keep your head up.

For a while now, it seems like I've been miserable and depressed more often than I've been happy and content.  This whole year has been a  roller coaster of extremes.  Between losing loved ones, gaining a nephew, dealing with being the primary money earner, and getting engaged, my emotions are all over the place.

Being an adult is hard.

Staying afloat when you just want to bury your head in the sand is hard.

Dealing with constant stress and anxiety is hard.

I'm sick of this depression hanging over my head.  And it's only bound to get worse as the seasons change and we get even less hours of daylight.

A couple weeks ago, I had a full blown panic attack at the prospect of having my future mother in law over for dinner.  I freaked at my fiance for not checking with me first, because our house was such a mess I was embarassed to have her over.  Now just to be clear, my house is nowhere near being "hoarders" worthy.  There aren't random piles of garbage lying around or anything.  But between my fiance and I, we own a lot of...STUFF.  Between laundry lying about, my scrapbooking supplies, his Heroclix characters, our books & comic books, his daughter's toys & games, DVD's...seriously, the whole damn house seems like it's hit with a friggin tornado half the time.  We have run out of room for our stuff already.  And every day, it's even harder to deal with.  I don't want to live in a trashy house.  I don't want to be embarassed to have people over without notice.  I don't want to have to marathon clean every time I DO have someone come over.  It's friggin' ridiculous.  To top it off, it's only gotten this bad because I went on housework strike over the summer while my fiance was pretty much out of work.  (My logic - if he's not bringing in money, he might as well clean since he's home all day.  In practice - the house is trashed.)

Combined with my failure to lose any weight while I attempted to diet and exercise (yeah, eff that. sweating sucks, i don't care what anyone says.), it makes for one miserable me.

And then, at the end of September, I found this website called FlyLady.

Honestly, reading it...it seems like the most ridiculous thing ever.

Like I need someone to tell me how to clean shit.

But...apparently I do.  And since signing up to be a part of the group...my kitchen is clean every day.  I have so many clean clothes my closet is over flowing. I've gotten rid of at least 3 garbage bags of old and too small clothes (given to Salvation Army).  I've found several Christmas presents I forgot I had (yeah, as in from LAST Christmas. WTF) (also, one was this ziploc vacuum sealer for freezer stuff that I've been searching for for MONTHS because I knew I had one and lost it...arghhh).  AND I've made a nice homecooked dinner for myself and my fiance (and his daughter on the days we get her) every single day.  All of this without feeling stressed out or anything.  I feel happy. Content. Accomplished.

If any of you struggle with housework like I do, I seriously recommend checking out this site.  It is an excellent source of routines, tips, and tricks, and it WORKS.

Seriously.  The whole idea is that your house didn't get dirty in a day, and it won't get clean in a day either.  So each day, you work a bit at a time, and slowly but surely, you establish your routines and before you know it, you're doing things without concious thought and effort.