I decided to make a change. While I still check things frequently, I try my best to only check them once or twice in a sitting. Once that is done and I don't have anything specific to do I put the computer down. (This is helped greatly by the fact that Little Man thinks the computer is fair game and I need to shove it under the couch to keep it safe!) If Sweet One isn't done her tv show I grab a magazine, I do some de-cluttering or I just snuggle a kid.

All in all, these two changes aren't going to solve world hunger or earn me a Nobel Prize, but they are helping me have a better state of mind each day. And if that is all they accomplish, then it is well worth my efforts.

1 comment:

  1. Those both sound like good ideas. It's easy to get sucked into the internet like that.

    ReplyDelete

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