My alarm goes off at 5am each morning so I can supposedly “write a blog post” but that, more often than not, turns into me just reading my favourite blogs from Baby Mac and Kirsten and Co.
I was all cranky yesterday and beating myself up about the mess I am in at the moment. I think to myself all of the time “no one else ends up in a mess like this”. I live all the way up here in BFN (Bum F*#k Nowhere) in my own little world and think every other person on this planet has their shit together. Because I don’t visit other friends houses all that often I have this image in my mind that everybody else lives in a house that resembles an image from the Country Style Magazine! I know it is ridiculous but I keep beating myself up. This mess makes me so cranky and I think I can get it all sorted in one day. It just doesn’t happen like that.
I have just returned from a couple of weeks away….. of course things are in a mess. On Monday I couldn’t see the floor of my laundry, I thought that would be cleared by Monday afternoon and I would be on top of things. Fast forward to Wednesday and I still can’t see the floor, despite doing a million loads of washing each day.
And don’t even get me started on the boys rooms, I can’t even bare to go in there, I just get in an get the hell out as fast as possible. I think I am on a roll and then the 3 year old tells me “I am hunnnnnnnnngary”…. hello hungry, I am Mummy I reply. He doesn’t find this funny, but seriously – that kid is always so hungry at the most annoying times! Sometimes I just want to throw him the iPad just for an hours peace. I have been strong this week though, no iProducts for that boy, as he spent most of last week being babysat by the iPhone while we were at Mini School. Now he has to go cold turkey and the come down is not pretty!
So after reading Baby Macs blog post about her mess I do feel a little better and hope that by the end of this week I will be back on top of things again.
Today I think I will pretend that the Queen is visiting tomorrow and just go flat out like a crazy lady and pull it all together…. HA – as if that is going to happen. I need to stop wasting time and get my act together. I really do wish I was a naturally organised and tidy housekeeper, but I am not, and I need to stop kidding myself. I also need to stop comparing myself to others because seriously – NO ONE LIVES IN THAT COUNTRY STYLE HOUSE…. well not all of the time anyway! Actually maybe they do but HOW DO THEY DO IT?
I feel like I have two million and one things that need doing them. So I need to stop bitching about it and just start DOING. Wish me luck. Do you have any tips for me? Anyone who is having a birthday at the moment – feel free to chime in – because I know you can help me…..you are a Virgo after all.
I am off to get my inner Virgo on and get this party started……lets go people.
*hehe* I know the feeling! Travelling in a caravan has broken my back on the cleaning front. I have no choice – because we don’t have the room to have mess, and everything needs to be secure to drive. I live in fear of the day we unpack out huge storage unit into a real house again. I don’t know how I will cope. With the caravan, we have a rule: at 9am every morning, we spend 10 minutes tidying up. And, it’s a manageable space – so it works (partly because it isn’t totally overwhelming). Maybe you need to have a short time limit on one room, each day, until you are back to a more manageable level of tidy. I’d put on some crazy music and a timer and go like a bat out of hell, and then when the timer goes, stop, and let the rest go until tomorrow. Living comes first 🙂
Loved this post. x
Thanks so much for the inspiration and advice, I really do appreciate it! We all have WAY TOO MUCH STUFF don’t we, and it isn’t until you have to live without it that you realize you don’t really need it all. It feels like I only just de-cluttered my whole house, but it is amazing how fast it all builds up again if you aren’t onto it every.single.day! Happy travels to you!
Oh Miss Chardy! This is soooooooo my place at the moment! And I am a virgo who just had a birthday this week – there is no hope left hehehehe! I’ve really struggled to get on top of things since the birth of bub no 4 and a busy few weeks at the start of this term. Everyday I promise myself to just get it together and clean it all up but it never happens – aaaaaargh! On a positive note – we had a whole family 1 hour clean up of our playroom last weekend and threw out 4 rubbish bags of stuff but it was neat and tidy again in 1 hour because we all helped (even the farmer boy) and it was not so overwhelming for just me or just the kids! Next space to tackle is our craft room, then the pile of patty cake trays and slice trays which have been sitting on my sink forever, then the mountain of washing to fold and put away …………………………………. sigh. Only 12mths ago we were living in a camper van with nothing and happy – I really don’t know how we have ended up with so much ‘stuff’ again in only 1 year!!!!
Yay, so pleased to hear that even a Virgo is struggling…..although you do have 4 children and one of them is a baby……so you probably have a pretty good excuse! My baby is 3 so I need to stop thinking he is a baby and get on with things. I think I am going to take a leaf out of Baby Mac and Faux Fuschia’s books and pretend my house is on the market….. hmmmmm not sure how this will go…. On a positive note I can now see the floor in my Laundry, have even mopped it and cleaned up in there…. baby steps.
Congrats on the Laundry! This Virgo is tidyish on the outside but unless you have a death wish, do not open a cupboard to use a platter etc. DANGEROUS. The last time I touched my wardrobe was this time in 2009 – with you…long overdue. Most actual rooms are ok – except our bedroom as it is at the very end of the house. Oh the shame!
The shame that is pouring out of all those Virgo’s out there…..I love it!!!! You seem so perfect on the outside, ha ha ha ha! Although I must say, my Mum does take Virgo to a whole new level, meaning NOTHING is out of place in her house or cupboards! Now I am sure your “messy” cupboards are still neater than most, or at least organised chaos.
Barring mr 3, those other two boys are big enough to tackle at least 3/4 ‘s of the mess in their rooms, if not all. You can supervise while sipping on a Chardy! Just think of a big reward (carrot) you can dangle in front of them as encouragement. Bribery is a great tool !
Why hello Mrs S. Don’t worry, Tom is pretty tidy but as for Harry, he would just shove things in nooks and crannies (as did I when I was younger) but I really should persevere with him, given he is a Virgo and all…..I am waiting for his interest in the vacuum cleaner to blossom. Oh, I do love a good bribe.
Oh, I hear you. Mess everywhere at this house too! I’m always determined to get it together, but then sometimes, I just stop and reason with myself that I’ve been trying to do that for as long as I can remember, (ask my Mum, I was hopeless at tidying my room), so who am I kidding, it’s not going to suddenly happen when there’s 5 kids in the place. Time to pour another vino I say and ignore the mess!
That is exactly what I am like Caitlin, and I was just like you when I was young. So there is really no hope for me. Although having said that I have managed to get my house in order….I wonder how long it will last. There is NO LEGO on my lounge room floor at the moment, gee it feels good. Can’t even imagine having 5 kids, let alone 3 all the same age…….Oh Caitlin….how do you do it?
Me too Miss Chardy… shit everywhere all the time. I figure, surely there’s more to life than being neat and tidy. I’d rather have a good time! x
Funny, I would have thought you had your shit together Mrs Sublime Finds!!!!!! I agree, I am usually too busy socializing to be tidying my house, ha ha ha ha.
I am relatively tidy but there are still bits of my house I just never quite get to…. There are doors that must remain closed!
No-one’s house looks like Country Style! I have friends whose houses have been photographed by magazines and they send a stylist… (And imagine all the cleaning you would do before hand.)
I am big on child labour when it comes to tidying. Once I got so cross with lego being everywhere that I waved the vacuum cleaner around whilst threatening to suck up the lot until they picked it up! Worked a treat.
Take care and hang in there.
T
xx
Ha ha ha ha, I am laughing out loud and imagining you with the vacuum cleaner in the air, too funny!!!! ha ha ha ha. It is so comforting to know that everyone else is actually in the same boat, god I beat myself up over ridiculous little things. Thanks for that!!! A friend told me to put a sheet down on the floor and the lego on that, I tried it yesterday and so far so good, it is working a treat, I told them that anything not on the sheet will be tossed into the bin.
My place is always a mess! Even when I’ve spent hours cleaning it, it’s still a mess!!!
My hubby is 40 on sat, and we are having a funny party, themed ‘Bogans, Bitches & Burnouts’ so easy for people to be silly, and it will be dark when everyone arrives, but I am FREAKING out at how I’m going to get my house looking anything resembling respectable by saturday!!!
I also reply to my kids the same with the hungry line! They never think its funny, but I crack myself up every time! lol
Ha ha ha ha, love it: bogans, bitches and burnouts……completely bogan! ha ha ha. Just give everyone copious amounts of alcohol (perhaps a japanese slipper – or maybe sex on the beach would be a better cocktail for a bogan theme) and no one will even notice the mess!!!! Have fun!!