Monday, August 30, 2010

Start the cleaning

September 1 is two days away. The eldest boy starts higher education next week. Today I am trying to find his floor. To my deepest regret I never trained the boy to clean his room - I can't even get him to get the dirty laundry out.

I do not have the cleaning gene, the changing of the sheets on a weekly basis gene or the never go to bed with a dirty kitchen sink gene.

For years I cleaned in fits. I would spend the day tearing apart the house and trying desperately to put it back together.  Then one day I found her, The Flylady, ( flylady.net ).

It has been five years and I am still fluttering. I have some of the routines down to a routine. I have decluttered and decluttered and decluttered.

Flylady promises that the family will jump on the wagon. I am still waiting.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Start the Authentic Life

It has taken me many years but I have half figured out how to surf blogs. I flip from one to another like a bored teenager with the remote control. I slow down when I come across one about knitting or parenting or family cooking, though I did stop at one about raising goats - must smell like my house.

At one point I was stuck in a cycle of "Family" blogs. Pictures of happy smiling clean faces, beautiful houses and groomed dogs. The mothers all wanted to live an authentic life. What does that mean. Are the rest of us living an unauthentic life. Does my laundry, cooking, cleaning and loving not count. Or is it a secret term, like a secret handshake that lets the world know that they have found the answer to all of life's questions and the rest of us are left to figure it out for ourselves?

As my life is not authentic does that make me a knock off old bag?