Sickness, Failure, and Progress

It has been 10 days since I have had an opportunity to sit down and write something. Well, to be completely honest, part of the reason I haven't written anything down in the last 10 days is that I am embarrassed that I haven't accomplished much on my decluttering in the "office". I did spend some time attempting to clear off the dreaded desktop, but life and procrastination has taken its toll on my time and energy.

My Poor Sick Baby Girl

My poor daughter has been sick quite a bit in the last month. I knew that her first year in "school" after being a stay-at-home-baby would be hard on her immune system, but I was impressed at how well we survived the fall semester, and then Christmas vacation came. She came down with a fever the night before Christmas Eve. With all of the doctors offices closed we gave her Tylenol and continued on with Christmas. We are blessed to have a daughter that does not let illness bring her down and other than checking her temp and finding a fever, you normally would never know she were sick at all. The day after Christmas I took her to the doctor, determining a virus was the culprit (isn't it always) we just continued on as before and she recovered by the next weekend.
Then again on Jan. 6 she started vomiting and was ill with a stomach bug for about 24 hours. We went back to school on Tuesday and started vomiting again Wednesday. Being the somewhat overbearing first time parent, I took off the day and rushed her to the doctor. I want to believe I am not too paranoid, but vomiting twice in one week, not consecutive bothered me. The doctor diagnosed a post-viral "thing" was going on and we continued on with our week.

Saturday she started complaining that her "butt" and stomach hurt. I took note, gave her some yogurt with probiotics and continued on with our day. However, overnight her fever started and by Sunday morning we were at the pediatric urgent care. They checked her signs of illness and without any visible signs for the high fever they did a catheter to check for a UTI. Talk about a miserable, horrible experience with a child. Anyhow, those test came back negative and we were back in her pediatricians office Monday because the fever was still extremely high. After a flu test, a strep test, and checking for any and all visible signs of sickness, which there were none they sent us home to wait. With Wednesday being the 4th day of fever they called us in to do blood work and while we were at the doctors office her fever broke and a pain pink rash formed. The doctor diagnosed that all of this has been caused by a virus and her blood came back normal, though a bit anemic. We are starting vitamins for that and we are back to school.

I Give Up.....for now

In all of that time home from school I would have thought that I would have accomplished more on that ridiculous desk. And though I did sit down and work on it quite a bit one day, it is still far from over and I have admitted my defeat for now. Most of the desk mess is covered with paperwork from school, and I am just sick of paperwork from school in all honesty. So, I have decided to move on from the desk and visit it again later in the school year or possibly even this summer when the sight of the school paperwork doesn't make me want to cry out in shear pain :). I love what I do, I really do but if you are not organized, which I have not been this year, it can be extremely overwhelming at times. Of course, the best part of my job is that each summer I get a do-over. Time to make improvements, adjustments, and get reorganized before the next school year is one of the greatest blessings in teaching.

Accomplishment

Well, it was actually by accident, but I am going to claim it anyhow. My daughter's room has been decluttered and I am mostly done with her closet as well. Now the unfortunate part is that I do not have any wonderful pre-decluttering pictures to share and I wasn't planning to work on her room till March and April. However, we ended up with one box of trash, one box of to be stored "in case there is a 2nd child one day", and two boxes of items for my younger niece. I will post some after photos later this week and snap the last of before pictures before I finish off that closet of hers. I guess this is proof for my dear husband that constantly tries to convince me that I do not need to plan everything, and that some of the best opportunities present themselves when I plan the least.

The Before Photos...

The "Office"

Friends and family would probably be surprised to see this mess. When I know we are having company, I can clean up our home and make it look somewhat organized and clean. But, not so much for the day to day. My real hope in all of this is that the "day-to-day" look of the home is the same as the "we are having company over this weekend" look.

 

 

So here it is.....the office space before I attempted my first de-clutter! Probably worse than you imagined. As I said before, I picked this area to be first because it seemed easy in my mind and thought it would help me gain momentum for my stick-to-itness. Still my hope, though it is looking a bit more overwhelming at this point!

 

 

Some of the plants are losing their momentum as well in this hodge-podge mess. Hopefully once I "lighten" up this area a bit, they will do better. And maybe, just maybe...I can convince my husband that this area would look just as well with only ONE plant.

  

 

The boxes....luckily it is really more like a box with some tubs stacked in it. Tubs are one of my downfalls....I always think I will need them someday and can't stand the thought of throwing them away and then having to repurchase them later. For the sake of de-cluttering....they need to go.

 

 

The desktop....this is just shameful. I was very tempted to "straighten" it up a bit before posting, but that would totally be counter-productive since I would actually just stuff some things away, and well....out of sight, out of mind.

 

So, there you have it. The office space in all of its glory, or lack there of. I am going back to school Monday and still have a little grading and "assignments" to get done before the big day. Therefore, my hope from this point on is to post at least once or twice a week with my progress. I want to hold myself accountable, but I do not want to take time away from my family or students either. We will see how well I do with this time-management thing and follow-through....not a strength of mine either :).