I'll Do It My Way.

So I found a great program online for getting your house looking spiffy at the start of this New Year.   Every day I would be sent an assignment and in one month, my home would look better than ever.  I lasted three days.

The first day was easy; make a list of projects.  I could grab any of the 12 lists scattered around our desks, bedside tables or kitchen island for a current line-up of 'to-do's'.  These range anywhere from cleaning Spike, the guinea pig's, cage to having a hot tub installed in the backyard that looks like a natural hot spring.  We're good on project lists over here.

Day two caused me to raise an eyebrow.  I was told to establish an 'outbox'.  This is cute term for a place you'll put something you may not totally want or need and it can stay there until you decide to part with it for good.  Using a closet or a corner of an unused room was suggested.  Alrighty.  I have half a basement already dedicated to this task and it currently looks like a Tuesday Morning store after a devastating weather event.  Perhaps it was just an issue of semantics, I thought.

They lost me on day three.  This part of the plan covered the weekend and it began by encouraging us to buy flowers for our house.  I do try to have flowers at home regularly, so I felt like I was probably going to ace this part of the program.  Unfortunately, they followed the flower assignment up with 'vacuum and mop all floors.'  Over the weekend no less.  Clearly this program was not meant for someone outside a small, city apartment.  Or for someone with two teenage kids.  The weekend is the worst possible time in our house to tackle any big project, most especially one that involves clearing floor space.

At any point over the weekend, we may have up to four extra people in our home.  And typically our floors are covered in Vans, Nikes, and Uggs.  I oftentimes feel people that come to our home bring an extra pair of shoes to leave as some kind of offering.  Our mud room, once thought (during our home purchase) to be a magical place that would contain all our coats, bags, footwear and the guinea pig, is usually overflowing to the point one cannot stop to even remove a shoe, causing footwear to be left in the adjoining hall and after that, scattering well into the main living space of our home.  There is no way I could vacuum and mop my entire home over a weekend.  This is a project I like to reserve for a Thursday or Friday when no one is home and a celebratory glass of wine at 4:00 is not out of the question.

Needless to say, I'm no longer checking the helpful 'task of the day' emails.  I delete them without even seeing the subject line.  I'll wing it myself and trust that by the end of January there is a very good chance I will have thoroughly cleaned my floors.  Maybe.

Anyway, to avoid the guilt of my failed home makeover and to provide my children with some form of dinner, I ran a few errands yesterday.  I wore this.

Between the stripes and the leopard belt it was a real pattern-fest.  I probably would have thrown on a floral scarf if I could get my hands on one.  The blazer is one JD grew out of.  It's weird to get hand-me-downs from your kids.  Plus, I was wearing boyfriend jeans - which is a style I'm really on the fence about.  Does anyone outside Sarah Jessica Parker look cute in them?  I think if I were like her, wearing them with a high-heeled pump and dashing across a New York City street, I may.  Instead, I wore my boyfriend jeans with flats and dashed across the King Soopers parking lot.  A stunning sight, I'm sure.

gratitude:  breakfast for dinner traditions, those new Tide pods, the view from my kitchen, Pinterest

thanks and love.