My blog post about my lack of blog posts

Hey guys... Remember me? I'm still alive. I didn't get buried under office clutter and my husband didn't murder me because I left dishes in the sink.

These past couple of months have been crazy. I don't even really know where to begin... You might wanna go ahead and use the potty, cuz you're gonna be here for a while....

So.... we have this house. It's different, which is why we like it. Over the past ten years we made it OURS. We fixed up every room (except one) and we poured love (more like blood, sweat, and tears) into it.

But with two growing kids and a big dog, this girl was starting to feel a little claustrophobic.  The girls were also starting to express their wishes for their own space.  I hardly invited anyone over, especially kids for sleepovers, because I felt we didn't have enough space.  My parents had to sleep on a sofa bed because we didn't have space for a real one. Finally, the husband and I decided that it's time to look for our "forever home." The home we will be retiring in. The last home we buy (hopefully). So we got started a long time ago, getting prepared for it. Prepping and staging our house for showing, which involved a LOT of painting and cleaning. Also, de-cluttering, which I wanted to do anyway. Of course, not all of us emerged from it unscathed. I managed to get myself a nice case of tennis AND golf elbow from all the painting (my husband made me do it. It's his fault!). The husband got the typical case of sore back and exhaustion. But we got it done. Enough that we could confidently put it on the market and see if it sells. We weren't expecting much from it. After all, we did buy it in a hurry, right before the housing bubble burst so I'm sure we paid too much for it. I said I would be happy to get at least what we originally paid. We got ourselves a realtor with a pretty good track record, followed her advice for getting it ready, and threw it out there with our fingers crossed that we end up with a decent amount for a down payment on a new house.

It just so happens that the very same day we put our house on the market, we were on our way to a family vacay to Disney! The kids had been dying to go so the plan was to spend a couple days in the parks (Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, and Universal Studios) and go on a 4 day Disney cruise to the Bahamas. It had been 20 years since I had been to Disney and although there were some new things, a few oldies (but goodies) stayed the same. We discovered our youngest kid (7) wasn't ready for roller coasters. We got confirmation that our oldest daughter (9) can still scream loud enough to break glass. We also discovered the necessity of a good pair of shoes. And let me just say... I could ride Avatar all day. The kids had a blast at the park and although I was sad that they don't do the electric light parade anymore, the fireworks and laser shows were awesome. Oh, and after hours tickets... SOOOOOOOOO worth it. You get all the ice cream and popcorn you want, there are virtually no lines for rides, it's not hotter than Hades, and you have room around you to breathe. If we ever go again, I'm totally getting after hours tickets again. There were high points and there was a lot of frustration, but we made it... we experienced it... and we paid for it dearly. I hope it was everything my kids hoped for.

Now, what about the cruise, you are probably asking? I think we had a great experience. The ship was breathtaking, the food delicious, the staff friendly, and they had all you can eat soft serve ice cream. The shows were amazing, the kids club was the best (according to the kids), the stateroom was even nice (we had a balcony too) though we didn't spend too much time in it. Did I mention that there was all you can eat ice cream?

I was soooooo worried about the kids getting motion sickness both on the rides at the parks and on the cruise, so as a precaution (and the advice of their pediatrician), I gave them kids dramamine daily. Luckily it didn't make them sleepy and I only gave them half doses. The whole fam said they couldn't even feel the ship moving, but dang I could feel it every minute of the day. It didn't bother me, but I sure felt it. The last night of the cruise was especially strong with the rocking, but we got to see the Captain Marvel movie in 3-D the night before it was released in the U.S. Booyah!!

The only drag was that it was chilly the day we got to Castaway Cay. As a result, our stingray experience got cancelled and we were so disappointed. The kids still seemed to have a good time so not all was lost. Thought I know they would've crapped a brick at swimming with stingrays. It was my first cruise and I enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind doing it again.

Now, back to the house... Our house sold... In two days.... ACK! SO gears had to shift into overdrive for finding a new house. We looked everywhere. I think we viewed close to 30 houses. All the ones that we really liked either sold before we got a chance, sold before we were actually ready to buy (we honestly had been looking for a couple of years), was too far away, or was in a crappy area. Sigh... I was beginning to think we were NEVER going to find "the one." Honestly, we still haven't, but we needed a house STAT or we were going to be homeless! So we picked the one with the most potential to be a great house. Unfortunately, that means more renovating and customizing for us. Hopefully it won't take ten years like the last one. I'll post more about the new house once the deal is done, but I will say that the girls get their own room, I get my own craft room/office, there's a spare bedroom that can actually remain a bedroom, an area that would work great as a play area, Drew get's his pool that he wanted, and it's in a great neighborhood. Stay tuned for more on the house....

So basically my life the past two months has been consumed with house hunting, buying/selling, and packing. I've been under so much stress, I'm sure it's affecting my health. Can you believe that I'm MORE stressed now than I was 2 months ago and I had a 1.5 week vacation in the middle of it! I really need to get my "Wosahhhh" back.

Project 2020 posts will resume once we've moved and are settled in. Don't give up on me yet!

Getting organized/tidy - The Office (Part 1)

You know it's a problem when your messy office even gives YOU anxiety. And my office started doing that to me a while ago, but even more so now. Mountains of binders and books and papers. Also computers and gadgets and cables.. OH MY!

11 years of working for the same employer can do that to you. Especially if you're one of those people who are afraid to throw things away (What if I need that later?). My office seems to be mostly reference material. Some of which isn't even mine. It's just stuff that needs to be digitized and stored or destroyed. But with about 11 roles on my plate, it's hard to find the time to keep things organized and tidy. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering my own name!

So I decided, "ok, the real work is going to have to wait a little bit until I get my s***t together," and I created a plan to tackle it then got to work. Here's what I did:

1. Get rid of obsolete stuff. Starting with the binders, I went through each and every one. If it was training material and was from prior to 2016, it got scanned and canned (in the recycling bin, of course). This is taking a while, of course, because there's so much and adobe is not very fast at optimizing scanned documents. Binders went to another room with a sign on it saying "free to a good home." Old magazines I never got around to reading also got canned. I didn't even flip through them. I know it's a waste, but the information is already old and with the wonders of internet searching, if I really need to know, I'll find it.

2. Categorize and organize. Some of what I do is technology related, some are admin related, some are science related, and some are just in a category of their own. That's why I tell people I'm a "Jane of all trades, master of none." To keep all my cats herded and my ducks in a row, I decided I need to keep them categorized and separated so that I can manage my time better. I can maybe dedicate equal amounts of time to each category so I can be productive in all aspects of my job instead of really great at one area and not so great in another.

3. Figure out exactly what I use and get rid of the rest. I admit, there are things in my office that are there "just in case" they're needed. They ARE needed on occasion, but it could be months in between. Those items can be relocated to a storage area, out of the way, so they're not constantly out and taking up space in my office. Other items that are not needed at all anymore can be given to a co-worker who could use them, or just simply discarded. Yeah, it's contributing again to the landfills, but hopefully once this is finished I won't be getting them anymore in the first place. So, I moved some stuff into the warehouse and others into the admin office for others to use if they need them.

4. Clean out email. My... email... is... a MESS. I have 10,000 total emails right now in my inbox. Probably only 15% are actually ones I need to keep. Part of the problem is, a lot of sites that I visit when researching something require you to put in your email and create an account to dive into their site. Or to look at documents. Even though you check that little box about correspondence, I still find I get a lot of junk from them or their affiliates. Also, all-hands emails tend to pile up on me. Being stationed in a remote location means most of the all-hands announcements are junk. I see the subject line, I see it doesn't apply, and I ignore instead of delete. Then they pile up. Next thing I know, important emails get lost in the mess or I forget to follow-up on others. First step is to clean out all the junk. Something that helps is the clean-up feature in Outlook. It looks at all the emails and takes out those that are in a string, keeping the most recent one. One trick I used was searching for the word "unsubscribe." This brought out most of the junk from companies and sites. I then blocked the senders that offended the most. I also made folders for subject matter categories and created rules to automatically move emails pertaining to that subject into the appropriate folder. I'm still working on it, so I'll let you know how far I whittle it down.

5.  Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate... I had a box of black pens that was probably 2/3 full, and a box with blue pens that only had 2 left, and a box of red pens that was about half full. And I kept them in separate boxes.... Why? I guess I thought I needed to, so I don't grab the wrong color? I dunno. Now they're all in the same place and I only have a couple, instead of a gazillion.

More to come as it goes on....

Issue #1 - Organization and Tidiness

One glaring issue that has caused SO much friction between me and my spouse is my tidiness. He's more of a clean freak/minimalist type and I'm a clutter bug. It's not that I don't WANT to be a clean freak/minimalist type, it's just that I have a hard time finding the motivation and time to abide by it.

Most experts will tell you that severe and chronic disorganization/messiness is one of the most common and debilitating symptoms for adults with ADHD. Clutter everywhere, unfinished projects, lost and/or duplicate items, lost or neglected mail (especially bills!), last week's laundry in a pile on the floor.... and it's not just things that are disorganized. Time is also disorganized. Schedules are erratic, something that should have more of their time ends up getting very little and something that should have been addressed in minutes end up taking hours. Your typical ADHD'er has a hard time with shifting attention from one thing to another, but at the same time they have a hard time focusing for an extended period of time on something they don't particularly enjoy. 

As Judith Kolberg said in an ADDtitude magazine article: "Counterintuitive as it sounds, many ADHD organization challenges stem from perfectionism — the common, learned belief that things must be done impeccably. It’s an impossible standard that leaves many with cluttered homes, out-of-control finances, and exhausting schedules." I often get teased because it takes me hours to clean one room when it would take a person without ADHD only a few minutes. The reason is just as she said, perfectionism. I have this belief that everything should be done right the first time and to the best of your ability. Instead of just picking up all the towels and clothes off the bathroom floor, I want to also vacuum and mop the floor. And don't forget the mats! They need to be laundered. Instead of just cleaning the inside toilet bowl, I want to clean the seat (top and bottom) and the whole outside (because toilets are GROSS!). Besides, if I don't do it then, when will it ever get done? "Oop, looks like there's a little bit of stuff on the shower tiles... Better clean that too... and don't forget all the soap bottles..." That's another problem I have: when I notice something out of place or needing a little attention... I MUST ADDRESS IT NOW. I can't say "ok, let's put that on our to-do list for Tuesday." Even if I tried that, I'd be itching and twitching until Tuesday when I can finally tackle it. 

My main problem is clutter. I have little piles of crap everywhere. I call it organized chaos. My husband calls it embarrassing filth, and I can't argue with him. Except for the filth part. I'm not dirty, just messy. I hardly ever invite people to our house because I'm also embarrassed it's not perfectly neat and tidy. So why don't I just clean it up then? Well, I have... Multiple times. But once I clean one mess, one or two pop up shortly after. Having two young kids doesn't help either. I've been trying to resolve this issue for at least a decade. Reading countless books and articles on how to clean efficiently, coming up with checklists, even attempting to schedule cleaning on my calendars (yes, I said calendar-S). But time seems to be such a commodity with me (see above concerning disorganized time) and nothing has stuck... yet. It always ends the same though. I get frustrated and I give up. My husband gets irritated and resentful, and everyone ends up miserable. All over stuff... Just stuff... Nothing really important. Inanimate objects laying around and minding their own business, not realizing they cause so much frustration and anger just by hanging out.

I'm not THIS bad, but you get the point.

So what am I going to do about it? Well... that's a good question. What haven't I tried yet? I've tried cleaning after everyone goes to bed (I'm a major night owl), but my house carries sound so badly I have a hard time doing it without disturbing those that are sawing logs upstairs. I've tried cleaning before going to work, but a quick 15 min cleaning session almost always got extended and made me even later for work than I usually am due to dropping kids off at school and having to go allllllllll the way back home to let our senior pooch out for potty time. I've tried making Sundays my cleaning days, but that would take too much time away from everyt0hing (and everyone) else I need to direct my attention to. Frankly, my brain just can't handle doing it all day. I get bored or just plain unmotivated and end up stopping to do something that sparks my interest a little more. Currently, I'm trying to purge so that I just have less stuff to deal with. A long while ago I read (well... listened to) Marie Kondo's book, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing," and I tried to implement it at home. Unfortunately, the rest of the family wasn't cooperating. So I'm left to try and do it myself with mostly just my stuff. Some of it I already do and have been for years, but some will take some getting used to. I have countless checklists and life hacks, most of which probably say the same things anyway... Soooooo.....

So far, here's what I generally THINK needs to happen for success:

1. I need to be realistic about my schedules and my scatter brain. Obviously my brain can't tolerate spending all day cleaning. Maybe once in a while I'll get on a roll and hyperfocus on cleaning, but I still don't get as much done in a day as my husband probably could. I need to tackle everything in small doses,15 min or so each, multiple times a day, with an actual timer to enforce that limit.

2. Purge.. and I don't mean getting rid of one or two little things. I mean REALLY purge our stuff. This is always the hard. Every time I see something that I probably should get rid of, I think "but I could use it for..." or "but someday I will..." Like Marie Kondo says, odds are... you won't. That book that's been sitting on the shelf for ages and you haven't read? Probably will still be sitting in the same spot ages from now. It's just taking up space and not contributing to the household, so it needs to go. Either by donation, selling, or (I hate to say) discarding in the trash. I'm so against filling up our landfills, so I try my hardest to upcycle, donate, or recycle what I can, but some things just need to be thrown away. The best way to avoid this is probably not having it in the first place, which is another problem: Replacing purged clutter with MORE CLUTTER. I am an impulsive shopper... especially when I'm angry or upset. You've probably heard of retail therapy? Yeah... apparently shopping makes me feel better. But even when I'm not engaging in retail therapy, I'll be in the store and something will catch my eye. The creative gears in my already busy brain go into overdrive. Next thing you know, it's getting scanned at the register or an order confirmation has just popped up in my inbox. My intentions are always good, I don't buy things just because the look pretty or because I can. I usually have a purpose for it in mind. What I don't think about it is the importance of that purpose. Something I've found that helps is doing orders through Shipt. I get my shopping urge satisfied, but I don't keep anything. I think getting that as a second "job" was a good decision. 

   

...and be realistic about future use! (this is a reiteration) Like I said before. I need to think about whether or not I will REALLY use it in the future.. Another example: You know that favorite pair of jeans you had in high school but can barely fit over your thighs now? You pushed them all the way to the back of the closet, saying "I'm trying to lose weight. Maybe they'll fit again." Yeah..... I have probably an entire wardrobe of that in boxes, hidden away. Obviously, if I haven't been able to fit into them again in the past decade, I probably won't be able to anytime soon. Besides, once I do lose that much weight, I'll probably want all new styles anyway. I need to think like that anytime I come across anything I haven't used or touched in a long time and just. get. rid. of it.

3. Make a list of repetitive goals for each day, but keep it short (maybe no more than 5 tasks). If I have enough time and I'm on a roll, I can add one or two weekly tasks to keep things from getting monotonous. Hell, just make a list of goals, to start with.Daily, weekly, monthly. Stuff like laundry can be done daily (one load). Dishes, making the bed, quick vacuuming, quick little pickups of random objects that aren't in their places and easy to put away, and wiping down counter tops can also be daily tasks. Weekly should probably be cleaning bathrooms, more thorough vacuuming, more thorough cleaning of appliances, dusting, and changing linens and towels. Monthly can be the little details that get overlooked like baseboards, vents, blinds, fan blades, etc. 

4. Don't worry so much about perfection. Good enough should be just that... Good enough. As I said before, I have this mentality that everything should be done to the best of your ability. This has caused me to do a LOT of things "the hard way" and the longest way possible. I need to tell myself that things don't need to be lined up perfectly or completely spotless. a spot or two isn't going to hurt. Could it look better? Sure. Does it need to? Probably not. Is it efficient? Yes. That's what matters. Good enough is better than not at all. 

5. Lastly, STICK TO IT. This one is obvious, but probably the hardest one on the list. If things aren't going perfectly or I miss one day, I tend to just quit and move on. It's partially from frustration, partially from anxiety, and partially from a feeling of failure. I feel like "whelp, I missed one so now everything is shifted and messed up and I'll never recover, so why frigging bother?" I need to remember that missing one every now and then isn't failure. It's a setback. And it's not going to make the world spontaneously combust. It'll be ok. Just pick back up where you left off as if you didn't miss a beat. If something isn't going exactly as I hoped and it's getting too frustrating for me, I need to step away for a short period of time, do whatever else I can, and come back to it as soon as I can. I just have to remember to come back to it. 

Am I missing anything? I'll be going into detail in the coming days about what I'm doing to organize things and streamline, both at home and at work. 

What do you think about my list? What do you have a hard time with and how do you cope?  

#Project2020 #cleanlinessisnexttogodliness #tryingtokeepmyhusbandfromhavingmurderousthoughts