30 day challenge update

It's that time of the week again, start the marching band and everyone join in the parade!!! Or I could just put the banner up and get on with it... Yeah lets just go with that.

Yes I am back with another update on my 30 days to become tidier. Now for all of you who need a reminder, my jobs for this week were:

• Take all of your clothes out of their drawers and cupboards and sort them into piles to be thrown in the bin, donated to the second hand store or kept. Only put away the clothes in the keep pile
• Empty the freezer and throw out food that you no longer want
• Wipe down every appliance in the house
• Pick one room, wash all windows
• Clean the hallway completely
• Find another cupboard full of junk and empty it out
• Pick a room and wash all the walls from floor to ceiling

So this week was slightly successful, but still not a complete total crack open a bottle of champagne and celebrate because you are just that awesome success. Because there was so much that ended up being missed, it would be quicker to tell you what did get done. So the freezer got emptied out of all old food, leaving lots of room for my supply of coffee flavoured ice cream. I also got into the wardrobe in mum's room and cleaned out the floor space there, leaving everything neat and tidy. I know I was meant to clean a whole cupboard out, but given that the floor alone took a whole afternoon I am happy to count that as an entire task and leave the shelf space for another week. On the plus side, during my travels into the wardrobe I managed to hunt down all of our Christmas decorations, so given there are only 84 days left until Christmas, we are more prepared than we were this time last year.

And that is all that I accomplished on my list this week. Given that it has rained for 4 of the 7 days this week it was too wet to slosh water around again, and the rest of the jobs kind of got forgotten between visiting family and re-reading the Hunger Games series for the third time in a row. (Seriously, how good are those books?)

But I will persevere because despite appearances things are slowly getting done around here so I'm still hoping to actually have a happy ending to this month. With that in mind, here are this weeks jobs to attempt.

• Tackle my craft area, throw out anything I don’t think I’ll ever use and organise everything else into tubs and folders
• Clean the stove and oven
• Empty the bathroom cupboard and dispose of almost empty or expired products
• Empty the laundry room out and sweep and mop. Return everything to the room neatly
• Empty out the computer desk drawers and throw out old cables and other junk. Return necessary cables in a neat fashion
• Reorganise Miss K’s toys, throw out any toys that she has outgrown or doesn’t play with
• Pick a room and wash all walls from floor to ceiling

So as you can see the jobs are getting tougher, which means that my will to clean will probably shrink even further this week. But I will try my absolute hardest to get something done this week, but probably not today, because I have just discovered a new flavour of Tim Tams, and I must take them over to my big sister's place to try them out.

30 ways in 30 days challenge

So I apologise for not writing yesterday, I had intended on coming on last night and bragging about how good I was yesterday, but after spending the entire day being all busy and mum-like I was so exhausted I didn't even look at the computer. But I had a good night's rest last night and I've not been quite so frenzied with my cleaning today so I still have plenty of energy right now to brag.

After I wrote this post about a blog I found giving inspiration on how to get organised, I decided it was not enough to just write down all the wonderful ideas on this blog and read it every day, it was time to actually do something about the state of my life. So I am starting my own 30 day challenge based on what I read. Yesterday was the first day and so far things are going very well. I can't say that it is a success just yet because it is easy to do something for one day. Trying to keep it up permanently is something that takes determination and will power. And those are two traits that I usually lack.

But that doesn't change how proud I am of my effort yesterday. I wrote myself a huge to do list on Sunday night and made myself work till I managed to tick off everything on the list. There were some things that I didn't actually get to accomplish, but it wasn't because I got bored and wandered off. One item on my list was buy new ink cartridges for my printer, but when I got to the computer store to make my purchase I was told that my printer is an absolute dinosaur, and they don't really sell ink cartridges for it any more. I could have gotten some ordered in specially, but it would have been cheaper to buy a brand new printer, as purchasing both a black and white and colour cartridge would end up costing me around $80. So I had to scratch that one off my list unfinished unfortunately.

Today there was a new to do list  written up, and I managed to accomplish quite a few things on the list. Again I came across stumbling blocks, like a supermarket that didn't sell borax, and a calculator that refuses to show itself, but again many items got crossed off, and those that didn't can just be added to tomorrows to do list, and then any day afterwards until I get them all completed. And on and on it will go for 30 days. And hopefully by the end of the 30 days I won't need to look at my inspiration every single morning before I get going, it will just be second nature for me to get up in the morning and do my job.

I'll be posting updates here every now and again just so you my wonderful readers can know how I'm progressing, but for now I have to get off the computer, as I'm only allowing myself half an hour on the computer at a time, as this is one of my biggest distractions, and I still have lots I could be doing. Wish me luck

Getting organised

So in an effort to find my missing mojo, I am still looking at the wonderful blogs and pins by other sickeningly capable people, all of whom make this stuff look super easy. I have stumbled tonight on a wonderful blog called Clean and Scentsible, by one such capable woman, and she has a post called 30 ways in 30 days to get organised. For anyone who wants to read this little gem of inspiration, you can find it here. I have written down absolutely everything she has written in this list, and tomorrow once I have bought more printer ink, I will be printing these wise words out, and pinning them up somewhere that I will be able to see on a regular basis every day. I'm thinking probably next to the door in my bedroom would be a good place to stick this for now. Hopefully if I can read this list every single day I will be able to find the inspiration to get better organised. Some of the tips she gives are so blindingly obvious you would think I shouldn't need to write them down to remember them, but when your mojo is MIA, then you forget all kinds of things, like getting dressed in the morning. So fingers crossed this is a step in the right direction for me.

My lightbulb moment

So I think I have figured out why I have lost my mojo this week. I have been feeling rather guilty lately as I have been neglecting my school work in favour for redecorating Miss K's room, as well as learning how to quilt, and anything else I can find to distract me that has to be done straight away. I think that my current lack of motivation is my brain's way of forcing me to get back into studying. I haven't picked up any books since the first week of term holidays in June, so I'm very lucky that I haven't fallen behind, as we're still on the same subject we were on before term 2 ended.

My big problem is that the assignment I am supposed to be completing right now is so brain numbingly boring I can't sit still long enough to even think about writing it. I am supposed to be setting long term goals for myself, and if you haven't realised by the amount of projects I have on the go at the moment, I am very bad at setting and sticking to goals. I tend to bounce around more than a pinball in a busy arcade, which doesn't bode well if I have assignments to complete that require lots of time spent sitting down and thinking. But given how important this course is to me, that is exactly what I have to do, and hopefully once the horrible assignment is finished I'll be able to find my motivation again and get going on everything else I want to complete.

So tonight I am going to forget everything else. My bedroom is still a pigsty, the quilting is put away for now, and I am going to study. Wish me luck.

*Editors note: I have finished the stupid boring assignment and submitted it for grading. I also checked all my other assignments previously submitted and am proud to announce I received 100% for one of my units and 98% for the other one. Still waiting for the results for one more unit that I submitted several months ago but the results so far have me chomping at the bit to get the rest of my work done. I'd say that's a success.

Fighting fat (or the nine steps to a new you)

I'm trying to type very quietly today as mum is attempting to have a nanna nap on the couch next to me right now, but I have something I have to get off my chest right now so it can't wait till she's up and getting ready for work.

Anyone who has been a regular reader of mine would know that I try to eat a healthy and balanced diet, and I attempt during the warmer months to do some form of semi regular exercise. Well recently I discovered a support group on Facebook for people trying to lose weight, and I joined up to see if they would be able to keep me motivated in my own winter slump. Interestingly enough, the girl who started up the page is actually a neighbour of mine, but we didn't realise we lived so close to each other until after I joined her group. We now chat on an almost daily basis, and I think I can safely say I have made a new friend which is wonderful.

As for the group itself, while it is wonderful to see so many like minded people from all over the world joining together to support each other in our quests to get healthy, it is sad to see so many people who are incredibly misinformed about the route to good health, and who are also riddled with so much self hatred because of how they look. Now as I have mentioned in an earlier post here, before I had Miss K, I was in exactly the same boat and filled with the same hatred of my body for becoming a lumpy mass of tubbiness, but once I became pregnant and realised what a miracle the human body can be, I learned to accept that I will never look like the photoshopped models on the front of all the magazines and love my body for the incredible machine it is. That doesn't mean that I don't still want to be healthy and fit, it just means that I am more forgiving of the various lumps and bumps that have shown up as I got older, and instead of just being depressed that I am what the health profession considers obese (but I just consider overweight) I have decided to accept what I cannot change, change the things I can, and love all of it no matter what.

So with that in mind, I have decided to share with you my wonderful readers some of the steps I have had to take in the past to get to where I am today, still not perfect, and still trying to lose weight, but not filled with self loathing and pity.

1. Love yourself warts and all

I was always told that no one can love you until you love yourself, and I believe this with all of my heart. Love has to come from within yourself before it can come from anywhere else. If you are unhappy with your appearance, sure make the changes you feel are necessary to fix this, but make sure it is for the right reason. If you are doing it so that you feel better about yourself and to be healthier for yourself then this is good. If you are doing it so that other people will like you, then this is bad. You could be the skinniest person in the world, but if you think that you are worthless, then that is what everyone else is going to think about you too.

2. Treat your body like the wonder it is

The human body is truly a work of wonder. We have so many different mechanisms, all which have a specific function which is necessary to operate on a daily basis. Your body is working 24/7 in ways that sometimes you aren't even aware of. Things we don't even think about like the way your skin absorbs vitamin d from the sun, which is necessary for a healthy skin, organs and immune system. Then there is the wonder of thinks like reproduction which is just mind boggling, the fact that we need our bodies to propagate the species and avoid extinction. All of this makes for one awesome machine which should be respected and loved. I used to treat my body less as a temple and more like a three car garage before I got healthy, and I paid for it big time. No energy, unhealthy skin, digestion problems and all other kinds of nasty ailments have plagued me for years. I still get a nasty reminder of what my life was like if I relax my eating and sleep habits too much, and it is a very effective motivator to get back to the healthy lifestyle which make me feel so much better.

3. Learn about the foods you are putting into your body

In order to learn exactly how much fat I was eating on a daily basis, I started to use an online food diary which not only tracked what I was eating, but exactly how many calories was in each piece of food I put in my mouth, as well as the vitamins and minerals I was getting on a daily basis. This was an incredible eye opener for me, I couldn't believe that if I had one bad day and ate take away for dinner instead of cooking something at home, my calorie intake would sky rocket out of control. Given that there are calories in absolutely everything we eat, and the human body needs on average only 1200 calories a day in order to function, this was proof positive that I needed to make big changes to my diet. But that hasn't meant that I can't eat all the foods I still love, just that they have now become sometimes foods instead of every day foods. And I have actually found that after a while I don't enjoy my take away meals like I used too. Being aware of their incredibly high fat content tends to keep me away a lot more than it used to. For anyone looking for a good food diary, as well as an exercise diary, check out www.myfitnesspal.com. It even tells you exactly how many calories you need to burn a day in order to lose weight, as well as how much calories you do burn when you exercise.

4. Take all the help you can get

It is incredibly hard to stay motivated when you are on your own. There were times that the only reason I went out and played tennis with my little sister is because she was the one who called me every weekend to remind me to come get her and go out for a run around. And at the end of the day I was grateful that she had hauled me off my lazy butt for 45 minutes of sweating and panting because I felt great. I used to live with a friend from high school, and she would make me put on my walking shoes every night and we would go for a walk around town, even in the freezing cold of winter. Again I hated her while I was putting on my shoes, but I always felt so refreshed when we finally got home, our noses pink and numb from the cold air. Mum and I are each other's cheerleader this time, and even though neither of us can motivate ourselves to work harder, we are happy to support each other and give pep talks whenever they are needed. It is much harder to go easy on yourself when others are watching you, and sometimes that is all the motivation you need.

5. Stop caring what every one else thinks

This one was a big deal for me, because I spent the first twenty years of my life caring about what everyone else thought, and completely ignoring my own opinions, or changing my opinions just so that they fit in with everyone else's. But all that meant was that I was a complete doormat, and not really being true to myself. At the end of the day, the only person you spend 24 hours a day with is yourself. The only person who can hear all the little voices in your head is yourself, so why would you listen to the voices in someone else's head before your own? Learn to own the voice inside your head and listen to what it is saying about you. If you don't like what you hear, either change the track or change what you don't like about yourself.

6. Become more selfish

This doesn't mean always take more for yourself before giving to other people, this means start taking care of yourself before you do anything else. For any of my readers who are mums, you will know how hard this one is because our job description means that we put our kids before absolutely everything else. Our hunger, our appearance, our bladders always come out second to the children. But at the end of the day if you want anything for yourself, you are going to have to be the one who does it. I'm lucky because my child is still at an age where she needs 14 hours of sleep a day, so I only need to put her first for 10 hours a day. And when she is in bed, or happily amusing herself with the contents of our plastic cupboard, that gives me plenty of time to stop and have a coffee, or read the pull outs from the Sunday newspaper. And sometimes being selfish can mean refusing to listen to someone's constant criticisms or complaints, or something as simple as making sure you get a good night's rest.

7. Don't take life too seriously

Laughter really is the best medicine in the world. Nothing gets me out of a slump like having a giggle with Miss K. Sometimes it is hard to find the humour in a situation, but if you can learn to laugh at yourself then life gets a whole lot easier. It is too easy to become stressed these days, people work longer hours, women have more things to juggle on a daily basis, the news broadcasters are hell bent on trying to convince us that the world is coming to an end. Sometimes I find myself becoming too focused on unimportant details and stressing myself out, and when I do, I have to take a step back and tell myself to chill out and relax because at the end of the day is it really important that everything is perfect? or is it more important to be happy and calm?

8. Stop beating yourself up

This is a big one for people who are trying to diet. Every day someone in my weight loss support group posts that they have fallen off the wagon and totally hate themselves for being weak willed. I keep telling them over and over again that everyone deserves a treat, otherwise being good is too hard. But every day there is someone else who needs to be told to go easy on themselves. We seem to forget that we are all human, and as a whole, the human race is flawed. There is no one out there who is perfect, and convincing yourself that the only way to prove that you have succeeded is that you can go the rest of your life without eating a chocolate bar, or you are the absolute best at whatever it is you are good at is only setting yourself up to fail. If there are two things that you need to remember to survive in this world, they are that everyone needs chocolate, and no matter how good you are at something, there will always be someone who is better at it than you. This may sound completely depressing, but it can also be incredibly freeing. It doesn't mean never try to be good at anything, just that you need to learn to be the best that YOU can be, not the best that someone else can be. Sure if you have done something absolutely reprehensible like had sex with Mickey Rourke, or head-butted a small child to get to the last biscuit in the pack, then beat yourself up, but otherwise, go easy on yourself.

9. Accept that there are no quick fixes

This one makes me angry. Everyone is looking for the short-cut in life. The get rich quick scheme, the lose weight fast scheme, the learn a new skill in a day scheme. The short answer is there is no such thing. Anything worth doing in this life takes time and effort, and if you really want to be proud of yourself at the end of the day, the only way to do it is the hard way. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can get on your way to mastering whatever it is you want to do.

Well I'll get off my soapbox for now, but I hope that there is something here that you my wonderful readers can take away from my lecture today. If anyone else has a secret to success that has helped them, I'd love to hear it.

Frustration station

Hello again my wonderful readers and my little sister. I feel I must say a big hello to her because she is the only person who will still admit that she reads my blogs regularly so she must be my biggest fan. Although she will never admit it to me, she's more likely to call me names than compliment me, but I know that it's just her way of saying she loves me. Or really pissing me off, I can't really tell any more.

I love today's title because it just rolls off the tongue. I heard it tonight on New Zealand's next top model, one of the contestants used it to describe one of her co-contestants, and it just was the most suitable description, I felt I must use it. And it also fits my mood today. Not that I really have anything big I can put my finger on to explain my mood lately, I just feel completely strung out and blah. I think my biggest problem at the moment is the massive guilt trip I'm taking myself on over all of my little faults and flaws, coupled with all the little things that go wrong during every day life and it's all built up into a massive case of the CBF's.

The thing making me stomp my feet right now is technology. It's driving me fully nuts. I tried logging into my TAFE's online course section tonight, only to find out it's out of action, which is just perfect because without it I can't access any new assignments, upload any completed ones or find the answers to all of the worksheets I have just completed, and I WANT TO KNOW IF I GOT THEM RIGHT!!!!! This once again goes back to being the teacher's pet, and I can't stand not knowing if I'm on the right track with the work I'm doing. It's probably the universe's way of telling me to put my books away for the evening and go get some sleep, but like a spoilt child, all I want to do is scream and shake the computer. I also can't find my camera cable, which means I can't upload any of the photos I took of Miss K using her walker today. I really wanted to post one here tonight, so I could share my proud moment with all of you guys, but I guess you'll just have to wait until I get better organised and finally clean out my desk drawers.

Of course the desk drawers are just one item on a very very long to-do list which includes completing 3 units all at once, getting back on top of the housework, washing all of my clothing and taking care of Miss K. There are so many little things that need to be done every day which I have a tendency to push to the side when something more interesting comes along (and that could be anything from a really exciting assignment I want to get stuck into to something shiny that catches my eye). I'd much rather be sitting down and having coffee and chatting with my mum and big sister than doing laundry or dishes or bathing Miss K, unfortunately the house tends to fall down around my ears if I forget these things for too long, and I do end up paying for my laziness in the long run. I'm still trying to find the balance between school and home life, but it's not easy. Although I can say that with a bit (or a lot) of help from mum, Miss K is clean and well fed, she has a full wardrobe of clean clothes, and we have clean dishes to eat off. But I'd like to get to a point where I can do all of this without having to rely on mum so much. I am 28 after all, I shouldn't still need so much help.

I also have to stop getting cross with mum and Miss K when things go wrong. I very nearly took all of my frustrations out on mum tonight when Miss K woke up screaming while I was trying to do my homework. While I tried to calm Miss K down by giving her paracetamol and rubbing her stomach, as well as singing to her and hugging her, mum helped out by getting Miss K a bottle, which ended up being what calmed Miss K down, and I just got so frustrated that mum's idea worked when all of mine combined hadn't. In the end I was able to stop myself from getting angry at anyone, especially since mum had managed to stop the screaming, and just tell mum why I was getting upset. So crisis averted for now and a big lesson for me. ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR MUM!!!!

Well that's me done for now. Since I still can't get into my TAFE work I'm going to take the hint and give up for the evening. Stay awesome my wonderful readers until we meet again.

Bitten by a bug

So I'm meant to be in bed right now. I should be cuddled up with my giant feather doona and my memory foam pillow with Little Women playing on my portable DVD player in the background. I should be exhausted considering what a busy little bee I was today, but I'm not. Not really exhausted anyway, just the normal tired I feel every day after putting in a solid 12 hours of being Miss K's mum.

I don't know what has bitten me but I have gotten some sort of motivational bug which has caused me to catch up on a stack of jobs that have been sitting on my to do list for months. Not only am I catching up on long overdue jobs, I'm also keeping on top of the normal everyday jobs I'm meant to do all the time. And for the past two nights I have actually cooked full meals, with meat and vegetables and sauces instead of microwaving some pasta I cooked and froze last time I felt this motivated. I even have plans for how to spend my time tomorrow if this motivation can hold out for another couple of days. I really hope it can, I haven't felt this good in ages. I even gave my dressing gown a wash, something which doesn't happen often only because I live in it so much I hate to part with it long enough for it to wash and dry. (It's a massive thick blue number which makes me look really bulky but I don't care because it's sooo comfy and warm)

This doesn't mean that all of a sudden my house is spotless and simply pinging with sparkly shiny lens flares which only ever seem to appear in cartoons, but Miss K and I both have full clean wardrobes, which is no small feat with Miss K around because any time I leave her in her room alone for more than 5 minutes she pulls everything out of her shelves and piles them up on the floor. I've also scrubbed out my magic bullet which sat in storage in my brother's rat infested shed for 12 months then sat in a plastic bag in my laundry for another 2 because I didn't want to use it again until I had sterilized and scrubbed the crap out of it. I've managed to sell or donate all of Miss K's unwanted clothes and toys to other people and I'm finally starting to see the end of the tunnel. So much so that I'm hoping to get the rest of my stuff out of storage at my dad's place and start piling more crap into my house. It would be so nice to finally have all of my belongings here where I live, not that I've really missed much of it over the past 20 months that I've done without it, but that's not the point.

I'm also starting to try to weed out some of Miss K's bad habits that I've let pass in the past. She has started pinching me when she's throwing a temper tantrum, and as hard as it is for me to be the bad guy, I'm not letting her get away with it like I would have in the past. I'm also trying to teach her that everyone doesn't have to share their food with her, which is a bit harder given that for so long now she's just been allowed to beg everyone for food, and we've all given in to her straight away, but it's starting to cause problems, and I need to nip it in the bud before it leads to other more serious problems.

Well that's really all I wanted to say to you my wonderful readers for now, I really am exhausted now and my pillow and doona are calling out for me so I'm going to and snuggle up for a good night's sleep. Stay awesome and I'll be back soon I'm sure with more scintillating news to tell you.