I am totally focused on this very important thing, nothing will distract... ooh look!! Sparkly!

I've brought a new challenge to my life. It's exciting and thrilling and completely new for me... which (if my past experiences are to judge) will probably mean that I won't see it through.

Occasionally I look at my life and think "I'm going to be productive today. I'm going to become awesome in an area of my life that I have previously been rubbish at."

I usually think this with such a conviction that I feel compelled to start my new thing straight away and for 2 weeks I am a gourmet chef or a glorious athlete. Out of all of these, tidying my house is usually one impulse I get manic about the most often.

To say I like my clutter would be a safe assumption. To say I lived in a disgusting mess of crap would earn you a high-five from Rachael-The-Bully. But I wouldn't say it's dirty per se, it's just... clutter.

However, every so often I will get fed up with the clutter and decide to clean my house meticulously in a Stepford Wife type manner.

My one problem is I don't do things by halves and if I'm going to tidy, it has to be done properly and intensely. Only there's so much stuff and so many new LOCD's forming in my brain to compete with. If I wanted to make the impact my new gusto demanded, I would need to be at it for a while.

Here comes the rub... my gusto does not last nearly as long as I need to get the job done. At some point half way in I will inevitably run out of steam and my normal "look at these things that distract me" brain kicks in.

What I'm left with is a room with half opened boxes and bags from the loft piled up in my living room and a bunch of excuses to go with them along the lines of "I'm too much of a feeble woman to carry these boxes back to the loft so I can't sort them out just yet."

Ahem.







My mother (who knows me far too well) will ring me on occasion and inquire how the box removal process is going (a month after I had filled my house with them). I will then tell her that my life is incredibly busy and when I get a day to myself I will focus all my attention on getting the job done. She did at one time remind me of two Saturdays prior to that conversation when I had boasted about how I had watched my entire Sky+ box memory.

This I feel is a silly argument (and I told her so). Watching the Sky+ box was an entirely important task. If I hadn't, it's memory would have run out and I would have started to lose programmes.

I spouted something about priorities and how that day had been good task managing in terms of looming deadlines. She then gave a similar speech although somehow her one ended in reinforcing her point instead of mine.

We ended it by agreeing that the next priority was definitely sorting through boxes... the moment an available Saturday presented itself.

That mini novel was actually meant to just be an example of my main point... digression is definitely my friend. To compensate I will sum up my new challenge in as few sentences as possible.

I'm going to start running.
I'm convinced I'm going to be a genius at it.
I've roped Claire-The-Bully into it as well so I don't chicken out.
We start tomorrow.
It's a 9 week regime.
I'm not even sure I own trainers.

Wish me luck!!