I decided to add a new rule to my list of rules for maintaining sanity.
We just had two weeks of the plague at our house. First, Evan was sick and it was all we could do to keep him happy. The next week, we caught his bug, and it was all we could do to keep up with a healthy Evan! As can be expected, very little got done in the housekeeping department.
The reverse tornado catch-up clean — this past weekend, I was especially stressed, not only due to illness, but also because things were so behind and we are trying to sell our house. That means that at any moment someone could call for a showing. This almost always happens when the house is at its worst. I’ve learned an amazing amount in the past 7 months we’ve had it on the market about how much you can get done in 2-3 hours if you just go into reverse tornado mode – tearing around the house cleaning as quickly as you can. Unfortunately, in my situation, that usually means things get stuffed in drawers where they don’t belong and hidden in places they may never be found again (where oh where are you cell phone?)! So I don’t recommend that route (unless you’re trying to sell a house with a baby on the loose like I am). But, you can do a version of it, avoiding the panic of hiding things, but just working as quickly as you can for a limited amount of time over the whole house to get it back into a semi-ok state of being.
This past Sunday, someone called and wanted to see the house in 45 minutes!! I thought there was no way we could get it into any order whatsoever with the state of things. Luckily, Mike was home, so he took Evan down to our room and worked there while I went into reverse tornado on warp speed. By the end of it, the house was not clean but it was clean enough, and much much cleaner than I ever thought it could be in such a short time. Even better, it was in pretty decent shape for starting over after our week and a half derailment! It made me feel better about being able to get back on track after a length of time where other matters take priority. So next time, maybe I can remember this accomplishment and not stress over the state of the house in addition to taking care of a sick baby, a sick husband and a sick me!
Then I had one more realization about my plan that made me want to add a new rule. When I was finally ready to get going again, I wanted to pick up where I left off, according to my plan. But the day I wanted to start over was “bathrooms” day, and really they weren’t that bad. Looking around the house, there were definitely some areas in much deeper trouble. So I decided I need something about prioritizing. So in light of the past two weeks, here is the new rule:
After major fallbacks, press the reset button and prioritize your catch up work. In other words, take one day to have a reverse tornado clean and get things semi back to normal (that does NOT mean do serious deep cleaning over the whole house!). Simply watch the clock and get as much done as possible in the time you’ve set for yourself. Then the next day, you can restart your regular schedule OR you can switch your days around a bit to prioritize whatever parts of the house are particularly in need of rescue.
I’ll add this to my permanent page of rules for maintaining sanity and see how it goes. Let me know if you try it. Evan woke up last night sick with a new cold…dragon baby was on the loose this afternoon (I never knew a crawling baby could STOMP until I saw Evan doing it as he threw various “I’m sick of being sick” tantrums! Poor little guy 
I can tell that I may have lots of practice trying to keep these rules over the winter….stay in touch!
