Better late than never

I just finished cleaning my fridge. I know, it was overdue – but hey, read the title of this post.

Hubs must agree with me, because he came in today and said "Oh, you are cleaning" in a "That's a pleasant surprise" tone (in fact, most of my cleaning gets done during the hour before my husband gets home from work). "Yes, I'm cleaning the fridge" I replied, without looking up, then added "and I'm re-organizing the shelves, just so you know" and turned to look at him. I could sense a "uh-oh" – he avoided my gaze and walked over to Sarah to decorate the cookies they made on Sunday. He hates it when I re-organize. Not hate the result, hate how neurotic I get about keeping it that way. But hey, who wants to do all that work just to see it messed up like it happens to everything else? (which, by the way, is one of the reasons why I hate household chores – they just don't STAY done)

Later on, I showed him the newly-cleaned and organized fridge. "Ooh, nice!" he said, closing it quickly, no doubt trying to avoid me illustrating the new system. Fat chance. I re-opened it, explained him where everything went, while he nodded and rolled his eyes. When I caught the eye rolling I stopped and asked: "Are you going to remember this, or should I make you a flowchart?" Someone else might have laughed. But my husband, knowing I am perfectly capable of doing that, said "No, it's ok" and then quickly left the room, supposedly to go say hi to Stella, but most likely just trying to avoid more fridge talk. I'm onto him.

What about you? I know I couldn't be the only neurotic one. Come on, 'fess up.

The road to mess is paved with good intentions

My daughter Sarah has been staying in Italy with her grandparents for the past 3 weeks. Tomorrow, she is flying back (yay!). My dad is flying with her, and he will be staying with us for a little over a week - which means I have to get the guestroom ready.

Now, our guestroom is in the basement, which is where the trouble starts. And before you scrunch up your face in disgust and shock that I could put my father in the basement, you should know that our basement is fully finished and has recently been renovated, including new walls, new paint job, completely new floors, thank you very much. It looks very pretty. But being my house, it's also pretty messy. Because, let's face it: as pretty as it is, it's still the basement. It's still the place where we relegate the stuff we have no space, time or inclination to store upstairs.

So I set out today to declutter my basement and sort everything so that the largest room of the two could be turned back into what it was always meant to be, a guest room/playroom. But a few hours in, it doesn't look pretty at all. It looks like a basement.

And you know why? Because in addition to being messy, I save stuff. I set aside clothing and toys to be donated, boxes for recycling, baby clothes that are too small for my cousin in Italy who is having a baby at the end of the month, and so on. I am not a hoarder, I don't buy more than I need, my basement isn't full of stuff I bought that was never used - but it's full of stuff that I don't want to throw away because it seems like a waste. It's all nicely organized and separated, but it's a lot of stuff. I'm telling you, being eco-friendly and messy - not a good combination sometimes. I mean, look where my good intention have gotten me right now: lots of piles of stuff.

And on top of it, where am I while this needs to be done? At the computer, taking a break - not necessarily a well-deserved one, since I haven't gotten a whole lot done today aside from my weekly menu and shopping list, but hey, I have already come out of the closet as a major procrastinator so why lie about it? (I can hear a little voice saying "Pride, girl. Pride.")

So - at this point I would normally make a list of things I want to get done, but today I'm a little afraid of going there, for 2 reasons:

1. it might get out of hand and I might spend more time than I should on the list - sometimes I can get carried away, with the breaking down, and the bulleted items and all... because I'm a freak like that.

2. I'm afraid to jinx it. Because somehow, when I make detailed plans for something it often ends up not happening. Now, this usually applies mostly to diets, but hey, I can't afford to risk it now. Normally if I can't get something done when I'm expecting guests I can take the remaining mess to one room and make sure THAT door isn't open for any reason whatsoever for the duration of the visit. But that's when the guests are only here for a few hours - my dad is staying 10 days, which means the whole house needs to be livable, walkable and showable, which means I'll have no space to hide anything especially since he is staying in the bloody basement!!

Oh goody, I'm getting freaked out. That will help. Now, I hate to do this, but I think I only have one choice now. I will have to ask myself that dreaded question: what would the FlyLady do? And don't say babysteps, I hate the stupid babysteps! And I'm not putting on lace-up shoes, either.

I know! There is an emergency cleaning checklist in the book. Let's see: blah, blah, blah... oh, there: Marathon Clean - if you really have to:
1. Go get dressed all the way to shoes, hair fixed and moisturized and makeup put on. Yeah, I'll get right on that. Come on!

Ok, the rest lists out kitchen, timer, coffee break, bathroom... yeah, ok. Off I go. Wish me luck!

P.S. And you know what else I saw when I was looking for the emergency cleaning checklist? The FLYLady's 11 commandments. I had highlighted "4. Don't allow yourself to be sidetracked by the computer". Yeah, sure. I'm never going to be able to follow that one.

Procrastinators of the world unite!... tomorrow

Hi, my name is Elisa and I'm a procrastinator. *Hi, Elisa*

Example: a couple of weeks ago we celebrated my husband's birthday - the big 4-0. His birthday was on a Saturday; so on Friday I decided I'd clean the house.

I admit the place tends to be kind of disorderly, what with Stella's talent for making a mess and my lack of talent for keeping up with it. It's very organized though. *wink*

Anyway, DH said he didn't want a party, so I thought had to put more effort into the celebration, and I decided to clean the house in his honor. A little voice in my head said "Yeah, good luck with that" but I shushed it, confident that I could make it. Here's how that went:

11.09am: on the pc, blogging. Decide to visit blogroll before I get off the pc. Just quick.

1.38pm: look at the clock, feel a pang of disappointment. Still, got lots done. Got an e-mail reminder for Shecky's Girls Night Out (like I would forget!), looked up exact address and marked it on my NY map guide (told you I'm neurotic), then Yelped restaurants and coffee shops in the area, got mail (yay, Netflix envelopes!), made lunch, ate lunch, watched Will & Grace during lunch (season 4, from one of the Netflix envelopes). Plan to start just as soon as this episode is over.

3.04 pm: still haven't done any cleaning. Must do menu & shopping list. I'll just check my e-mail quick.

5.08 pm: started cleaning kitchen and living room - no small feat considering I have just received several boxes of stuff I ordered online (I can get kind of carried away with the excuse that I'm prepping for a trip overseas). Office is still a mess but hey, no birthday party takes place in an office, right? Or in the kids' bedroom, for that matter.



I procrastinate. Especially when it has to do with house chores. It's not that I'm lazy (ok, maybe a little sometimes), it's just that I already despise chores enough without the added deterrent: nothing remains tidy, clean, or otherwise "done" for long. It's different when I have time to do it as well as I like. I guess I'm a closet perfectionist (or maybe I'm half-way out already, if this is anything to go by).

But sometimes procrastinating is good. For instance, I mentioned the boxes of stuff I ordered online. It could be worse. See, for some reason I just don't "do" moderation. It's always either/or with me. But in the past several years I have gotten much better at avoiding impulse buys, and procrastination has been the main tool.

For instance, I went to check out the Bakers sale (sorry ladies, the best stuff is gone now). Since I love shoes, my first impulse was to order 5 pairs ("they are so cheap, I'm actually saving money" as Rebecca Bloomwood would say). But when I waited until the day after to complete the checkout process, I realized that most of those models I have already and never use, mostly because they make it hard to run after Stella.

See, so it's not just a vice or a bad trait, it can actually come in handy! And there you were, thinking "oh, so she does have flaws!". Ye of little faith.

In fact, I was just reading how procrastination comes in handy when sticking to your diet. Jana Klauer, Nutritionist to the stars and author of "How the rich get thin" recommends using procrastination (ok, she calls it "patience") and a healthy snack to get over cravings. If a craving hits, she recommends setting a timer for 15 minutes, take some fiber and some protein and know that by the time the timer goes off your craving will be gone.

Ah, if only. Ok, maybe I'll try it. I got the gift (curse?) of procrastination, might as well put it to good use, right? And I will... just as soon as I finish checking my e-mail. Just quick.