NMR 1:10

It is perhaps sad that on day 10 of my first new month resolution I almost caved.

This month's resolution is never to leave a dirty dish in the sink when I go to bed at night. Perhaps for most people this is intuitive, but for me.....dishes sometimes spend the night (or occasionally two) hanging out in the sink. It's bad, I know. So in keeping with my manageable NMR goal, I figured an easy and simple start would be to do the dishes every night. What doesn't fit in the dishwasher gets hand washed.

I've been doing okay the last week. Because I don't cook (a more lofty NMR for the future), we never have huge amounts of dishes. It only takes a few minutes for me to get the dishes done on any given night (after Little Bug is in bed, of course), and I really like the satisfaction of starting an evening dinner with a clean sink.

But last night it just didn't happen, for whatever reason. I was working late after the boys had gone to bed and as I got up to turn out the lights I saw the sink.

Full of dishes.

At 11:50.

And I turned off the lights and started to walk upstairs. I mean, one day off wouldn't hurt me. But I managed to guilt myself into turning around, turning back on the lights, and loading the dishwasher just before Midnight. It may seem ridiculously small, but I am a lover of taking the easy way out, so this was a new one for me.

Of course, I forgot to actually turn the dishwasher on last night, but I'm still counting it as a win.

Making a Home in 2011

I'm not being dramatic when I admit that I kind of suck at being a homemaker. Despite being raised by a wonderful stay-at-home-mom who cooked every night and made our Halloween costumes; having a sister who feels guilty if her floors are not spotless and actually studies a homemaker's guide that was published at the turn of the century; and being raised in a culture where every Tuesday night from ages 12-18 I spent an hour or two in an organized class learning some sort of housekeeping skill like ironing dress shirts, sewing, scrap booking, knitting, and cooking; I am a horrible homemaker.

Appa totally got hoodwinked when he signed up for this domestic goddess.

I don't have good cleaning skills. I'm like a binge and purge cleaner. Dishes will sometimes sit in my sink for days or my dust bunnies will earn the right to register to vote in their corner precincts, but when I do clean, I am all over every little detail, from the baseboards to the inside of the stove vent. That just doesn't happen very often, and even less now that Little Bug is around. I'm a good, but inconsistent cleaner.

Last year I made a lot of New Year's resolutions that I thought were simple and manageable. Turns out, my single resolution should have been to keep my resolutions. I made decent progress on about half my goals (and considering that I am typing this while drinking a DDP, failed miserably with others).

This year I decided to try a new approach.

New Month Resolutions.

My theme for the year will be, to steal a phrase from a brilliant friend of mine, home care. Each month I will select a very small detail of home care that I can focus on. Conventional wisdom and inspirational posters tell me that 21 days will be all I need to make that small change in home care a habit.

My NMRs will be small because I know myself, and lofty goals just aren't working for this working mama. I'm still trying to think about which habit I will undertake for January, but I plan to document it on my blournal so I can hold myself accountable.

I'll tell you what it won't be....this giving up DDP completely crazy talk.