Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Defying Physics

So its been a week since I made my 2009 "To Do" list. How am I doing???

1) Organize my paperwork.


Ah, it actually looks worse than it did last week. But I am making progress! Tonight I bought these:

I'm going to start sorting and filing any day now. Hey! I heard you laughing.

3) Fold my laundry and put it away the day it comes out of the dryer.

I did really well with this one for 2 days.

And then it all fell apart. I planned to just leave things in the dryer until I could fold but you can only fit so many loads of laundry in your dryer, even the maximum capacity ones. Maybe the answer is to get more dryers.

The landing looks better, though. I just moved all the laundry to my bedroom.

4) Lose weight and eat better.


Hmmm? Did you say something? I couldn't hear you over the crunching noise. I've decided to just "let myself go." All I need is a caftan and a big fuzzy pair of slippers.

5) Write my book.


I'm finishing my creative writing course, starting my other writing class in a couple of weeks and hope to get back to writing on my book next week.

6) Be a better mommy


To be announced at a later date. Work in progress. But we did eat pizza standing up at a kitchen island. Now that's fun!

2) Keep my house clean and looking beautiful.

What did my house look like today?

{I moved the little and chairs downstairs today to try to keep the babies snacks in the kitchen}

Yeah, well, I tried. But you know I'm fighting a law of physics here. Back when I was a 32 year old pregnant full time college student, I took a physics class. And in this class I learned about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law states that some systems will turn into chaos and then reach a level of equilibrium.

(Now don't I feel incredibly smart, remembering that for a year or two, centuries, eons, over time.)

I firmly believe that my house is one of these systems and that it has not even reached its equilibrium yet. To continue to try to keep my house clean is fighting a law of physics! How crazy would I be to try to disprove a Physics law? What am I, Madame Curie? And besides we all know what happened to her. No thanks. I have no desire to die an excruciating death from radiation poisoning.

So not only am I letting myself go, I'm letting my house go too.

It should be an interesting year.

25 comments:

Unknown said...

I think I'll follow your lead and let mine go to crap as well!

Kelsey said...

It's not that bad. I'm in the same boat except the mess is in my room. I had this bright idea to start cleaning crap out of here but then got tired of doing it, so now I just have a bunch of giant plastic boxes waiting around for me to do something with them besides stack the laundry from the dryer on it. I don't let people in here anymore.

Oh and we have the same computer. Don't you love it?

Carey-Life in the Carpool Lane said...

I feel so much smarter after reading your blog. I so think the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to my whole life. Here's hoping for some equilibrium soon for both of us!

Unknown said...

im sure it'll be a great year!!! have you ever checked out Flylady? i love her approach to taking care of stuff like this... its simple and doable and it always helps me feel not so overwhelmed... but believe me, they DO grow up... and some day, you WILL vaccum up the last lego :).

Shell in your Pocket said...

I love your honesty and "truth"...it will come my blogging friend..keep crunching..those papers will be there!
They always are!
-sandy toe

Shari U said...

Well, it may be a messy house, but it is a beautiful house. You seem to pretty much have your hands full there, lady. I'd say if everyone has clean clothes to wear and a slice of pizza to eat you're all doing just fine! Oh, and by the way, is that a canister of Folgers coffee on your counter? What's this? I'm turning you into the Starbucks police.

Brandy said...

Is it bad that I feel better about my own house from looking at yours? Not that it's bad but it looks "lived in" as mine often does too.

I have a gift for you on my blog today!

Denise Grover Swank said...

Misadventurous Mommy (your name sounds so naughty!)-- glad to be an inspiration!

Kelsey-- I do that, start to organize, get called away and then it looks worse than before. Oh, and I love my laptop!

Carey-- See, you just never know what you'll get from my blog! I multi task here!

Annie-- I've heard of FlyLady but I've never checked her out. Maybe I'll try to do that today, if I can find the computer in all the mess. I know its here somewhere...

Sandy Toes-- the paperwork is really high on the priority list right now. Taxes are a callin'

Shari- my goodness! You must be great at Where's Waldo! Yes, that IS a can of Folders, however its for my BOYS! Don't touch the stuff!

Brandi-- a present for ME???? I'm coming over right NOW!!!!

Kim said...

I'm with ya on these new year resolutions. So far I've exercised one day, kept the house clean less than 2 days. As far as eating better, today I had a pop tart for breakfast. Oh well, theres always tomorrow.

Safire said...

Saw your comment over on SITS this morning. Hope you are able to get some more sleep...:)

Denise Grover Swank said...

Kim-- Poptarts are FRUIT FILLED. Fruit=food group. You've covered 2 food groups in one entree. Good job!

Safire-- Sleep is overrated. Too bad I don't use those late night hours alone cleaning and organinizing instead of blog writing and reading.

Lori said...

The kiddies look so cute at their breakfast nook :)

The Johnson 5 said...

Well at least you tried...RIGHT!!

We all have parts of us that we would like to improve.
I bought beautiful containers and shelves (last year!!) to help organize my madness of papers and pictures that are in my basement.
And guess what, there all still sitting in the corner of the room waiting for me to ORGANIZE them!

Don't worry honey,your not the only slacker :)

Upstatemamma said...

I am so telling my husband about this physics law. :) We FINALLY got everything cleaned up from when Baby Sister was born a few weeks ago and then Christmas happened.

Lorie said...

Just so you know, we call that "lived in" in our house, if we could always have a perfect house where would we live????

Kristin said...

LOL! That pretty much sums up my house over here too! I did buy some file folders, but they're sitting in my office, still in the bag. We just boxed up our tree yesterday, and it's still sitting in the entryway. My kitchen is a mess and there are about 4 loads of laundry needing to be put up. But, I have the 2nd Twilight book to read.....priorities! Your blog is always so fun to read!

Inspiration CAN be found EVERYWHERE said...

Ok so the start of the year hasn't gone the way you had hoped when you set up your 2009 "wish" list. Trust me when I tell you - you are NOT alone.

But when it is all said and done - you've spent some quality time with the kids, gotten your "act together" for YOURSELF and if all the other things on the list aren't started - OH WELL. There will be time in 2009 to start making a dent in the list. Your not perfect (but heck who is?) but that will not cause problems for your kids (and that's what's really important right?), the world won't come to an end if the list doesn't happen. But as you look back on your life (or others do) you're not going to think about the things you didn't get done in the house - but all the things you DID get to do with the kids and for yourself.

Keep your chin up. And get cracking on the book - I can't wait to read the next installment.

Sarah said...

lol! great post. But you can be assured you're not alone!

Nancy said...

I love your law of physics. I will follow your lead as well!!
Nancy

Vickie said...

That was also my resolution, but all I ever do is the dishes. Kids room are still a mess and my laundry stays in the dryer til I need some socks.

Mimi said...

I would love to start a movement to bring back caftans. Who cares how we look, we would feel so liberated!

Cathy said...

So that's what physics is about??? I should have paid better attention! I'm so glad I'm not the only one who uses alone time to blog or read. Who wants to clean or organize? Not me!

Kristin said...

You know I love you but I love you more when you post things like this. It makes me feel so much more normal.....but still overwhelmed.

Gee, maybe we're NOT the normal ones?? Maybe everyone else out there has a spotless house, well behaved kids, a gourmet dinner, and everything else to go with it.

Nah, who am I kidding!!!

Cassie said...

I meant to tell you this in one of my comments on the giveaway post, but I was too excited and forgot!

You mentioned (up there) that Starbucks mixes the tea with Lemonade...I had a friend when I was a kid, and his Mom mixed her tea with a scoop of TANG! It was awesome! We would go over there just for her tea!

Carla said...

LOL - love this post.

No, the quote goes

Cleaning your house while you still have young kids at home is like shoveling your sidewalk while it's still snowing. ;)

thanks for stopping by! I guess I shouldn't have expected people to know ISO 100 and ISO 1600 as I doubt they grew up salivating over film boxes studying them as to which would be better during different conditions.