Friday, September 9, 2011

A Confession

I have been married for 3 years. ( That's not my confession) 

I haven't once cleaned a single window in our home. I shared this fact with my husband last night and he said, "I don't doubt this. My sweet wife is not a fan of cleaning. This is also the same woman that I reminded to dust, vacuum and mop the kitchen floor in the early days of our marriage."  :) 

Tis true. I am not a clean freak and as it usually works in marriage, my husband is. Any ways... I decided that today is the day. I am going to tackle these windows before winter.

I'm going to take it in pieces though. I've learned that I am a person that will be much more likely to attack a project if I can break it into bite sized pieces. I have 12 windows. If I do three a week I'll have them done by the end of this month. 3 a week seems reasonable. 

I do this with lots of things. When I have a huge pile of laundry I just tell myself I'm going to put away all the bath towels and hand towels. Then I come back to it and hour later and hang all the hanging clothes and so on. Otherwise I just procrastinate and don't make any progress. 

Sometimes I get frustrated because it's more difficult for me to get things done now that C is so active and getting into things all the time. I'm learning to adjust my expectations. The last few times I've gone grocery shopping I've felt frustrated because once I'm back home and get everything put away I don't have much of the day left. Last week I had an aha! moment; I need to expect on grocery day that groceries are probably all I'm going to get accomplished. And that's ok!

I think the biggest thing that's helpful for me right now is making a list with just a few key tasks for the week. This week's are windows, cleaning up the garden a bit, mailing a package, menu planning for Monday's grocery trip, making a few pieces of jewelry, and doing a couple blog posts. Each day when I have some down time (Like naps) I pick one task and work on it til it's finished. Later that day if I have more time, I'll go after then next item. This has helped me be much more productive. 

Here's a great post I stumbled on yesterday about being ok with not always getting everything done every day. It was very timely because I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Check it out Here.

I will leave you with a before and after picture of my windows.

BEFORE:

 See how clouded and fuzzy it is. Blech!

AFTER:

 Ahhh..... That should do it for another 3 years..... :)




2 comments:

  1. What a difference! I don't even remember the last time our windows were cleaned. Now you have inspired me! :)

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  2. I have yet to clean our windows and we have lived in the same house for 2 years and boy do they need it!!!

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