Cleaning up

It is getting dark so soon already, and I'm not ready for it. We had the first hard freeze really early this year too, so it already feels like the beginning of winter. I feel like everything is in shambles and I let it get that way. I've been using my down time to do absolutely nothing. Not even laundry, or putting away the last two load of clothes from the last time I did do laundry. That might have been almost a month ago. I don't know how the time passed so quickly. Really, I do know what happened. It's what happens every year. I'm not home but a few nights a week and when I am home I relish eating real food cooked in the oven or in the stove. I do not feel like cleaning, or even picking up my clutter, doing a load of laundry or breaking down those cardboard boxes that multiply in my dining room.

I really have to get something done though. That is why I need to start the chore-a-day list again. I had one of these when I was a kid and the chores alternated between my sister and me. Funny how those same chores that your mother made you do are equally important in your own home 20 years later.

Sunday: Laundry
Monday: Clean Bathroom
Tuesday: Clean off Dining Table
Wednesday: Clean stove top & sink
Thursday: Water house plants
Friday: Sweep/Vaccum House
Saturday: Sweep/Mop Kitchen & Bathroom

I know it might be a little pathetic to see that I can't even do these chores on a semi-regular basis. And these all have to be things that take only about 20 minutes, because often I don't have much more time that that to tackle something. A lot of days the only time to get this done would be in the ~45 minutes I have between getting home from work and leaving for the theatre and I also need to take the dog for a walk and eat something in that time.

If I could keep this up for a month I would consider myself a success. If I get half of this stuff done two times in a month, I'm still pretty impressed. I had to try kind of hard to come up with 7 different little tasks and maybe things like watering the plants, cleaning the clutter off the dining table and scrubbing the stove top are laughably easy but in my house are rarely done.

Is it a sign of organization, or weakness that I'm putting these as reminders on my Outlook calendar so I remember? One month until status report.