Small Changes Challenge - 11/50

You may have noticed - last week was #10 in my Small Changes Challenge! After I wrote the post, I started thinking about which challenges were becoming part of my daily life and had actually stuck longer than the initial week. Here's the scorecard I gave myself:

1. Marching - excellent - part of the normal weekday routine and I even sometimes do it on the weekend!
2. Making the Bed 1st thing - good, make it early most days, even weekends!
3. Dishwasher on before bed each night - still a challenge, but I am trying to get into it still - I love it when I come down and the dishes are all ready for us!
4. Unload Dishwasher during breakfast time - uhhh, see #3. One doesn't work without the other ;-)
5. Boys to not pee on the seat - well, they are A LOT better, but they didn't manage to get their Club Penguin membership yet which surprised me. They asked me for a second chance - OK, because I really want them to stop spraying my walls! - but there are 4 days left and they still need 15 stars to get it....
6. Second March - good, but not as consistent as I would like it to be. Sometimes I dance around after the boys get home though... I think that counts ;-)
7. That was the 0/5 week - oh well!
8. Spending one-on-one time with the boys daily - I would say fair - this could definitely be improved upon. 
9. Walk around the block right after school - pretty good, we get out on nice days...
10. What was it again - oh right - gut & sort, ummm.....

So what pray tell does this have to do with week 11? Well, crazy gal that I am, after I had the list above done, I thought I would give my more dismal attempts one more try until they get put to the back burner 'til who-knows-when....

The final verdict?  Well....

I think I am going to have to accept that daily one-on-one time is tricky for us, and leave it as a spontaneous or once-a-week activity. I'm OK with this: the after-school walks are working out well, and I do read to them, so we do still get those quiet times where conversations can take their own turn. Likewise with the second march - I end up putting it off until late enough in the day that the walk with the boys becomes way more appealing ;-)

I still forget to put the dishwasher on before bed....But, I am getting really good at turning it on first thing in the morning, and unloading it as soon as it is done, then reloading it throughout the day....so at least I am making the failure work for me!

I did tidy off the DR table again, and finally sorted the baking cupboard (did a mighty fine job too, if I do say so myself!). Plus, I am half way through the office desk (that was a bigger job than anticipated!). Now that I am actually started, I am hoping this will be the start of a nice big gut-the-whole-house-of-all-clutter Spring Cleaning (yeah, right! Good one!).

And, as for the boys and my walls - do I really have any choice but to keep trying that one? Short of moving or painting the bathrooms weekly, I mean ;-) At least they managed to get another 9 stars.... 6 to go (we're not using a timeline anymore - I've extended it so much now that what's the point? Pushover :-)

So, 40 weeks of Small Changes Challenges left - hopefully, I'll be able to fit "drink more water" in there somewhere ;-)