I’ve tried over the years to change a lot of things about myself.  Weight, spiritual life, habits, vocabulary (crazy I know).  I’ve failed it all.  This month I’ve been contemplating why my pursuit of discipline seems different.  I think it is in large part to the length of time I’ve given myself to succeed.  Normally by the end of the first month into whatever change I’d decided on I’d given up.  I’d pushed myself to the limit every day up to that point and facing exhaustion I gave in.  But with well over 300 days left before I need to assess the success of this decision there’s no rush to get it all perfect right away.  It was with this in mind that I stopped working today. Those of you who’ve been keeping up with this blog know that I havent had an uninterrupted night of sleep in 4 weeks.  It’s been affecting my ability to handle everyday responsibilities.  But today I was determined to get my kitchen cleaned and making “Greek Chicken Pasta” (Check it out… totally delicious).  My engines were revved up and moving and despite an unruly child (who gets into EVERYTHING) I made it through.  My kitchen is clean and dinner is in the fridge for Scott tonight when he gets home.  And looking around the house post kitchen I couldnt help but tick off in my head a list of 20 things that need to be done.  With resignation I moved toward a stack of toys to put them away when I stopped.  “I need to stop” I thought.  So I did.  I’m going to read to my son and crave chocolate cake and accept that I reached my goal for the afternoon.  Tonight I’m scrappin with the girls so it’s been a good day.  So I say to you… what have you done today and what can you just let go and accept that it can wait till tomorrow?

I can’t articulate how incredibly messy my house is right now.  I’ve been staring at dirty dishes, food on plates, toys everywhere and general disorder for days now.  But between fish allergy attacks, way too many appointments, and exhaustion I’ve done nothing about it.  For the last 4 weeks I’ve been sleeping between 2 and 4 hours each night.  It’s been horrible.  I slept more when Connor was a newborn for heaven’s sake!  The last 2 weeks have been the worst, my body just isn’t compensating any more.  And in a daze last night as I was standing in my kitchen with a glass of warm milk (I’ve been trying all sorts of silly things, but warm milk is by far the grossest tasting) it dawned on me that I’ve been beating myself up for not getting anything done for no good reason.  If Scott were in my place I would make every excuse in the world for him.  I mean sleep is important!  So why am I holding myself to such an unachievable standard?  Because I’m an idiot that’s why.  I’m so obsessed with the pin-up momma (the new name I have for the imagined perfect Mom out there that we’re all torturing ourselves with… will blog on that soon) I’ve forgotten that she cannot possibly exist!  I want so badly to live a disciplined life, but I need to finally accept that when I fair sometimes its because I’m lazy, but other times its because something is wrong.  My lack of sleep is a problem.  The house can wait, my kiddo needs his mom to be awake and lucid.

And I need to stop beating myself up for not performing at 100% when I’ve only got enough fuel for 10%.  And that applies to all of you too!

Please for the love of all that is holy stop whipping yourselves with what you haven’t achieved.  Keep striving, keep working, but stop all the useless achieving when there is a larger issue staring you in the face.  If you baby wont sleep and keeps you awake accept that you wont be able to accomplish all you wanted to do!  The critics be damned!  If you’re attempting to move your family from one state to another stop apologizing for the disorder around you!  If you have no money stop killing yourself that things in your home are worn.  It makes sense that they would be!  Feeding your kids is priority 1!  So many women I know are dealing with these situations, where they are working so hard and not achieving the results they want, but they refuse to allow real life issues to be an excuse for them.  But when I complain about what I’m failing in these same women RUSH to my defense!  They point out every little thing that is holding me back and they do their very best to relieve the pressure I’m under.  I just wish they would give themselves the same break.  I say all of this to be an encouragement, I think ladies that’s what we need the most… permission to fail from time to time.  That’s not to say however that I now have a free pass to watch soaps and eat bon bons all day.  I’ll be finishing up my cup of tea and engaging myself in the task at hand.  But, if after all that striving I’m not finished I am committed to finding contentment in what I have accomplished.  Knowing I’ve done my best and leaving it at that.  And resting easy tonight in the satisfaction of a job well done (even if its not a job complete).  Who knows?  It might let me drift off to dream of sparkling countertops and disinfected immaculate refridgerators.

I had the most insightful comment made to me the other day. I was ranting about how terribly frustrating it is for me to not have my home the way I want it to be. Scott’s been working all year on updating the electrical in our house and there are half finished works of disaster all over the place. I’ve got cut-outs the size of my kitchen counters in the walls, electrical outlets hanging by their wires and molding resting in corners with the nails sticking out. I haven’t put a drop of paint on anything but the bathroom and all over I feel a sense of dread as I look around. To compound it the house is in a constant state of mess. Dishes line the counters and clutter the sink. Various craft supplies and books and toys and paper and etc etc etc lay like fallen warriors all over the living room. And dont get me started on the bathroom right now. Sigh.

I was going over all of this with “Coach W” when he questioned me. “Do you feel like that reflects on you personally?” Wow. And it dawned on me that yes… the condition of my home (in my mind) reflects to other people exactly the kind of person I am.

Now… reality and the rational side of me say that no one who enters my home thinks to themselves “Hmmm…. that dust over there really speaks to me about the flaws in the inner workings of Stephanie’s mind.” And if they did I can certainly tell you they wouldnt be back. But despite rational something still drives me to rush around hiding the slightest mess as soon as someone is coming over. And then something from the same place drives me to act as though the house always looks that way. Is it ego? Do I want people to think I somehow manage to keep it all together? I think in a small way it is. I want to be SuperMom (just like every other mom wants to be SuperMom). I’ve blogged about this before but I find that I just keep coming back to it. How is it that we compare ourselves to the facade other people put on convincing ourselves they what we see is how every day of their lives are. Sigh.

But at the same time I want to give weight to the way I feel about my home.  It is important to me that my home be clean (not spotless, but clean and reasonable) most days.  Its not just that I care what other people think when they come over, I care what I think when I’m at home.  I care that when the house is a wreck I feel like a wreck, but when it’s tidy I feel tidy and calm.  Maybe it’s a compulsive thing that I want things in their places but sometimes giving into a compulsion isnt a bad thing.

The real tough thing though is to find balance between a tidy clean home and the Martha Stewart Home.  I need to accept that right now in my life I cannot decorate my home.  Financially it isnt feasable (I prefer food to paint), and Scott’s right when he says work needs to be done first.  So I need to let it go when I realize that a perfectly matched home is not in my immediate future.  OH how I long for new pillows on my couch to match new curtains on my windows to match paint on my walls to accent well lit frames filled with portraits of the ones I love.  How I hunger for cloth covered kleenex boxes to match rugs on my floor to flow seamlessly into a redesigned and retooled kitchen with sparkling appliances that cook on more than one side and brew more than 1 cup of coffee (half of which leaks onto the counter).  For now I will settle happily for a home that people feel comfortable in, that puts on no airs, that requires no put on snootiness and that welcomes anyone and everyone in…. even if there is dust everywhere.

Why do I fail so miserably at keeping my house clean? I mean its just the three of us, and the dogs, and the cats…. but still…. Its Saturday again and I”m sitting here with a Dr. Pepper listening to Josh Turner’s “Way down south” and trying to make a headache go away thinking about this. Sigh I love the hubby but I’m afraid he can be a bit of a slob. He’s been updating the electrical in the front room for a couple weeks now and he’s run out of steam. So now every time I walk into our house I’m met with a construction zone that I cannot make disappear. And when I ask him to put all of his tools away and clean everything up he states that he doesnt want to waste an hour pulling everything back out when he wants to work on the electrical again. Sigh…. So I’m settling for keeping the rest of the place clean which is no small task in itself. But you know what? I’ll get over it. Things are a mess because he’s trying to do something that I’ve been asking him to do. He works hard in his own way to make me happy – I just need to remember to keep looking at it that way rather than seeing it as his devious way to drive me completely insane and have me gray before my 30th birthday.