Spring Cleaning

It feels like the day has finally come to really focus on a good, deep clean.  The house, the toys, and, most importantly, my Self.  I feel like things have been building up for far too long, getting grimy in the corners and developing layers of film that make it hard to see through.  I'm feeling the guck build up in me and I'm ready to wash it away.
So, here's where we start.  Elliot gives his animals a good deep scrub and I set my intentions on the process of getting my Self fresh and clean.  The official to-do list:

1. Today starts my personal 6 Weeks of Fitness.  Lots of healthy food choices, water and exercise.  The reward is a trip to Maui for Elliot's first time to celebrate his 2nd birthday during the first week of May and a Mumma who can go with her body-image-problem in check.  My plan is to go feeling healthy and strong about myself and in my Self.
2. Make a dentist appointment to get my teeth cleaned.  Dental insurance is a privilege.  And clean teeth can make the whole body feel healthier, so I've gotten a referral from a coworker and I plan to do that.  

3. Clean up my finances.  Finally having two incomes after a period of not has given me a newfound freak-out for the amount of debt I have.  It's filthy dirty and needs to be cleaned up!  So I've started working on that.  And that clean-up will help the whole family.

4.  Get a therapist.  Those closest to me know my entrance into motherhood wasn't the most graceful.  Unexpected postpartum depression, challenges at work, an enormous amount of nursing, major life changes like selling our house, relocating and shifting relationships, continued multiple night wakings (I'm talking every one to three hours.  Still.  And, yes, he is almost two years old.), and now a new job and figuring out how to adjust to life in Boise.  And all the while being mumma to a wonderful little Elliot who is a whole lot to handle.  In a good way.  But still.  A whole lot.  And, so, here I am.  Two years into it and feeling like this very important time in my life deserves some attention.  I deserve some attention.  And I have health insurance to help me with that.  So I have decided an appointment will be set and I will get the help I need to pay attention to my Self.
5. Tackle this sleeping problem.  Sleep depravation is a deteriorating, debilitating, dangerous thing.  I think the cumulative effects of two years of serious and on-going night wakings has done more damage than I even imagine.  Elliot is just a terrible sleeper.  He doesn't put himself to sleep, he doesn't stay asleep, and he doesn't sleep for very long.  And believe me, we've tried everything.  I have always appreciated any advice I've been given, but have also always been so disappointed to have to always say, "oh yeah, we've tried that."  Nothing has ever worked.  Nothing created sustained change in his falling asleep or staying asleep behaviors.  So we need to figure out what to do.  And it's possible that what didn't work a year ago will work now.  Or maybe there's some technique or intervention out there that we haven't tried.  I don't know.  But we've got to do something to make a real change in this whole sleeping business.
6.  Figure out some new strategies to be kind to myself.  It's just something that I've never been good at.  But I truly want to be.  I want to be loving and healthy and happy inside myself.  I don't want to beat myself up for slacking on my blog posts or for eating too many calories or for not reading books or for any other thing that I judge as being bad or wrong or unhealthy.  I just want to be nice to me, you know?  Think of how refreshingly clean that would feel to do just that one thing.

So there it is.  My official Spring Cleaning to-do list.  And, hopefully, if all of those things get a little bit of attention then I'll feel more able to get back into blogging doing more of my crafty-mamma things.  I want to be perpetuating good cycles, not negative ones.  So... here I go!