Baring my soul, and my house, to the reading world...

   I have a bit of a stress disorder.  I’ve never really learned to handle stress at all.  I get freaked out, overwhelmed, and then I shut down.  Once I shut down, it’s very hard for me to get back in the game.  I need to rant and rant, to sort out my head, but when it comes down to getting back in the game, no matter how settled my brain is, it’s just not happening. 

   A symptom of this issue is my home.  Well, actually, my home, my car, my work space… pretty much any area I can call “mine”.  Except my pumpkin patch.  I did a very good job keeping that lovely so far.  But for the sake of this story, we’ll simply focus on my home.  It’s a mess.  There are no two ways around it.  My house is a pig sty. 

   In my defense, it’s all clutter, however misplaced.  I live in complete clutter.  But when it hits the point of filth, I’m done.  I can’t handle filth.  As filthy as my house looks, I have extensive UV air and surface cleaning, and am often found moving my clutter around to get to the filth.  Problem is, even after I get to the filth, I find no place to put the clutter. 

   I have recently learned there is a whole population of people just like me.  One thing I have in common with them is the constant feeling of overwhelmed.  I have learned that when you walk into someone’s home and find the same kind of clutter I live in, they are likely perfectionists.  We get so obsessed with getting everything perfectly clean, that when we can’t reach perfection, we quit.  We hate ourselves for it, and the hate is so heavy that we decide living in the mess is much easier, so we shut down. 

   Often I think I get more out of Cub Scouts than my son does.  This time, we as a family joined the Scouts on a weekend camp out.  For the week before, I found myself so insanely stressed out from other issues, I gave in and shut down so badly, I find myself right now living in the dreaded filth.  Sure built up quickly.  I got to the point where even I, who has had several guests visit me in this mess, wouldn’t allow people not just inside my door, but even to the top of my driveway. 

   At this camp-out, I found myself admitting my hidden humiliation to a fellow Mom.  I learned very quickly that I was talking to the right person.  She too has handled the guilt of endless clutter.  She introduced me to a website I’d heard of before… www.flylady.net  I had visited it before, but never made much sense of it and gave up quickly.  This time, I get it.

   So I found the first step.  I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed all day long, and I have a beautifully clean kitchen sink.  But how do I hold myself accountable.  Well, dear reader, prepare to be appalled, because I’m letting you, and the rest of the blog accessing world, into my home.  It’s humiliating and terrifying.  I can’t bring myself to do a “tour of my home” video or anything like that, but as I set my sights on a new spot, I’ll take before and after pictures.  I am going to embarrass myself into not going back!  And hopefully I’ll do it and make it work, because I know many of my friends are living in very much the same way.  If I can find this program successful, and can help inspire them… and if I can reclaim my life, then it’s totally worth it.  I

   So, the theory of the sink is that it’s the central spot for cleaning.  Fly Lady says she doesn’t care if you have to pile your dirty dishes on the floor…. To which I answer, what if I don’t even have room on my floor?  But hey, if I want to make this work, I won’t argue, I’ll make it happen.  Then, the maintained shined sink is a pride point.  Something to look at, know you did and can take pride in, and eventually after making taking care of that one little thing habit, something you can build on.  Sadly, I didn’t get the brilliant idea of before and after pictures before I started the process, but I got bad enough “during” pictures to get the point across; they are pretty rough to the average person.

   I’m terrified to show.  Only a selected and trusted few have seen inside my house, because I am fully self aware to how abnormal it is.  I’m not quite to the point of “Hoarders”…. But it’s not far from. 

   Okay, so without further adieu, here is my sink… during and after.  I’m not proud of the before and during, but very proud of the after.  I even took toothpicks and tooth brushes, bleach, S.O.S. pads, Comet, and Windex too it.  And damnit!  I’m going to keep it clean if it kills us all!!!

I don't know why it won't let me rotate this shot.  This is the during.  I had already soaked the one side in bleach water, and cleared out most of the crap from the other side....

Looking down into the mess.  Again, most has been removed at this point...

Behind the sink sits all the not so clean "cleaning tools"...

All the drips of coffee and such around the edges....

The "Layer of Ooze" left under the pile in the sink.

Even the drain strainer doesn't have the ability to do its job!

BIIIIIG difference!!!

Freaking spotless!  I even got the plastic bits of the strainer degunked!

So much nicer.  And I have something, so small as it may be, to take a little pride in.  Still a very long way to go, but it feels good to get this far.

How Difficult Is A Freaking Allowance?

   So Eldest Son has his first allowance and even a bank account to put that money in to.  I never thought something so simple as an allowance and teaching a kid savings would be so difficult, but suddenly I was swamped with things such as, “How much should I pay the kid?  How much work should he be required to do?  Should I just let him freely spend it?  Should I have him put it in a piggy bank or in a real bank?  If a real bank, which one?  How can I teach him to not spend his money as fast as it comes in?”  Good Grief!  That’s a lot of responsibility just to give a kid an allowance!

   My folks tried many forms of allowance.  I remember getting dollar amounts every week, I still have no idea how they came to the numbers they got.  I know that I wasn’t always good at minding my responsibilities, and my folks didn’t always remember to have cash handy come pay day.  Eventually, and it wouldn’t take long, the allowance would be forgotten again.  I think my favorite attempt was at a system where my brother and I each had a jar.  For each chore we did, we’d get a slip of paper to put in the jar, with an amount written on it, such as 50 cents, 25 cents, 1 dollar.  The idea was to save up these little slips until they amounted to enough to buy something.  I think we’d worked each of us up to like $100 and mostly by way of fighting with Mom and Dad until they’d write the stupid paper, not so much actually doing the job.  Yeah, they never paid that one out. 

   Thankfully, my Eldest Son has a more mature mind than I do.  He’s very happy to help out, and very handy to hold us accountable for our part of it.  He’s seven.  His chore list isn’t large.  Keeping his room clean is difficult even for the adults, because there are two kids living in there and no freaking storage.  But he is required to make his bed every day, and it is a top bunk.  He’s learning how to load his own dishes in the dish washer.  He helps in the garden, and in the kitchen.  He helps with laundry and with his babies.  And, best of all, he goes out to the back yard to scoop the dog poop. 

   I determined I needed a number.  I needed something that wouldn’t make me go broke, and would be financially manageable.  I also realize that with time, he’s going to want to negotiate for raises.  And in my old feeble mind, I might just not be able to keep up with him and am likely to bargain myself into shelling out millions.  So I came up with the idea, 50 cents per year of age.  He’s 7, that  makes for $3.50 a week.  By the time he’s 17, that will be $8.50 a week.  Anything over that, he’s gonna need to get a job.  If I have pre set numbers, there is no negotiating with the feeble minded Mommy….

   There will be no paying half if he has a so-so week.  It’s all or nothing. 

   He has several accounts for his future nest building.  If I was to go with a bank account, I wanted a totally separate one that he can just use for his own spending and saving, nothing to do with his nest egg.  We tried to just let him keep his money in his wallet, but then when we wanted to use some, we’d have to divide off what he wasn’t going to use and put it in his dresser drawer so it wouldn’t go missing.  Then we’d forget it was there entirely, and think it was lost.  Cause for plenty of heartbreak when the kiddo would want to spend on something but suddenly couldn’t.  And what is he learning from that?  Not much.  So I figure with a bank account, he can learn depositing, withdrawing, and assorted responsibilities associated with such, and as an added bonus, his money would be safe. 

   Now the question was, which bank.  Nice thing is, for minors, there are nice laws and policies that pretty much level the field.  Accounts are free, taxes are easy, and all is good.  So what had potential to be the most difficult of these decisions was limited to simply convenience.  Navy Federal is too far away to need to make a weekly deposit, or even an every other week deposit, and small withdrawls for a kid to shop.  I have an account at Wells Fargo that I use for the mortgage.  There is a local branch, so that’s where we headed.  It’s super easy to set up an account when the adult already has one there. 

    So then it was the fun part of taking the kid to go get his account.  He was so cute, very worried about what happens to his money if the bank was to get robbed.  We met with Mrs. Sarah who helped us through the whole process and made him feel much better.  She got him hooked, and he so happily filled out his own first deposit slip.  We went over to my favorite teller, and he was so proud to hand him the slip and his 20 dollars.  He has his own book to track his funds, and now brags to everyone that he has a bank account.

   Now the next step.  I don’t want him to pick a shopping goal, save up just that much, and have all his money gone, so I decided he needs to save 150% of whatever the cost.  SO, if he wants something that costs $20, he needs to save $30.  And some of his remaining will be required to go to charity of his choice.  Even if it’s just a dollar, it’s an important lesson, I think.  He’s picked out a Nerf type gun he wants to save up for.  I’m going to put a picture on his calendar of it, to remind him what he’s saving for and about when he should be able to buy it.