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?

So, uh, yeah

PCCX went out without so much as a whimper.  Gee, that went well.  Congratulations to those of you who accomplished things.  I did too, a couple, but not near "enough".  Story of my life, great plans, lousy follow-through.

This time of year is both my least and most favorite.  Least because I'm looking back at what didn't get done all year, and most because it's a time for all sorts of planning and whatnot.  Yay, goals.

Speaking of this time of year, does anyone else realize that Winter PCCX is supposed to start in 3 weeks?  I had the thought a while ago that it might be time to shake things up and change the way it goes, but I've had zero ideas on how to do that.  So please, anybody, toss in your thoughts.  Please.  Pretty please?

My laundry room

I really wanted to have a slightly different post for tonight.  I had truly hoped to have my laundry room FINISHED.  After all, Chris had spent a full afternoon gutting it, and 2 of the kids spent some time picking up anything he missed, so "all" I had to do was the actual cleaning of it all.

I went in there today and swept the hell out of it.  If you happen to think that spiders and their puffy little whatever-they-are are denizens of hell - and I kinda do - then that's a literal statement.  Ceiling, walls, window frames, door frames, floor, behind the washing machine and dryer, under the water heater platform, carvings on the linen dresser, all of it got hit with the broom today.  Took me a full half hour, and that room is hardly the size of a room.

But that was only the foundation of the issue, apparently.  I was rather disappointed when I went to enter the tasks into my POA and found that the only lines I could actually mark off were cleaning the dog bed and blankets and cleaning behind the 2 machines.  I still haven't washed, wiped, or organized anything.  This is why I've not yet spammed y'all with after photos, even as drastically different as it looks already.  I'd hoped to get further today, but tomorrow will have to do.