She Lives!

The thing is, I have a TON of cool stuff to blog. I even have some titles in mind: "Don't Build Castles With the Yellow Sand," "Oy! Where's the Loo?" (totally unrelated stories, btw), "How Much I Loved the Star Trek Movie". Actually, I'll post that last one right now, because it's short: "I loved the Star Trek movie A WHOLE LOT. Like, insanely much likeness have I for that movie."

But for tonight, I'll start with what's topmost on my mind: "Why I Haven't Blogged in a Jolly Long Time."

It all comes down to the three Fs: FlyLady, Facebook, and mon Fils.

I started back up with FlyLady a few months ago. To the uninitiated, basically all you need to know is she's a Godsend to those of us who find ourselves too easily distracted from housework by our perfectionism. Yeah, that's right. I'm a slob because I'm a perfectionist. It makes sense, trust me.

Anyway, I've been putting some serious focus on establishing routines for myself and the kiddos around the house, and it's made such a difference. I'm decluttering, unpacking, and keeping a tidier, happier home in the process. The biggest difference is in how I work with the boys. It's no longer a battle between me wanting to have a clean home and children who want to spread chaos. It's all five of us building new habits together. They're not perfect, and neither am I.

The best idea, for me, is what FlyLady calls the Riley Challenge. I call it the Fifteen Minute Room Blessing. Imagine if your mother just popped over to your house unexpectedly, looked around, and said "You are going to start working RIGHT NOW and you may NOT STOP until your ENTIRE HOUSE is clean and organized!" That sick feeling in the pit of your stomach is what kids feel when we command them to clean their horrible filthy bedrooms all in one fell swoop. Too much! So instead I ask them to spend 15 minutes doing as much as they can on ONE specific task (pick up toys off the floor, throw away trash, clear off the top of the dresser, pull things out from under the bed, etc.). And if they finish in under 15, then great! They're done!

Add to that their (and my) new Morning Routines (make bed, put PJS in a hamper, etc.), and their rooms aren't perfect, but I feel I can walk in to gather laundry without breaking my neck. And they're learning that having these habits is a blessing, instead of... I dunno, "chores suck" or whatever.

What does that have to do with blogging? Establishing new habits is a MAJOR struggle for me. I really have been pretty severely focused. It's like trying to turn a mack truck headed 75 mph down a slick highway. I'm that inertia-prone.

When I'm taking a little me-time in between "House Blessings," I generally stop over at Facebook. I like the immediacy of it. Blogs are great for keeping in touch with people over a distance or telling stories, but Facebook feels more like a conversation. "Hey, I thought Kara DioGuardi's song for the finalists on AI was horrible! What about you?" And then people you haven't seen in decades are replying and discussing and I love it. So it's easy to let that pick up the slack from blogging, but I realize it's not the same.

Mon Fils. My boys. Man oh man. Okay, the main reason that they hamper me blogging is this: blogging requires I sit down and think for more than two minutes at a time. My boys will not have this. I think they're GIVING me ADD. They interrupt every thought process, to the point where now I can only think in 1 minute blocks.

Have you seen that preview for Pixar's UP? The one with the dog explaining his collar? "My master made me this special collar so that I coul- SQUIRREL!" That's what I've become. "Let's see, to get ready for Memorial Day weekend up north we're going to have to pack swimmi- TAKE THAT OUTSIDE!"

Even this post was interrupted no less than four times. Possibly more. I don't know, because counting past four takes too much concentr- SQUIRREL!

P.S. I think maybe that's supposed to be mes fils, but there's no way I'm looking it up.

P.P.S. Is the blog still readable in these colors?