i am inherently lazy...

Woah!  Long post...just talking out loud here I supose.  Feel free to skip.

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I am.  This is one of those adult realizations about myself (although not exactly a new one to me).  I was too lazy to clean up my room as a child (It would take me all day on a Saturday however often my mother would finally force me to dig out from the knee deep mess).  I was too lazy to do ALL of my homework, therefore what could have been decent grades were just...ok.  I have always had a hard time getting up in the morning before 7:15am (8am is ideal) no matter how much sleep I get.  Just ask my father what it was like trying to get me up to go to Seminary in high school.  But maybe that really falls more under the I-am-not-a-morning-person portion of my personality than the lazy part, but I think they're interconnected.  I was too lazy to act on the fact that I knew I didn't get enough sleep in high school, and was exhausted most of the time, but couldn't be bothered to miss ER on Thursday nights or not to finish a book I was reading (rarely one for school...of course).  And I could win an award for my procrastination skills.

I'm not painting a very pretty picture of myself here, but it's the truth (I'd like to point out at this time that my workspace as an adult was always neat.  I knew that I when my house became my "workspace" I was going to want it neat too).

One thing I've learned about myself after the girlies were born, but unfortunately too late to help my grades in school, is that I absolutely thrive on routine.  I now believe that most, if not all people do.  Children especially.  My own kids for sure.  While I'm not really a parenting book obsessed type, about a month before Grace came home from the hospital, I realized I was going to have two infants to deal with, and I fell in love with the book Good Night, Sleep Tight by Kim West.  I didn't really have sleep problems per se, but she was the only book I found with a chapter about twins and getting them on the same schedule.  We just happen to find that all her routines (from 3 months - age 5) fit us to a T and so, it was love by the end of Chapter 1.  I can't recomend it enough.

Once I had the girls on a routine (you would not BELIEVE how crazy a schedule they keep babies in the NICU on.  CRAZY I tell you!), and saw how great that was, I turned my attention to my house.  The girls were born exactly one week after we closed on our first home (3 days after we actually moved in), so to say we started out a bit behind the eight ball is an understatement.  Harland had to have some friends come over and help him put together the girls' room while I was in the hospital, for example).  I always felt like I couldn't keep up, even in this tiny, two bedroom half-duplex we had.  I would get frustrated and mad at Harland after we put the girls to bed and he would sit down and turn the TV on, or pick up a book, when there were dishes to be done, or picking up to do, etc... I know he felt like I was nagging him all the time and I felt it wasn't fair for me to have to tell him what needed to be done.  This doesn't make for happy times.  Plus having a traveling husband makes establishing routines a lot more difficult since there's really no consistency to our week.

One day I'm reading an article on organizing something-or-other (I know this is hard to believe, but despite my laziness I love to organize things), and I think that this so-called expert they were consulting was making a lot of sense.  So I head on over to her website that they plugged for her and low and behold, it is a mecca for the cluttered and disorganized among us, and the best part?  It's free!

I immediately signed up to receive email instructions from this site on a daily basis to help me build routines and feel more in control of life (I say "life" because that was exactly what happened.  It wasn't just a good feeling about having a neater home.  Having my house "company ready" helped calm my anxiety about areas I can't always control).  I slowly built up to a full blown daily/weekly/monthly routine and I'm feeling totally in control.  It was great.  I had our daily routine for the girls and the house written out and on the table, so after the girls went to bed, the post-baby evening routine could get finished in 15 minutes tops.  Awesome.  Harland knew exactly what I needed and I didn't have to ask...marital goodness right there.  No more nagging, no more aggrivation.  And plenty of time for us to relax.  Love it!  Beside, I'm a visual person, I'm the type that writes something on my to-do list after I've already done it, just so I can cross it off for that sense of accomplishment.  I even got sick of the annoying emails being sent everyday and unsubscribed.

Fast forward a bit and we decide to move, and once we moved I tried to stick to my routines that worked so well in the last house, but guess what?  They don't work in this house.  There's more to keep up with here and I got really frustrated, really quickly.  Plus the girls have more stuff and, well that's a whole post itself.  So I gave up.  I didn't admit that I gave up, but I did.  Here it is, a year and a half after we moved in and even though I accepted that the old routines weren't working anymore, I just in the last week fought off my laziness enough to do something about it.  I don't feel like I have control over a few areas of my life right now, and it shows in my house.  So I'm back on the sauce. The house isn't a disaster area, I'm just feeling like I can't keep up with it.

Now, before you go, if you decide to check out the FlyLady website, a disclaimer: A large portion of the readers of this site seem to have an emotional attachment to their clutter, so some of the suggestions are bit over the top for your typical household.  What I learned very quickly is that I just do what works for me.  For example:  Her #1 thing is "Shine your sink."  Every night.  I do NOT scrub and towel dry my sink every night, but I do my best to make sure it's empty and at least rinsed out.  I thought this concept sounded crazy, but you know what?  It's so true.  If my sink is clear of dishes, the rest already looks better.  I don't understand why, but it works.  So don't knock it without at least giving it a try.  I do not leave myself little sticky notes all over my mirrors telling myself how wonderful I am (since my deep down issues aren't really self esteem.), but I use the suggestions that fit our family.  I did make myself go through her Beginner Baby Steps, but then just modified the things I wanted to.  And now her site has all these um, over the top videos set to self-helpish music.  YIKES!  Still a great base for routines though.

That being said, I'm back on the sauce.  Just started today.  My sink is empty and rinsed out.  I'm ready to fight my inner lazy again...