Summer@Home: How NOT to Run Fast

First of all, I apologize for wimping out. I've stopped counting the days of my Summer@Home because it just served to remind me that there have been too many days between posts.

Which means that I'm not writing enough.

Which means that I'm frittering the summer away this year just like every other frickin' year.

I don't need the guilt, so I stopped counting.

Sue me.

Anyway, one thing I have been doing this summer is attempting to get back into shape. After my little "episodes" got under control and I got my sea legs again, I decided to start running. So, not wanting to take it slowly or anything, I signed up for the Peachtree Road Race.

Summer@Home - Day 1

Day 1
My summer at home has officially begun. School let out five days ago, so most people might consider that the official beginning of summer. But for me, summer began today — the day my husband went back to work in the office and I stayed home.

If you don't know me, you may not realize the significance of this. I have not driven since February 9, 2013. On February 10 I had the first of a series of fainting and dizzy spells that occurred multiple times a day for a month until my doctors were able to get a partial diagnosis and find medicines that would help. I passed out for the last time on March 13, so I am not allowed to drive again until I have gone six months without an episode. September 13 is my magic date.

So with school out, and my husband back at work, I'm starting a new — albeit short — phase of my life. At home. All day. Every day. All...summer...long.

Showing His divine sense of humor, and just in case I was thinking about cheating, God decided to call my car home a couple of weeks ago. So even if I wanted to, I couldn't hop in my car and take an illicit jaunt to the grocery store or ice cream stand.

I am truly stuck.

Kill me.

Sunday Confessional: I'm an Adult Underachiever

"Hi. My name is Marybeth. And I'm an adult underachiever."

"Hi, Marybeth." (You know you thought it, even if you didn't say it.)

If you're reading this, there's a good chance that you know me personally. That's because right now, there aren't a lot of people who read my blog who don't share my last name or DNA.

So if you know me ... if you know my life ... you probably have no idea why I see myself as an underachiever.
 
I'm a wife and mother of four boys. (Many people probably think I should stop there. I truly believe there is a special place in heaven for the mother of boys. It is quiet and clean and full of breakable things and scented candles.)

Baby Steps (Or How an ADHD Mom Cleans Up)

I don't know about you, but when I look at a task as large as cleaning out my office, I get scared.

Curl up in a ball ... sucking my thumb (ok, maybe a margarita, not my thumb) ... tapping my heels together, wishing to go back to Kansas scared.

I'm a self-diagnosed, unmedicated ADD Mom (but with none of that cool "H").  "Focus...Focus...Focus...Look, there's a birdie!" is my modus operandi. So if I'm going to do something big .... like cleaning my office (click here for the "before" post so you'll know exactly what I'm talking about) ... I have to break it up into bite-sized pieces. And I have to have goals I care about. The combination of relatively small tasks and goals that matter to me are invaluable.

It Is Finished: Hours 15-0

OK, so my plan to blog daily about cleaning up my office didn't happen.

But the clean office did!

Here's some before photos, just to remind you from whence I came...

Ugh. That hurts just to look at. And to think I lived this way on and off for years! Yeah, I'd clean it up every now and again, but it was never really down to the roots clean. It was more flat-ironing the top layer while leaving all the kinky curly stuff hidden underneath.

But here's the reveal....

Lost and Found: Hours 18 to 15

OK. The great office clean-up started today. You saw the before pictures yesterday. If you missed them, click here to see my gosh-awful mess.

But wait! I still have before and after picture for you, so hold onto your knickers.

Just in case you have your own little shop of horrors in your house, each day I'm going to go over what I did, step by step. Today's tasks, in order:

1. Take all baskets, boxes, and other containers of "stuff" out of my room and into the dining room.
2. Remove all random piles of paper from the floor and move them into the dining room. Return things to their homes on the bookshelves if they have migrated to the floor. 
3. Remove everything else from the floor that isn't nailed down or a major piece of furniture. Put it in the dining room.
4. Clear off all horizontal surfaces and put the papers, etc., in plastic bins to sort through later. Put bins in the dining room. (Yes, I know this is how I've gotten off-track in the past. But this time I'm actually going to sort through the bins, laundry baskets, and other boxes. None of them may re-enter the office.)
5. Thoroughly clean the desk area. Vacuum, then mop the floor. (Note: Even though Izabel comes and cleans our house once every two weeks, it's been literally months since my office has been cleaned. I banned her from the room ages ago because there was nothing ... literally nothing ... she could do.)
6. Choose a new rug for my newly cleaned floor from the lovely ones donated to the cause by my friends. Thank you Gina and Jackie!
7. Sit back and bask in the glow.

Do you notice a theme here? Everything moved out of my office and into the dining room. So here are my before and after pictures for the day.