January was a rough month.
I had so many plans and goals, then I caught that “bug” that has been going around and it knocked me down a few pegs. I’m normally not the kind of person that rests to recover, but I’m learning that being a single parent, I need to remember to take care of myself sometimes before I take care of everyone else. Thankfully my kids are old enough to do most of their own basic cooking, so we worked it all out!
I didn’t just start out the month with a sink full of dishes.
I had dishes on the counters, on the stove, on the table! Thankfully we don’t eat in other rooms, so we don’t leave dishes anywhere else, but it was a bit overwhelming. I felt like every time I would get one side of the counter or sink empty, it would just fill up again before the dishwasher was even finished! How do three people go through so many dishes?
Getting closer to the finish line.
Thankfully, once I was feeling like myself again, both kids really kicked it up a notch and helped me get things back on track. Loading and unloading the dishwasher, doing a sinkful of dishes at a time, putting things back where they belong or simply donating things that we really don’t need or use. I have limited counter space, so finally being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel was amazing!
We’re at the end of the month and my sink still has dishes in it.
Although I haven’t been able to actually shine the sink, I’m much closer to that step than before. We have been much better at loading and unloading the dishwasher regularly, and I have been doing at least one batch of hand wash dishes daily. Even if I don’t get all of the sink cleared out, I’m making progress every day. This week we should even have enough done that I will be shining my sink throughout February.
It can be hard to manage all of the tasks we juggle each day, but I want you to know, I see you. You are doing as much as you can each day and progress over perfection can be a great feeling. I used to tell myself that I “liked” having a few dishes in the sink each morning, because when I got those done, I felt that little jolt of accomplishing something so early in the day. I have started to see that not having those dishes actually opens me up to so much more every morning, so that is what I’m aiming for. How do you motivate yourself or keep up with your everyday tasks, especially the ones that you struggle with? I would love to hear how our community battles the tasks each day!
