Why small success? Because that’s the only kind I know! Even the big ones come in small steps. Here’s my paltry offering for the week.

1. Cleaned the high chair. If you have one of those modern, plastic, easily-wipeable high chairs, right now you’re thinking, “This lady is really pathetic. That’s not a small success, that’s a nano success easily accomplished by trained monkeys.” We do not, however, own an easily-wipeable high chair. (Nor any trained monkeys. Ours are strictly untrained.) We chose a high chair that would blend with our dining room furniture. (If you’ve seen our dining room, you can stop laughing now. There IS furniture beneath the toys and mess.) Our lovely, ornate, Amish-built high chair is ridiculously difficult to clean. After weeks of scraping with cloths, tooth picks, and other dangerous devices, it is sufficiently clean to be stored. Or almost. I’m going to go at it with a mild baking soda solution and hope that takes care of the last bits.
   

   Imagine scraping bits of petrified jelly, yogurt, and other baby goop from all those purdy little swirls.

2. I cleaned my house. Somewhere over the course of the ten years in which there were seven pregnancies and four babies, I got out of the habit of regular house cleaning. Because, well, this:Add to bad habits a pinch of laziness and a strong dose of overwhelmed, and you get a chronically-dirty house. I’d divided my chores into daily doses, but when I missed a day due to odd schedules, sicknesses, life, etc., I was thrown off course and threw in the towel. Then I found a solution on Pinterest. Ta da! This rotating list of chores is exactly what I needed. I have specific Monday through Friday tasks not tied to days of the week. In addition, there’s this. These monthly tasks are divided among Saturdays. And I’ve stuck to the plan for a whole week, even if that meant cleaning counter tops at midnight. So, yay me!
3. Outdoor Christmas decorations down. (Mostly.) We actually had weather warm enough to permit being outside for more than a dash to the car and to melt some piled snow. I took down the lovely red bows lining our ornamental fence and convinced my husband to remove the lighted garland. There are still lights hanging around the porch, but those should come down this weekend.
4.  Website Hosting. It took hours of pulling out my hair and what looked like many wasted hours, but I think I finally understand the differences and advantages/disadvantages to choosing a WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org site. By listing this as a learning experience here, I officially reclaim those hours as “productive” time.
5. Began to scale Mt. Footgear. Tired of fumbling for shoes in adimly-lit, dirty attic, I decided to finally tackle what I’m calling Mt. Footgear. Prior to this, we had a half-dozen bags of shoes, boots, sandals, and other miscellaneous footwear for boys and girls in all sizes lying in the attic. (And possibly a busted laundry basketful in the mudroom.) To spare myself the ignominy of finding toddler boy dress shoes and white patent leather dress shoes for girls on Easter morning (when I should be cooking Polishkielbasa and peeling decorated eggs before Mass), I’ve accepted this challenge. Now that I’ve dumped the shoes in a heap, I’m committed to sorting, pairing, and storing in some kind of semi-organized fashion. In all seriousness, it’s with gratitude I say that at least 90 percent of these shoes were handed down to us from other families. To the families that passed on their gently-used shoes – thank you.
   

   Mt. Footgear

That’s all I’ve got. Celebrate more small successes over at CatholicMom.com.

Have you had any small successes this week?