I am thinking this weekend I should vow to just stay home and not only do the weekly chores (cleaning house, a bit of household budget paperwork) but tackle SOMETHING I've been meaning to get to.

I have oh such a wealth of choices! I could:

-Work on my son's room. Sigh. I confess it just daunts me...I know, I know, pick a spot and get going. Last weekend my helpful husband put up some nice shelves. Story there too: my BIL the woodworker made those for me as a Christmas gift *3 years ago*. It took me 2 years to stain/finish them (he deliberately gave them to me unfinished so I could match son's furniture). Then they have literally sat in the corner of the bedroom since last summer waiting to be put up. :\. Anyway, I started to put up some of son's umpty-ump trophies and plaques, then ran out of steam.

-Work on my daughter's room. She does make an effort, periodically tidying in there. But she has so darn much STUFF it's just impossible. I need to start priming/painting a chair I bought for the desk she got for Xmas and I'm thinking I"ll haul out a bookshelf from her closet, paint it and put it in a corner to hold some of her 'treasures'.

-Work on the office. My nemesis. Need to tidy the desk. Need to work on purging the files in our cabinet. Need to get it under control!

Okay, maybe I should pick one thing and declare it my goal. I'll make it the daughter's room since son has kids coming today to work on their Battlebots project and I don't want to embarrass him by cleaning his room while they are here :).

Anybody else have a weekend goal?

Ann

New to posting but I check in frequently for encouragement

Several big projects I'd like to work on too. I don't because there's much to do around here and it would make me feel guilty.

I will exile myself to one room with the new crate I bought. Use it for things that belong elsewhere as I tend to "roam" doing chores. Of course, if you don't clean your daughter's room I don't have to stay in one room do I?

I can just think Runninginplace made me do it!

Wing

And I discovered WHY I haven't done it. I cannot, cannot, cannot do this sort of thing (drill, measure, figure out how things go together) when the kids are around. I can't THINK.

I started when only one kid was home w/ me. No DH (he's lousy at keeping them occupied and out of my hair, always HAS been; his idea of "watching the kids" is sitting there, um, well, watching them). No oldest, DD. Just youngest (DS), who was occupied w/ some toy in the LR.

Did great for the pull-out trash. Cursed the directions (I edit how-tos for a living, and theirs made me CRAZY!), but did fine.

THEN, DD & DH came home, and I nearly snapped their heads off when they interrupted me, made too much noise, etc.

Put together the pull-out wire basket, and discovered it's about 1 inch too long to fit well. Plus, it's too skinny and hard to get into. I think I'm not going to use it. I can't return it. Maybe I'll see if it will fit in the bathroom. Probably not, but maybe it's worth a try.

But I moved forward!! Of course, I didn't vacuum. Or dust. Or clean bathrooms.

I find, dear Ann, that I CANNOT do both. I cannot keep up with the here-and-now, AND move forward on projects that are for the future.

Maybe if my kids were older, I could do a better job of it. But I find that it just doesn't work for me.