Getting It All Done

It's not easy living with a family of five.  There's a lot to be done around the house.  It seems like there is a never ending stream of laundry.  Food goes somewhat quickly, and everything else.  Then there's all the dishes and everything else...  The work of a mother is never ending!

Today I decided something needed to be done.  While there is so much that I can't touch because my room mates don't want it messed with, there's plenty of other stuff that can be done.  I know some of it will have to wait.  I simply don't have the time or anything to do it properly right now.  Well, it's not so much the time to do that one task, but the time to do every layer that goes with that task to do it the right way.  In my opinion, there's no point in doing a task unless you're going to do it the proper way.  After all, if you leave something with "good enough", it's all to easy to settle for "good enough" all the time, and then it never actually gets done to it's fullest completion.  I'm tired of settling for "good enough".

I'm thinking in all of this, I need to stop considering things "not my responsibility".  I am reminded on a near daily basis that my family is not my room mate's responsibility and they will not clean up after us.  I guess I can't complain.  I haven't really been cleaning up after them either, though, that's probably in part because they spend all their time in their room.  I wash their dishes without too much of a complaint, and when I complain, it's just to my partner.  Still, there are other things that need to be taken care of that simply aren't getting done.  The cat box needs to be cleaned.  The rat doesn't get the attention she really needs.  Making the rest of the house safe for children simply isn't happening.  I'm not complaining, not really, but in some ways, these things are getting in the way of getting the house clean the way I feel it should be.

What can I say?  I'm finding that I'm getting picky about my home in my old age.  I like things to be a particular way.  Actually, I should be fair.   It's not that I like things to be a certain way.  I just like them to be neat, organized, and practical.  I can work around someone else's organization system, just as long as I understand it enough to find what I need and put things back when I'm done.  I like to look around my home and see clear surfaces!  I blame the FlyLady on this one, but I do.  I like to know that a coffee table can be used as a coffee table, with no more than a currently used glass and maybe a couple decorative books or a centerpiece.  Anything else is really just clutter.

Another thing I learned from FlyLady as this whole "not my responsibility" stuff.  I'm sick of hearing "I shouldn't have to" and "it's not my responsibility."  I know I've done it too.  Casting things off with "it's not my responsibility" and "I shouldn't have to" lays the blame on someone else.  In reality, is that getting the problem solved?  Is that getting the task done?  It really isn't.  All it's doing is passing the buck to someone else while complaining that it's not done to your satisfaction.  I mean, I can complain that the dishes aren't done all I want, but that's not getting them done.  Declaring loudly and to anyone who will listen that "they're not my dishes" and the person who dirtied them needs to go wash them isn't getting them done.  It's bothering me.  It's causing a problem.  Obviously complaining isn't making the situation any better, so I should just do it, right?  It's like that whole thing from Pixar's Robots, "If you see a need, fill a need."  In other words, if there's a task that needs to be done, find a way to get it done, whether it's doing it yourself or, in the case of the movie, inventing something to do it for you.

So from now on, if I see something that needs to be done, it's going to get done.  Why?  Because it needs to.  Because if I don't do it, no one else will, or it would have been taken care of already.  Because I want to get into good habits for when I no longer have room mates.  Most importantly, I'm going to do it because it's not fair for my family or anyone else who didn't cause the problem to be the one to suffer for it.  For sanity's sake, I'm only going to do do much on any given day, but progress must be made.  After all, if I wait for everyone to do their part, nothing will get done.  If I get into the mindset of not doing my part because no one else does theirs, nothing will get done.  The time has come to put away the blame and take action!

Building the Community

It may not be there yet, but I've made the first step.  A sustainable community is in the making!  Better still, it's not just a vision from my own head.  I now have others who share the vision.  We're taking the first step of the way.  We've got an idea.  Now we just have to implement it.

Not so long ago I met a really great couple.  We got along really well.  Our families are very different, yet share enough similarities to make everything work.  They have no children, but they get along really well with our three.  Her husband gets along wonderfully with my boyfriend.  They play video games together.  She and I share a lot of the same ideas and can spend forever talking.  We've got a lot of the same ideas and a lot in common.  I'm not really surprised at the way things are turning out.

It wasn't long before we talked about starting a sustainable community.  We have some great ideas.  We're talking about trying to buy up land.  We want to work with green energy.  We want to focus on sustainable living, healthy habits, and teaching the outside community how to live in a way that is healthy for their whole family (pets included!) and is good for the environment.

This is the tragic thing about today's society, we don't know how to take care of themselves and the world around them.  The standard American diet is incredibly unhealthy.  Most Americans have very low and unhealthy fitness levels.  Many of the chemicals we put in our bodies through foods, medications, and that absorb into the body through cleaning agents and soaps and inhalation.  There are allergens everywhere, but often times go unnoticed because we don't know to look.  These allergens are so integrated into our society that we just get used to the way they make us feel and think it's normal.  Many families have problems with raising their children and can use some help finding techniques that work, which is why shows and books like Super Nanny are so popular.  The same goes with pets and training.  Very few people know environmentally friendly ways to care for their home.  Fewer still know anything about green living.  It would be good for families to have a chance to learn about all of that so they can develop a sustainable life of their own.

Our goal is to set up a whole community.  We would like to have an inner community of those who follow our vision and fit with the family, and a more extended community that lives outside our small family group.  We're looking to buy a substantial amount of land, if we can, including a plot of land that already has wind power.  We've also talked about planning to buy up some of the other local land to house other families from the community.  We hope to have a holistic healing center that includes everything from natural medicines to massage therapy and energy healing (reiki and chakra therapies).  We'll add a dance studio and hopefully that will turn into a full arts and movement center, including yoga and pilates.  If we can find people who are interested in running them, we would love to have a space for martial arts in more of a "warrior's center" and a birth center, but those will have to come in time, should we find the right people.  We want to set up a homeschooling group for the children.  Group discussions for parenting classes would be wonderful.  Lessons in the proper care and training of domesticated animals would also be an option.  Finally, we'd like to have a spiritual center where we hold rituals and lessons in spirituality.  Ideally, we would also have both a men's group and a women's group so each gender could explore spirituality with people of their own gender, with celebrations and classes that bring both groups together as well.  We could hold drum circles and bonfires.  Can you tell we've got a lot of plans?

Maybe this seems like thinking big.  This is a lot for one small family tribe to accomplish, but thinking big is where it all begins.  Field of Dreams had it right with the line, "If you build it, they will come."  I've noticed with every community I've been in, once you create a home for it, interested people will come from the most unexpected places.  If there's an interest out there, this community will come together, and there's always people interested in alternative lifestyles and means of living.  It sets a good example for the rest of the community.  If we can do this, others can too!  Besides, nothing ever got accomplished by thinking small.  It truly is the dreamers that change the world.

We're only able to take small steps and make plans right now, but it feels good to have a life dream finally coming together.  I'm finally feeling like I've found my home, somewhere I can be happy.  I'm finally starting to really build my tribe.  We're going to be capable of incredible things, since we've already put our minds to it.  Now all we need to do is make it happen.