The Adventures of Finnboo, Batman, Robin, and Kieksy

Oh, being in the house may be starting to get to me, because I'm cracking myself up with this one, and had to turn my son's tears into a comic strip, but nonetheless, it all began with a desperate cry from the family room....

Help! I fell off the wagon!

No, not that wagon. And my apologies to anyone offended by me borrowing that term and using it lightly. However, that was the first thing that entered my mind when I took a look at my kitchen sink this morning, overflowing with dishes. I joke that my New Year's Resolutions can be best summarized as "getting my shit together," and I'm already crashing and burning....My diligence in following at least part of Fly Lady's advice: never leaving dishes in the sink and picking up before bed, no matter how tired I am, has wavered greatly over the past week. I created a new "family member" named "Chores" on my Cozi Family calendar (which I definitely recommend to help organize, they even have an iPhone app,) and assigned small, but do-able chores, to each night of the week, Monday through Thursday, on repeat, indefinitely until the end of time. (These chores are in addition to constant things like wiping kitchen counters, doing a load of laundry a day, etc.)
The hubs and I started off last week with a bang-

Monday-I cleaned the upstairs bathroom while he cleaned the downstairs bathroom.
Tuesday night, it was vacuum and dust the downstairs time. Johnny had just vacuumed the downstairs on Sunday morning, so we skipped vacuuming again that soon, (All touch ups are done with the dust buster. Kieksy even cleans up his own messes with it at this point.) And I quickly discovered that we were out of Pledge, but I wasn't stopped-I was going to dust something downstairs, so I hit the woodwork with the static duster. And
Wednesday, hmmm, that was supposed to be dusting upstairs, but still, we hadn't picked up any pledge...plus, I had report cards to write...
Thursday....dinner out and report cards trumped daily chores once again!
So, the weekend hit, and we were back where we started. Laundry and vacuuming on the weekend...

I could go on and on, but my main purpose in writing today was to own up to this slip, especially since I told everyone my New Year's Resolution (s) already.

As I write, I've been blessed with a snow day to catch up with it all, and start fresh tomorrow with the daily "stuff." My sink is cleared, dishwasher and laundry are running, and I can finally take time to enjoy the day with the crazies! (Who, on a totally unrelated side note, are apparently fans of Craisins. They had to be cut off after 2 bowls.)

First, some more pictures to boost my spirits and help me hop back on the wagon: I spent an hour on a previous snow day cleaning out and reorganizing my linen closet. (Yes, I took pictures because I was so proud!)

before...or mid-clean out, I should say. Don't you love my shelf paper? It came with the house...

Here it is close up-I'm attached to it for some reason, don't know why! (Maybe because I don't feel like recovering all these shelves!)

After...

And a close up after of all our junk, corralled in bins!

 Okay, I feel better now. I am happy to report that 3 weeks later, it still looks this organized. Oh, the little things that make me happy.

BTW, I have a love/hate relationship with this closet. Love: the storage it provides (hence the baby bathtub, boppy, and beach bag stowed at the bottom.) It's one of only 3 "normal" sized closets in this whole house. Hate: It was created when some owner along the line decided this house didn't need a back staircase from the kitchen. Whaat?! They're crazy, who doesn't need a back staircase? I'm crazy jealous of my neighbors who still have their back staircase. There is no hope for us restoring it without us spending thousands of dollars, because they didn't just close it off, they CUT IT!!! Oh well. I survived my childhood without 2 staircases in my house, I guess the crazies will too.

Welcome back!

Hello, again! I've been toying with both wordpress and blogger, and have now decided that I like using blogger better. So, welcome. Please sign up again if you want notification of new posts, etc. You can "follow" my blog, which will automatically send it to google reader, or you can sign up using a different reader of your choosing. Still figuring out if you can subscribe via email, if I figure it out, I'll be sure to let you know! Thanks for reading, now let's test out adding a picture: