Every time we clean the whole house for a gathering we say we'll maintain it to that level, and it just never seems to happen.

The other option is a cleaning service, but I think I will wait until Aidan goes to college for that option. I can get an estimate now, because the sign is GONE! But I think the important thing is to maintain accountability. The therapist pointed out that I am not really a hoarder, I am just messy and do not care, and it gets out of hand. And I never learned the skills and live by myself— I would never do this to another person.

Also, amyth if you see this and are up to it, do you know your head circumference, or at least whether you think your head is average? I have read up and several people have accidentally made the hats too big. No stress, I have measured lots of heads, and they are almost all 20 inches, but if you think your head is particularly small or large, let me know!

Sophia, I don't know my head circumference, but it's a little larger than average. But not enormously so. (I hope!) If it's stretchy, I can probably make do with a regular size. Thank you!

ltc: Can I have a snack?

Me: Yes you can have a little packet of cookies but only because you're sick.

ltc: But I'm not really sick.

Me: Then I guess you can't have a snack.

ltc: confused blinking while she tries to decide how much she wants the cookies

t evil mom

That is awesome, sj.

on the off chance anyone needs to me reach me the next few days. Mac has my phone so do not text or call that, I will have my work phone which is 817 and the 307 and then 7084. Hopefully breaking that up makes it safer to post in this world of everything grabbing our data.

Personal Email is accessible on work phone also, so that is fine. FB Msgr is not though.

rainy rainy day here. I hope everyone has a good Friday.

Congrats, Sophia!

Upkeep is hard, especially when you live by yourself. The only reason why I clean out my refrigerator as frequently as I do is because I travel a lot and I don't want to come home to rotting produce.

I've had some success with breaking down tasks into the simplest components, like instead of "clean the bathroom" I list out the things that need to be cleaned in the bathroom (tub, sink, toilet, mirrors, etc). And then I use both checklists and Google Calendar to prompt me to Do The Thing.

I just did a quick clean of the fridge to make room for Thanksgiving groceries. Also because celery should not be squishy.

shrift, I used a variant of your plan to organize my studying in college. I created To Do lists that broke single assignments down into components. My lists were usually pretty long. But at the end of each day, I could tell myself that I'd accomplished something.

For example, if I needed to read three chapters of the textbook by Monday, I'd list each chapter as a separate item on my To Do list. So if I read one chapter during the day, I could knock one item off the list even if I hadn't completed the entire assignment yet.