Unsolicited Advice

Every so often in my webward travels, I stumble upon a blog that calls to me.  I found one such blog last week.  I have left the page open every time I shut down the computer, for fear that I will lose it.  I finally found a few spare minutes to read more of Unsolicited Advice today and was just floored by what I read!  I am so thankful that Brenda was able to be so honest about her situation!  It made me feel a little braver about sharing mine.  I am working toward getting organized and today is the day to start.

The Areas Needing Attention:
1. Cooking: We eat frozen pizza too many nights a week because I forget to think about dinner until, well, until it's dinner time. 
2. Laundry: There is laundry everywhere!  Several times a month I have to devote hours at a time to cleaning the kids room because the excess laundry makes it easy to make it messy.  I never do put the laundry away, just pile it near their closet.  Getting ready to go anywhere where we need to dress nicely, or where we just need to be dressed, period, is time-consuming. 
3. Dishes: I grew up washing the dishes every night from nine years of age until 18.  Once I was out on my own, I forgot.  I just plain forget to wash the dishes at night.  Sometimes I "forget" for days.  Recently I have made a huge effort to have the dishes done, requiring the kids to help dry them and put them away.  I am so happy to say that I've been able to keep up with it about 5-6 days a week.
4. Hygiene: I never can seem to remember to keep up with cutting the kids' nails!  I try to bathe them several times a week, but I often forget who had a bath when.  Too many days it is noon or later when I realize that no one has brushed their teeth.  And hair!  I really only harass the girls about brushing their hair when we plan to go out or when someone is coming over.
5. "TV": We don't even own a television!  We have been letting the kids watch entirely too many videos on the computer.  It was a family decision to do away with the TV, but in times of stress we seem to let it back in a little.
6. Diet: This goes along with that whole cooking thing.  If I'm not making a nutritious dinner from my family, it's likely I'm not feeding them well the rest of the day.  We had made the decision to cut gluten from our diet as we suspect allergies in a few of us, but I have yet to carry it out because of the work involved.
7. Exercise: We don't do it.  I am still carrying more than twenty pounds from my last pregnancy and without putting forth any effort, I'm not likely to lose any of it in the near future. 
8. Cleaning: I don't clean our bedrooms until we can barely get in the door.  Our bedrooms are upstairs so it's an "out of sight, out of mind" sort of situation.  I don't mop the (white!) kitchen floor unless we are expecting company.  I clean the bathroom only when it starts to smell.  The mess in the laundry room grows until it's unusable. 

The first step in getting more organized was to make our schedule using Managers of Their Homes.  I have made this schedule twice now, but gave up when we veered off track.  This time I plan to make a better  effort at sticking with it.