Thursday, January 17, 2008

Not doing anything

Rachel went down for a nap at around 9 o'clock this morning. I went down with her.

While I was falling asleep I noticed that I was berating myself for not getting anything done, so I quickly snapped myself out of that and told myself,

"You got up, did the dishes, put in a load of laundry, played with the baby, ate breakfast, switched the laundry over and put in another load...that's not nothing."

And then I promptly fell asleep. That felt good.

I think I tell myself that I don't do enough a lot. I think that's because I often don't feel like I accomplish much on the days when all I do is hold the baby and rinse out soiled clothes over and over and over again.

Most days I'm pretty good, but some days I just can't seem to motivate myself.

Since most of my time is devoted to mommy-things, I can't spend a big chunk of time everyday making my house immaculate so I need a cleaning schedule that takes like an hour, tops, but still leaves my house clean enough that I can stand it.

I tried FlyLady, but that didn't work for me. I just couldn't fly and felt guilt about not wearing shoes. (I hate shoes). Ad I can't stand the emails. Ugh.

The other day I happened upon Real Simple and I think it's more my style. Granted, their cleaning schedule is adapted from FlyLady...but I think it will work for me better.

So I'm adapting my cleaning schedule from an adapted version of FlyLady. I think that's ok.

Perhaps I like Real Simple better because it's nerdy, whereas FlyLady is cutesy. Real Simple has a Periodic Table of Cleaning, which I happen to find hilarious. FlyLady has a little house fairy, which I happen to think is lame (although when Rachel is old enough to want to please the house fairy I probably won't think it's quite so lame anymore).

Anyway...there you have it. Hopefully I'll be dedicated enough to get my house in order.

3 comments:

Bonnie Parks said...

I hear you about feeling like you don't get anything done. I have lots of days like that. My motivation comes a lot easier if I don't have a book that I am interested in. But that's rare because I love finding books that I am interested in. Putting books on hold at the library is one of my favorite pastimes. Anyway, the point is that I can relate to the "not doing anything" sentiment.

heather b. said...

I can also relate. By the time I get Maggie down for a nap and Ian occupied with something I am tired & the last thing I want to do is clean or fold laundry. Lately I have been so exhausted and I sleep every chance I can get. I find myself just laying on the couch a lot with no motivation to do anything. I looked at that cleaning chart thingy and I liked it maybe I might give that a try because what I am doing know doesn't seem to be working.

Anonymous said...

I think as stay-at-home moms, we should either be allotted or allot ourselves a number of non-productive days per month. That way, when they happen, as they inevitably do, we won't feel so guilty.