Criminy!

If naps don't get easier again, I'm going to SCREAM! Lately they're a big huge power struggle between me and Miss Thing, and I'm hating it. Though I do feel partially responsible because we do not have a real set routine. I know from experience that having that for her will make for easier and quicker naptime and bedtime falling asleep. Somehow I've got to get *myself* to stop struggling against routines.

I am actually working toward that, though, by becoming a "flybaby." It's helping; I am making some progress. Got a long way to go, though, before I find that peace Flylady talks about. Our house has so much clutter, it's going to take a zillion "15-minute boogies" to get it all back in order. However, I now rule my kitchen most days (meaning that I shine my sink every night before I go to bed and keep up with the dishes - I am the only dishwasher we have, so that means that I have to wash them all day long, preferably after each meal). The daily reminders from the Flylady website http://www.flylady.com help a lot, especially the one about the laundry. I was pretty good about laundry before, but now since I get a reminder every day asking, "where is your laundry?" I am less likely to start a load and then forget about it until the next day. Eww... ha ha!

Now, that crock pot recipe I made today - holy cripes, I cannot believe how much work that recipe called for before I could just throw the ingredients into the pot and turn it on! I'm (it's) making Barbecued Seitan and Layered Vegetables for dinner tonight, but besides having to chop up all the veggies (a given, but usually the bulk of the work in a crock pot recipe), I also had to sautee the onions, the potatoes and the seitan - each separately! Might not sound that hard, but when you accidentally use olive oil instead of an oil that's actually meant for higher temperature cooking, your whole house fills with smoke and adds to the lovely smell in the curtains and the towels. They already smelled like onions, fer cryin' out loud, now they smell like smoke too.

Oh well. The good thing is that dinner has been cooking for three hours now, AND it's warm enough outside today that I'll be able to open the windows and air out the onion and smoke smells - as well as the Vick's vapor smell from the bedroom where Miss Thing and her booger factory are finally taking a nap.

Here is where things stand now, aside from nappage and crock pottage: It's 2pm and I am *finally* about to get my shower for the day, and my mom is due to arrive any minute. Good thing she has a house key, 'cause dammit, I'm getting my shower NOW. And despite all the good I've been accomplishing through trying to set routines with the help of the Flylady crew, my kitchen is full of dirty dishes from the pre-crock cooking this morning. Sheez! Oh well, at least those are the only dirty dishes there. That's better than having those AND the dishes from dinner last night.

Again, oh well... someday, with a lot of work, I will be a domestic goddess - or get over the idea altogether.