With a little help from my friends

I am grateful for the comments and responses I've received through this blog and its related efforts.  It really does make it easier and more fun to do this; I'm more conscious of what I'm doing.  (Or at least I'd like to think so.)

I posted about wanting to get to bed before two o'clock, and received a comment which helped me shut off the computer and go to bed, so I made it to lights-out by one o'clock.

The internet and the book are traps for me, so I've set up (and reinstituted) some rules of use:
*I don't get to sit down at the computer until the dishes are done.
*The computer's bedtime is midnight.
*If I'm supposed to be doing something else (even if that's a vague "something else"), I put the bookmark in the book at the place I'm supposed to stop before I start reading that section.

The last one is hard and annoying, but it does help me practice my atrophied-beyond-belief self-control.  I've only just thought of the first one today, but even if it only worked once, the dishes are done, so that's a win.

My sister sends me ideas, too.  Today, when I dropped off the things (50 of them!) at the consignment place, I consciously left the associated guilt there.  It did help that the ladies were appreciative of the clothes and things. For most of the items, I wasn't, so I'm glad they will go where they are wanted.  Other items I like, but we just have too much stuff, so I hope they will bless someone else's house.

And I got an email from a friend who is just lovely.  She reminded me about Auntie Leila's "Reasonably Clean House" series, so I reread the first post and did a little in the master bedroom.  I want an Auntie Leila book; she's just wonderful.

I have found that taking "before" pictures makes me want to take "after" pictures, so I'll post them, even though I didn't get all that much done.

Before	After
We'll have to get to the headboard another time.	My husband lays his clothes out for swimming in the morning; they're supposed to be there.
Genealogy!  (I need to find a way to pack some giant pictures and send them to my cousin who has the rest of it.  God bless her.)	I put a whole bag away!  Lookit me!  (Sometimes the before-and-after thing works...)
This is just pure lazy, for the most part. There's a keyboard, ukulele, flute, 80s keyboard (hiding, but I know it's there), and two guitars. The box on the floor is music, and that's the most neglected bookcase in the house.	I don't really know what to do with the keyboard, or where else to put the baby scale. I should probably go through my maternity wardrobe and put things that fit in drawers and things that don't away ... instead of just piling things on the dresser there (which is full of things I don't use ... so there's another project).
Here's another set of projects: confiscated toys (and windchime); Latin books on the floor (several series, and this is just part of them: I intend to donate some); the bag on top has a video camera which may or may not play the video my father took at our wedding, which may or may not be on one of the unlabeled tapes in the bag...	...there's an IKEA lighting fixture on top, and a shell lamp next to the bookcase, neither of which we use, and I don't even like the shell lamp any more, but probably have to ask my mother whether she wants it back... But, hey, the sheets and clothes (except for tomorrow's) were put away, and a stray lamb was returned to the nursery.

D'you see how it's easy to get disheartened?  Once I clean up the mess, there's all this stuff that needs to get done, and we haven't even touched the cleaning!  (Not that I do, to be honest.)

Computer is pumpkinating, so it's time to post and go brush my teeth.