Struggling.

I seem to be really struggling these days, with caring for 7 kids and the house and myself.  It's just not happening.

I'm making small changes daily but they're so small you barely notice them.  For instance I try to tackle one room a week in my spring cleaning and decluttering drive.  Last week I did the girls room.  They'd emptied everything from their wardrobes and toy chests all over the place so I took the opportunity to get rid of old clothes and re-organise everything.  Now it looks fab and takes all of 2 minutes to keep clean.  But it seems like such a small dent.

I'm also cooking more.  I do a Sunday roast every Sunday. I bake cakes and cookies and biscuits more than I ever have in my life now.  I cook some of the kids meals and re-write the menu plans once a week... But to be honest, then Martin wants to diverge from the plans and I lose faith.  What's the point of me spending all the time doing this stuff if he's going to sabotage it all at the first hurdle?

It's not just him though.  The state of the house overall gets me down and it's hard to know where to begin really so I procrastinate or don't ever get started.  And there are so many broken things - like we basically don't have a washer/dryer any more.  Our one still (barely) works but it's so broken I can't do it myself, so Martin has to do it for me which gets me down as there's so many clothes that need washing and sorting - there are seriously piles ALL OVER the house.  How can I sort through them if I can't even wash them?

And I'm so tired ALL the time.

I bought a book called Time Management for Manic Mums.  I read a LOT of these books I guess because I'm always looking for an easy fix.  Somebody to tell me exactly what to do, when and how.  And I've come to realise that whilst these books are full of useful tips - they don't actually do that.  So I really need to "write" my own.  Figure out what works best for me, what motivates me to keep it all up.

Everyone says to take it slow, do one thing at a time.  And I agree that's good - but I need to see more change.  I need to be able to look at a room/cupboard/surface and SEE a PHYSICAL difference.  Just knowing I threw away a bunch of old papers doesn't help me if it looks the same as before I started.

We'll see.   This week I am working on getting the hallways and landings clear.  And then this weekend I am hoping to declutter the boys clothes in their room.