Deena, it's nice to see you posting again.

Thanks, P-Cow! I hope to continue, barring nap days. I'm tired, but not sleepy, and in surprisingly little pain tonight, so I'm kinda liking this saying hello, thingy. Of course, 5 minutes from now I'll get up to do something, forget, and go to bed, but for now I'm all woohoo for clarity!

I've determined what keeps my place neatest and me happily doing things like cooking is having Jilli (or my mom) visit. Which I don't think Pete will let me have full-time. And I don't even know if that trick works for more than a week.

Any low-maintenance house guest who Kittenish likes and will be at her beck and call, basically.

She was loving all the destruction (man's abuse of animal habitats is the theme, if that wasn't obvious).

Oh, Kara. She breaks my heart (well, man's abuse of animal habitats does, really) and makes it grow three sizes at the same time.

Yeah, I'm a rules follower, so I did all the days of the babysteps and congratulated myself heartily when I finished. I do ignore what's not helpful, like the shoes. But it has honestly helped to get dressed every day, and laying out clothes has helped to do that.

The biggest things I'd do if I were to just skip through Flylady, are: setting routines, decluttering, the weekly slipshod cleaning, and then a few of the daily zone missions. It really has helped to have a base level of clean to work from, and the missions give me a chance to go, huh, the fridge door really is dirty, isn't it?

I mean, my mom taught me *how* to clean stuff, but not *when* to. So nothing ever triggers me to say, hey, I should clean that. You know, until I explode and yell that no one should have to live in squalor like this! And then I tried to do it all and failed and made disparaging remarks about myself. So the house thing helps me just say, okay, I should clean X. And then I do, and it turns out to only take, like, seven minutes, and then the house is nicer.

Deena! I love seeing you post! I hope it's not causing you too much discomfort to do so.

Aidan, do not scare your mother that way.

She made a raccoon with a six pack ring thingy around its neck sitting by a polluted stream with dead fish on the banks, accompanied by a fallen birds' nest (with dead parent bird and smushed eggs) and a black squirrel with its head stuck in a can.

Ha! Kara, don't ever change.

I just looked into FlyLady, since buffistas have been talking about it so much lately. It kind of scares me, but I need something for weeks like this when I become so overwhelmed that nothing gets done at all.

My mom cleaned house every day from between nine and noon when I was a little kid, including changing all the sheets, doing the laundry, ironing!, dishes, vacuuming, etc. When I was older, it was all saved until Saturday, and my sister and I did it all, except that I remember having to vacuum and rake the shag carpet every evening before I set the table for dinner when I was about 9. I hated raking the carpet.

My mother and stepdad used to spend every Saturday morning doing major housework, which always seemed like such a waste of a good Saturday morning to me. Unfortunately, TCG is of a similar mindset so things can go from neat to disaster hear in what feels like a blink of an eye. Until there is something like dinner guest coming over or (like this week) movers coming with furniture that gets us to do a major clean up. We both could use something that just gets us to do a little bit every day so it doesn't become such an overwhelming task.

I had to vacuum every day growing up. Which made me loathe it so much that now I let it go far too long.

Thanks, sj! I think this is my last post for the night. I haven't said anything about your posts in press because I haven't known what to say. You guys overwhelm me just in good wishes. This is...I don't know what to say (and now I'm repeating myself). You made me soggy, though.

Yeah, that's exactly what it's good for, sj, if you can ignore or put up with the cheeriness. You just do the 15 minutes. And you say to yourself, 15 minutes is ridiculous! I'll never get the house clean at this rate. But it's better and better all the time.

Of course, right now the kitchen is a wreck because I cooked before classes and ran off to teach. And the I still need to bring the laundry in because I rebooted it and then forgot I'd done so. And the office is piled with stuff that I pulled off the dining room table hotspot.

So. Not perfect. Just better.

eta love for soggy Deena. We are glad to have you back, but understand when it's too much.