Today was the first day to use my new chart. For today, it was actually fun and very satisfying to make little blue Xs down the list. It definitely kept me on track and kept me from forgetting anything.

We’ll see how long it takes before I lose the list, can’t find a pen, or just plain start ignoring it.

Today I:

Made bed.

Emptied dishwasher.

Loaded dishwasher and cleaned up kitchen.

Swept kitchen.

Did a focused 5 minute pickup.

Ran 2 loads of laundry. (still not caught up on the completion part of it)

Checked bathrooms for clutter. (see self-loathing below)

Hung up and put away clothes in master bedroom.

Last night I:

Wiped down bathrooms. (Did this before home groups. Doing it again before bed would just be crazy.)

Put out clothes.

Made lunches.

Checked laundry and put in the dryer.

Cleaned up kitchen and ran dishwasher.

Now for the self-loathing. That’s probably a little harsh, but I am extremely irritated at myself. I’ve been posting my daily checklists for a while now, and evidently for the last who-knows-how-long I’ve been only checking for clutter in the kids’ bathroom and in the guest bath. I think I’ve been telling myself that the master bath “is probably fine.”

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t as bad as it has been at certain points in the past, but that really isn’t saying much. The fact that I didn’t have to raise my knees to my chest and hold on to the counters to keep my balance to get through it, doesn’t mean it’s fine. I’ve been picking up dirty clothes, but my eyes conveniently have adjusted to the other clutter. So today, having to actually put a blue mark on a real piece of paper, I looked at it. And I picked up. And it looks fabulous (comparatively). And it took about 10 minutes.

Grrr.