1/2 Month Check In

Well, it's the middle of the month and I haven't even posted pictures. I've had the pictures taken since the first week, I just haven't gotten them off the camera. Talk about lazy!!

Anyway, as far as the update. I'm rather embarrassed because all that I've done so far is have the kids undecorate the Christmas tree. It's still sitting naked in the game room, though. The toys in there have been picked up and spilled about over and over since the beginning too. Other than that, nothing looks different, unfortunately.

I did find out that in the middle of February, I'll be having a group of teens over for a game night for my daughter so I have to get busy working on this room, plus the rest of the house to make everything presentable.

It's time to kick it into high gear and get some things accomplished. Hopefully, I can do more in the next 2 weeks than I did in the last.

Clean up, aisle 7

Homeless produce + binless toy shelf + dollar store bins = personal produce department.  Special thanks to Kim, Jamie, and Teresa for the brainstorming and outright idea.

I need to get a move on

I'm having a hard enough time getting through the day-to-day so I haven't even looked at the back pages.  So today I brought one of the office tasks forward as one of the daily challenges: clean an office (or playroom, or similar) wall, ceiling to floor including molding.  I didn't do it today of course, but I gave us all weekend to complete it for bonus points.so, just for grins, here are a couple of pictures of my wall before, and hopefully by Sunday I'll have an after picture that actually looks better.  Any ideas how to get the blue, um, marker? I think? off of badly painted paneling?

EGADS! What happened to my desk?

So my desk area has become the catch all for mail, school papers, jewelry making supplies and other misc papers. Everything has taken over to the point there's not a clear surface to be had.

I've taken before pics of it, and will try to take after pics when I finish it. I forgot after pics of my house but will try to get the desk pics up.

I did something right

I wrote the new program specifically to encourage prioritizing and doing the important things over the piddly things.  And you know what?  It works.  It's come back to kick me in the you-know-where.  I did plenty of work today.  Hours, even.  Stuff on my list, stuff that needed to be done.  But it wasn't the stuff that *really* needed to be done.  The things that I had decided this morning were the most important.  So by dinnertime I'd worked all day but was at barely 65% of goal.  And it's a modest goal y'all, really.  I "wasted" the entire day working on less important things, and it shows.

But that's exactly what it's supposed to do.

Checking in with nothing to say

It hasn't been much of a week.  According to my self-imposed schedule I was supposed to write this yesterday but since no one else would know that except that I just told you....well, let's just say it's not a big deal.  Although it did kill my streak of blogging every day.  Oh well.

About my house, since that's the whole point of this particular blog, I can't say a whole lot.  I have been making a concerted effort to keep my room picked up after Chris cleaned the heck out of it not that long ago, so that's good.  On the other hand, after ALL that work writing the new point system and making a lovely POA to go with it, I have made goal exactly once in the last week.  Oddly enough, if I don't get up and clean stuff each day I don't get many points, even if I spend the day "productively" sitting at my computer.  I can't blame the system since a) I wrote it, and b) that's what it's supposed to do.

One thing I have yet to truly understand, is how I can log such a small percentage of time doing useful things.  Around 11am the other day I'd been up for 5 hours, I'd been working or at least feeling like I was working almost all of that time, but I only had about 2 1/2 hours marked as cleaning or writing or whatever.  That's something I'll have to work on.

In the end, we're week 1 into the new year and while I don't really see progress I also don't see much backsliding into the pit, so that's good.  Right?  How was your first week?

New year new me!

The new year has come and gone and I've been doing alot of thinking.... it's time for a new outlook on life. I've decided I need to get my house in order, I need to lose weight, I need to quit smoking and I need to get back on track with school. I know those are all things everyone has said before but this year is my year. I'm sick of being fat, I'm sick of the CHAOS in my house, I'm sick of smoking, and I want to have a college degree.

So I was telling my grandma about my new plan and she told me I needed to schedule my day. My therapist said the same thing. So last week I sat down and planned out my entire day. Making time for cleaning, exercise, family time, school work and even a couple hours for making jewelry. Monday I start my new schedule. My husband is going out of town for the month of January and I'll have plenty of time to get the schedule in place while he is gone.

I've taken pictures of my house in it's current state, trashed. And when I finish cleaning today I'll post after pictures.

I'm cranky today

I won't go into why, just thought I should mention it in case anything in this post sound snippy.

I'll own up; I haven't started the deep clean.  I can't really call it PCCX anymore I think, because now the whole group, year-long thing seems to be that.  In fact, we discussed at some length what the X might now stand for instead of extreme.  Excellence, exchange, execution (as in doing something, not killing someone), exercise, expectations, expedition, experience, experiment, exploits, exploration, exposition, extension...any thoughts, votes, alternative suggestions?  Let's remember that the PCC stands for purple chat and challenge...not my first pick for a group name, but that's what we've got so let's go with it.

That wasn't exactly the point of the post, so moving on...

I haven't started on the back pages (annual deep cleaning), because I haven't yet done even a decent, much less good job on the front page (dailies), and I've ignored the middle pages (weeklies) too.  Figuring a mere 1 hour each on the top 3 priorities, 1 load each of dishes and laundry, a whopping 15 minutes of exercise, and around 130 for 3 special challenges, the total is a little over 3,000.  I should have far more than an hour in each of those priorities, and there's usually more than one load of dishes, laundry, or both.  Five days a week there are weekly tasks.  Accordingly, I've set my goal at 3,500 for weekends and 4,000 for weekdays.  Reasonable.  So far I've made between 2,300 and 2,800 each day.  Why?

My back has been giving me fits for weeks and most days I can barely move without pain, but that's just a lousy excuse.  For one thing, I've still spent hours sitting here at the computer, so why don't I have more writing and desk work hours logged?  Everyone else around here is able-bodied, so why isn't there more delegating going on (half points for those)?  The facts of the matter are that a) I'm inherently lazy, and b) I don't know where all the time goes.  Those are excuses too, and I'm really sick and tired of excuses.  It doesn't seem to make me get up and do...um...stuff, it just makes me irritable.  I'll leave it at that.

The next time I check in I expect to have some progress to show for the time.

3 days in

Just thought I'd check in after a couple of days on the new system.  It's working - for me - so far, though I've discovered one very important thing.  In order to meet goal, I have to actually GET UP AND DO those basic maintenance things at the very least.  Just the rooms alone are 875 points, and another 175 minimum for dishes, laundry, and getting rid of something somewhere.  That's more than 1/4 of my daily goal, so when I don't do them, I pretty much can't make goal.  I know, right?  That's so rude.  Who writes this stuff?

Oh yeah.

Never mind.

New, New, New Everywhere

It's January! A new month, a new year, a new format and a new outlook!!

I am determined to make this a great year and I really think this change to monthly areas will be a HUGE benefit to me, and hopefully to all of us involved in the group. I haven't felt this positive about things in a long time and I look forward to seeing how we all conquer clutter and dust this year. This is the year for us! Now to put down my pompoms and move into my house and the real work.

January is Playroom/Office/Den month. I had to think about this one for a bit. There's not really a set playroom in my house. Toys are everywhere. With 5 children, it happens. The desk is in a closet right now so obviously we have no office. I haven't heard of a den in years. Exactly what is a den? I think of the room with big leather chairs where the men sit and smoke their cigars. LOL I'm sure there's some modern version, but I don't think I have one of those.

Anyway, thinking some more I came up with some rooms. First, I have a music/game room. That sounds like a playroom to me since we play games and music in it. Also, we don't have an office yet, but I know where we are going to put it when the room gets cleaned out, so why not start working in there? It's the Florida room and right now it's full of boxes that need unpacked and stuff that needs to be given away.

Since the rooms are chosen, it's time to take pictures and post them. Then it's off to the races we go. One month, two rooms...GO!

Kicking off the new year

There's been a significant lack of posting around here, and I have a very good reason.  I've been burning the midnight oil getting a whole new plan ready to go for 2011, and I came in just under the wire.

The biggest part of this change is that PCCX as we knew it is now spread over 11 months instead of intense bursts 4 times a year.  The theory is that with more time per room at one time we'll be more likely to get things done.  Just to put it out there FYI, here's the breakdown:

January: playroom/office/den
February: bathrooms/laundry room
March: dungeon
April: attic/basement/storage
May: outside
June: porch/entry/halls/stairs
July: bedrooms
August: living room/family room
September: garage/workshop/autos
October: kitchen
November: dining room
December: nothing scheduled due to holidays

There's also a plan for similar tasks to be done together rather than a whole room at a time.  I don't know how many people will be using that one, but I wrote it anyway, just in case.

So this is the new schedule I'll be using, and I'm hopeful for this year.  How are your plans coming?