Today's to-do list:

eat breakfast
front room
kitchen
bathroom
kids room
master bedroom
porch/plants
pay USU bill
work on Kirk’s story edit – one chapter
update Curtis’s website with new picture and email address and less hideous design
get car inspected
watch Torchwood at 7

Dear Cat,

Sorry! You're right. I've been a horrible slacker about the blog. I've just been busy lately! Reading, scrapping, snuggling kiddos, watching "Angel" and "Galactica" with hubs and BIL, and generally just cruising.

Today's goal is to get the house clean while listening to "Bleachers" by Grisham on audiobook. I saw a CD player for a buck at a yard sale the other day, and I really should have grabbed it. That way I wouldn't have to use the house stereo to pump the audiobook into whatever room I'm cleaning.

Heeeeidiii!

Why don't you love me anymore? I need posts! Post, darn you! Or I shall show up at your doorstep and pout at you. ...Wait, that's not actually encouraging you to post, is it?

Okay. I cleaned all the rooms today, and got a lot of laundry done, although my kitchen still needs help. My dishwasher is having issues. I have a growing to-do-NOW list that needs serious attention before I start missing deadlines.

They include:
• help clean out Syd & Helen’s basement
• wash carpets
• institute class complete
• get Rachel and Kyle’s scrapbooks up to date
• make scrapbooks for 2000 - 2009
• write a short story: townrats, neon dreamer, brisby, uprising, Children of Light
• get car checkup
• car registration
• pay bills
• desk
• clean inside of car professionally
• read Kirk’s story, edit, and send
• back up files on Cat's computer / move them to David's computer
• schedule an appointment with dermatologist for mole removal
• swap out food storage / get 1 month of food and supplies
• get wheat ground
• get birthday stuffs for Julie and Vinayak
• fill out bank’s paperwork and send it
• send package of pictures and music to parents
• get groceries
• put gas in car

Not to mention, I need to put some serious time into paying attention to my kids, because all they've heard the last week is "Go away." So um, we'll see what I get to cross off that list this week.

My house started out pretty tidy today because I spent yesterday cleaning it. Then my kids shredded my house today while I napped. So now I'm cleaning it again before bed so I don't spend tomorrow being angry at having a dirty house.

Today generally sucked, but I'm doing everything I can to keep myself from getting depressed, which includes cleaning.

Hope you had a good fourth of July weekend. Hope to hear from you soon.

Heidi!

It was wonderful to see you. As soon as I find my calendars (which are buried in a pile somewhere on my desk) I will schedule a day to come see you without kids.

We shall start posting cleaning things again after this weekend.

Loveth,

Cat

Dear Heidi,

>You ever had one of those days when you're so tired that you have to force your body to keep moving because you're afraid that if it stops, you'll disintegrate into a heap of blubbering oblivion?

Yes. Today was one of those days for me. Except I knew why! We moved stuff from Shelley's parents' house and Julie's old apartment to a town house in Salt Lake and there weren't very many people to help and ow. I'm tired. Why am I still awake? I don't know. Brain decompression, I think.

>However, I dreamt that I was at a faculty party, at the end of which I was supposed to perform an autopsy on one of the many corpses in the storage room...

Ugh. You have strange dreams. I dreamed Matt showed up this morning in a gorilla suit.

>In other news, I'm still in love with my purple wall, though I may change it because Brandon really hates it.

Poor Heidi. Tell Brandon he can paint the next one.

>we're having an interior-decorator friend come over tonight to render a verdict.

What was the verdict?

>my computer has to go in for a massive overhaul.

:(

>I'm reading a ton, though, which feels great.

Whatcha reading?

Cat just finished reading Greywalker by Kat Richardson. It was pretty good as far as paranormal detective books go. It came with really high reviews.

Still struggling to get myself to read Inkheart. Maybe it's not meant to be.

*hugs* Sorry I haven't posted. Need to post more. Miss you. Cleaned the house yesterday in preparation for being gone today. It got trashed in my absence. Need to clean tomorrow and rest and recover from today. On that note, I think it's bedtime.

I will try to call Rachel tomorrow (I was going to do it today but got totally blown away by how much work we had to do) and see what day she's visiting Logan and see if we can do a day trip to Pocatello to see you or something.

Loveth,

Cat

Too much production and a disembowelment.

Dear Cat,

You ever had one of those days when you're so tired that you have to force your body to keep moving because you're afraid that if it stops, you'll disintegrate into a heap of blubbering oblivion? Today's one of those days. I'm not sure why, because I went to bed at a decent hour last night. However, I dreamt that I was at a faculty party, at the end of which I was supposed to perform an autopsy on one of the many corpses in the storage room and retrieve three specific organs, kind of like a treasure hunt. Because I was determined to succeed in front of the other faculty members, I spent the entire party--and thus (what felt like) the entire night--doing positive visualization of myself successfully gutting the corpse and pulling out the specified organs.

I did not feel particularly refreshed when I awoke.

Anyway, because I was so tired I knew I'd fall asleep if I sat down, and because I've been training myself--in honor of Zen Habits--not to check the computer until ten, I spent the first couple hours of the morning cleaning and organizing the pantry and hall closet while listening to an audio book. Honestly, I'm stunned at how much I was able to get done while waiting for ten o'clock to arrive.

I finally got on at ten-thirty, and now, at eleven, have already checked all my sites and e-mail, browsed my blogrole, and penned this missive to you. How freakily productive.

I will say, however, that the unexpected downside of being this productive is that usually by the time I've accomplished this much Brandon's home for lunch. I keep expecting him to walk in the door, but then I glance at my clock and see that I have another hour--at the earliest--before he arrives.

In other news, I'm still in love with my purple wall, though I may change it because Brandon really hates it. Since neither of us is confident in the validity of our decorating opinions, we're having an interior-decorator friend come over tonight to render a verdict. Neither of us wants an ugly wall, so we're eager to hear what she says.

On that note, I'm logging off. The next couple of weeks probably won't be very productive in the GND (grand novel delusion) department because my computer has to go in for a massive overhaul. I'm reading a ton, though, which feels great.

Love you tons. Hope to talk to you later. (I'll be back online at 4, again in honor of Zen Habits).

Love,

Heidi

Dear Cat,

I am definitely not together today. The house was in okay shape when I woke up, but then everything--and by "everything" I mean watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu, writing a blog post, wrestling with the boys, stapling paint samples to my green wall, and fretting over the meaninglessness of life--seemed more important than staying on top of things or, you know, changing out of my pajamas. Now the house is a wreck, I'm still in my pajamas, and everyone's eyes are just a little too wide and buggy.

Know what though? I've been making so much progress. Overall, the house is cleaner than it's been in a long time, and I'm doing so many more creative, fun, and interesting things. I guess today is the one step back they talk about in the two steps forward, one step back process.

Better log off and start stepping forward.

Heidi,

I cleaned the whole house today. Sure there are spots that still need work, like the papers on my desk and the fish tank equipment that still needs to find a home, but all the floors were picked up and vacuumed/swept/mopped. The garbage cans were emptied, laundry rotated.

Speaking of which, laundry needs to be rotated again.

It's bedtime. *hugs*

Good night.

Computer Room

Dear Cat,

This room has been my nemesis for weeks now. It's a high-traffic area where all the phone messages get taken, appointments are made, user manuals are read, kids play, books left, etc. I've been putting it of. I'm sure you can see why.




Of course (and isn't this the way life goes?), once I actually started doing it it didn't take me nearly as long as I expected, and now I'm so happy! Tomorrow I'm going to start making the corner where my laptop is an inspirational space. I want a tiny lamp in the corner!

Here's the book you should read: The Power of Less.

One of the book's ideas that I most need to practice--and it's not even close to being a new idea, I just really need to practice it--is living in the now. I really need to practice this when it comes to writing (of which I've already done a thousand words this morning, thank you very much). I'm really bad at being present when I write. Here are some examples.

Being in the past: "Wow. How cool are you, trying to write a novel at age 28. Maybe if you'd actually had the guts to start practicing when you realized you wanted to do this at age 12 you'd have a chance, but you're were a spineless jelly and now look at you. Look at all the time you've wasted. Dork."

Being in the future. "Wow. Look at you cooking right along. If you keep this pace up, in fifteen years you'll be able to have written and had rejected seven novels. Won't that be cool? And people will still be asking you when you're going to try to write a novel, and you'll secretly get to know that you've tried and failed seven times. How fun will that be? Dork."

You see how this goes. Even if I'm not thinking horribly disparaging thoughts about how utterly lame it is to try to be a novelist, I'm thinking other wretched things.

"I'm so glad that I'm revising this scene, and not the scene I have to revise tomorrow. Tomorrow's scene sucks and is completely out of character for my character so I basically get to delete severa hours' work and start from scratch. Tomorrow's going to be the writing session from hell."

Way to be positive, huh?

I've decided that the reason I like gardening and baking and scrapbooking is because I find all of those things pleasant but not glorious. And since I'm not particularly experienced with any of them, just being good enough makes me happy. But with writing I'm acutely aware of how horribly deficient my words are, how desperately far from the mark I fall with every morpheme. It's agonizing. You think I'm hard on other people's writing . . . man. You should see what I think of my own.

Also, gardening, baking and scrapbooking all produce actual resuts with relatively little risk or effort. Writing is like trying to bluff my mother-in-law out of a full pot when all I have is a pair of twos. (And just so you know, my MIL calls everything, whether she has anything in her hand or not.)

I think this 5 am blogging session just got derailed.

Yawning, so tired, must go edit papers.

Loveth,

Heidi

Heidi!

I has goals. They is:

Monday - errand day
Tuesday - I turn in three completed scrapbook pages
Wednesday - I turn in three thousand words of writing
Thursday - I deep clean the house
Friday - I weigh in and report. My goal is to lose one pound a week.

I am totally unprepared for this week! AAAAH!

Marvel at my lack of appropriate verbage.

Heidi my love,

I'm a tired kitty. My house was picked up yesterday. Today it got messy again and I was too tired to care. I did the dishes this morning at least. Tomorrow I'll clean it again, assuming I don't wake up at 4:30 in the morning and not sleep again until the afternoon like I did today.

Keyboards do not a good pillow make. I go bed. *hugs*

Accomplishment for the last two days: setting up a fish tank.

Loveth,

The Hairball

Must stay the course!

Dear Cat,

I'm slipping a bit. The thrill of having a constantly clean house has started to wear off. Of course, this is the hardest part of developing any new habit, isn't it? The stage that comes after the first part where you're walking on sunshine, glowing in your success, convinced that this is the start of a new life and a new you because after all, you're doing so well at . . . (fill in the blank).

Then the glow starts to leave and all you've got to motivate you to keep going is habit, but because it hasn't been three to four weeks yet, the habit isn't yet developed, which means that all you've got to motivate you is the sheer knowledge that you really, really must keep going. And soon items begin to gather, little bits of clutter start to resurface, you aren't quite as vigilant about snatching up every little thing you see that's out of place . . .

No.

No!

This time it's going to stick. This time the house is going to stay constantly clean.

And so at this time, I'm going to end this blog post and go do a quick but vital home-touchup.

Cheers!

PS: The call from the law office was a wrong number.

PPS: Taking all the boys' toys away has stopped them from throwing the toys all over their playroom. Only now they've started pulling all my books off of the bookshelves. That's such persistent behavior that I've started to wonder if there's some cognitive stage of development which mandates that kids pull things off of shelves. Spatial-sense development? Organizational-sense development? I tend to believe that kids don't do things deliberately to be destructive. They do things because their brains are telling them that they need to do it. I wonder what cognitive developmental need is being fulfilled by the rampant book-pulling.

Dear Cat,

Well, the house is clean, we're all dressed, and I've completely unpacked from the trip. Guess why? Because a lawyer called us and did not leave a message. This, of course, sent me into a gut-clenched tailspin of panic because I'm like that and absolutely freak out over things that I can't control and don't understand. And believe me, I absolutely do not understand why a lawyer would call us ever. To me, that's right up there with "we're sorry ma'am, there's been an accident" and "we're evacuating this area" on the signs-that-bad-things-are-coming-your-way meter.

You saw what I was like when my bag was missing for seven minutes at DI. Now imagine that panic lasting for twelve hours.

Their office didn't open until nine, so when I reluctantly regained consciousness at 7:30 this morning, I knew that I needed to keep myself busy until then. Turns out that I can get a lot done when I'm trying to keep myself from freaking out. Unfortunately, everything I needed to do was done by nine and they're still not answering the phone (though I'm still getting the answering machine which reassures me that they'll be open at nine o'clock). So now that I've burned away another three minutes on this blog post, I guess I'll find something else to work on. I might finish my entire spring-cleaning regimen if this keeps up much longer.

Couple of Victories

Dear Cat,

I had a couple of pretty good victories in the last 24 hours. Yesterday at 3:50 I woke up realizing that I had to walk out the door by 5:15, and before I could I needed to pack all of us for the weekend, plus water the lawn, feed the worms, check the house, pack all the supplies for the great cake experiment, pack all the boys' presents, and make sure the lawn was clear to be rototilled this weekend. I staggered to the kitchen table and started writing to-pack and to-do lists while my eyes were still bleary from my nap. It was a long list, completely covering both sides of a sheet of typing paper. And you know what? I made it in time plus I had enough spare time to fold and put away a load of laundry.

The reason I was able to get it all done was because of my rage the other day. Remember the rage? Well the rage kicked the house's fanny into cleanliness, which is not that unusual, but what is unusual is that that house has somehow stayed clean. I was able to whisk through it gathering up the items we needed and tossing them in the suitcase. I was pretty impressed with myself. Made me wonder what else I can do if I keep my environment clean.

So that was the first victory. The second victory was the cake.

This cake is pretty cute. It's not phenomenally adorable (the frosting needed to be a deeper green), but it is pretty cute and I made it entirely on my own. See, last year I bought a store-frosted cake and decorated it. It was adorable, but it would have been even more impressive if I'd actually done the whole thing--baked, frosted, decorated--myself. So that was my goal for this year. I watched tons of how-to videos and make three cakes to practice the flat-cake technique and in the end I was rewarded by many oohs and ahs when I brought the cake out.

They were pleasant victories. They made me glad that I decided to keep on fighting.

Here's a picture of my happiness.

Back porch is done. I dunno if you want pictures or not. It wasn't nearly as impressive to clean as my desk was. Just tossed the boxes in the garbage and swept. Sadly, only one bike fits back there instead of two. :( Oh well.

Next has to be tidying the house again. And the next projects (tidying house is not a project) are going to be my mountain of unfolded, wrinkled clean laundry. And possibly writing a very short story.

What's the Heidi up to?

This desk is CLEAN!

Desk is done. Finally! Lookie:



My next project shall be the back porch, which is covered in boxes. I'd like to store bicycles where the boxes are currently collecting dust. Porch:

Dearest Heidi,

Your rooms look beautiful. My house is pretty tidy, except for my desk and the mountain of clean laundry waiting to be folded. I'm hoping to get my desk clean today. Here's the before picture:

Proof

Today's Report

Dear Cat,

I know I haven't kept up with the posting and it's been obvious that my heart's not in it. To make up for that, today all three areas are clean, and I'm sorry I haven't been more loyal to our goal.

The problem has been that every time I think about trying to keep the house clean, this feeling of despair and rage swells up in my gut. You know, the kind of rage that clots in the base of your throat and makes your voice a little raspy and shaky when you talk? The kind of rage that makes you want to smack someone but since you can't comes out in red-faced tears instead?

After all that time I spent cleaning the boys' playroom, and all the toys I took out of the room, you know what they did? They went in and dug all sorts of toys that they haven't even looked at for months out of their closet and threw them all over the room. It's not that they played with them and left them scattered, it's that they deliberately hurled them around the room to mess it up again.

It makes me feel like they're out to get me. And since I know that they're too young and sweet to truly be that malicious, it makes me think that they're just not that bright. I mean how stupid and incapable of structured, organized thought do you have to be to do something like that?

But I know that they're not stupid, which leaves me with no explanation at all, which makes me sit there sobbing and trying to dull my discouragement and anger by watching reality TV and eating bag after bag of chips and marshmallows.

And that's why I haven't been posting. What's the use? What's the (expletive redacted) use?

I don't know that there is any use, to be honest. I don't know that I'll ever gain any ground. I don't know that my life will ever stop being chiseled away by inanities and years of wasted time. But I can't quit, because, well, I can't.

So the rooms are clean, and I'm going to sign off so I can go downstairs and check on the boys. I can tell from the sounds I'm hearing that they've found some more things to throw around, despite the fact that I thought I had gotten all their toys out, and they're messing up the room again.

Dear Cat,

You didn't make a specific request, so I chose to do the kitchen table.
Nice, eh? And the playroom was clean and the kids were dressed. Oh, and what's that lovely thing in the center of the table, you ask? Just a little centerpiece I whipped up a week ago with an empty water goblet, some old candles and candlesticks, and some leftover Christmas ribbon. Ryan (my BIL) says that it doesn't match the table, and he's probably right, but it still makes me happy when I look at it.

Okay, so I slept in until 10:45. Which was glorious. I've done no cleaning yet today. So here's my untouched at 10:00 picture of my front room (okay, I took it as soon as we got up).

Where is my freaking camera cord? AAAAH!

Aha! My camera cord was buried under a pile of tissues on my desk. Which makes me think today's goal should be cleaning off my desk, and also cleaning my kids' room. And the kitchen. Those are three goals. Will take pictures and post. After food.

Here's my public humiliation (which is totally worth it for getting caught up on sleep):

Play Room

I fixed the camera, thank heavens!

Okay, here's what the room looked like as of ten this morning. Clean, huh? Okay. Now it's off to gather up some overdue library books.

Front room this morning:

Heidi,

What's the best way to post pictures on here?

Loveth,

Cat.

Heidi,

My to-do list for today is:
- get oil changed and clean out car
- clean earrings
- do visiting teaching
- update checkbook and pay bills
- clean entire house (eek!)
- write paragraphs for each day this week, put in scrapbook
- exercise and eat healthy
- read scriptures for five minutes
- do one scrapbook page of old pictures
- write 1000 words of story

Dearest Heidi,

I like your idea of picture accountability.

So my three areas are:
- kids and self dressed by 10 a.m.
- kids and self eating food (or already eaten) by 10 a.m.
- have front room picked up by 10 a.m.

Dear Cat,

Okay, here's my idea, but we can't do it until Tuesday because I left my camera in Rexburg this weekend and won't get it back 'til after the holiday.

We each pick three areas that we want to improve in, but they have to be small and doable. For instance, I'd choose keeping my kitchen table spotless (for some reason a dirty kitchen table really bugs Brandon), keeping the kids' playroom clean, and actually putting clothing on the children first thing in the morning, instead of somewhere around lunch time. Then, every morning at ten each of us pings the other one with a check-in on one of the three areas, and then each of us has to take a photo of our checked-in area as it is when we get the check-in alert and post it. I figure we'll keep our areas clean because we'll know that dire humiliation could follow if we don't.

What do you think? Tell me you love it! Tell me it's grand! Tell me it's yours forever!

Heidi

What do you think? a

Dear Heidi,

I think this idea is wonderful! The goals I'm trying to work on are:

- healthy diet
- regular exercise
- regular house cleaning
- regular prayers & scriptures
- regular writing and scrapbooking

Sadly, I think the last one's the one that's going to get neglected the most and should be done first. I just hate it. Makes me feel like a moron. Of course, so does everything else. *headdesk*

I did a writeup of Monday's adventures in Salt Lake yesterday, though. So today I guess I'm doing yesterday's writeup, which shall be summed up as, "Arg."

I suspect you won't be upset if I spam the blog. I expect spam in return. Spamalot!

Dear Cat,

Aren't you thrilled? This is our official self-improvement blog, because we're bffs, right? (You must imagine my best valley-girl voice when I say bffs).

I'm thinkin' we type our rambling, wandering notions about all the things we hope to improve in. You know: reports on how our wannabe novels are going, or if we're finally able to keep our houses clean, or if we've figured out how to overcome our deep emotional issues . . . (that was totally a joke).

I'm particularly hoping to rope you into being an accountability partner for house cleaning. I've decided that keeping a clean house is like losing weight: you need an accountability partner until you develop the habits you need to keep yourself in check.

So there you go! You know you're way excited to join me! Write back to me . . .