Life is Crazy

Okay, so I'm not blond, and I actually
have three kids, but this picture
might give you some idea of how I feel.

My life feels like it is always in chaos.  No matter what I do, no matter what I clean, I blink and dishes are piled up all around the house, crumbs are scattered on the carpet, and dirty clothes are everywhere.

So I do what I always do: search online until I find a new cure-all to solve my house woes.  Only now I have discovered (and have fallen head over heals completely in love with) Pinterest.  Which means that I spend a good deal of time finding and pinning pictures of organized rooms or walls or corners that make me swoon.

Pictures like this:

Is this not the most beautifully organized desk you have ever seen?  Unfortunately, I cannot find the actual website it came from, so I am unable to properly credit the person who created this vision of loveliness, but please know that my dearest wish (okay, ONE of my dearest wishes) is to snap my fingers and make this picture come to life right here next to where I am typing.

Thank you to Clair at Once Upon a Chocolate Chip Pancake for this amazing Menu Planning Board idea!  I am so tired of one (or two or three) kids coming up to me as I'm making dinner to find out what we are having and, upon hearing it, bursting into tears or whines or complaints about how much they don't want that.  At least if I create this board and display it prominently somewhere in the house, the kids will have time to prepare themselves for whatever culinary masterpiece I am about to serve them.

I found this idea at A Brooklyn Limestone In Progress and fell in love with it.  The best part is I think I actually already have some of these pieces from IKEA.

I have Kevin & Amanda to thank for this incredibly organized kitchen cabinet.  Don't get me wrong; that is not a picture of MY kitchen cabinet, only what I hope my kitchen cabinet will look like after I have organized it based on this inspiration.

Sigh.

Of course, none of those inspiring pictures are going to help me shovel out the chaos that has overtaken my house, despite DH's best efforts, while I was sick these last two weeks.

On a side note, did you know that once you have Pneumonia, you are very susceptible to getting it again?  Like, any time you get another cold?  At all?  Yeah, me neither.  And while I did not end up in the hospital again, I have been fighting this Bronchitis/Reactive Airway Disease crap since right before Passover began to keep it from settling in my lungs.  All of that meant I had to stay in bed and rest for a LONG time since getting up and trying to do the least little thing left me out of breath and struggling for air.  Fun times. 

My plan for this Sunday, while DH had the kids at my in-laws for most of the day, was to attack the kitchen (Because make no mistake, this is a war and I am most definitely losing.): clean out the fridge, clean off the counters, pack up the unopened Passover foods (not like they're going to go bad any time soon), and generally reorganize and get a better handle on the food in the cabinets.  Then I was going to prep the meals for the week in an attempt to bring a small amount of peace to my world of chaos.

However, as I have always found:

In this case that translates to The Princess being sick - just sick enough to not be happy with ANYTHING I say or do but still needing my attention every three to five minutes.  Oh, and did I mention how she is always in such a good mood when she's sick, especially when she no longer has a fever and feels a little better and wants to go outside and play with the other kids and I'm just so mean and horrible because I won't let her do it.   Don't get me wrong - if she wanted me to cuddle up with her or play with her I would.  But no, she doesn't want that, she doesn't want anything, she just wants to complain.

So I'm going to tackle this the FLYlady way: fifteen minutes at a time.  Let's see how much I can do in that kitchen in fifteen minutes, and then I'll sit with The Princess and give her my undivided attention for fifteen minutes.  Who knows?  Maybe she'll even acknowledge my presence without complaining about how much she wants to go outside!