"It's cheaper than a therapist."

In our quest to teach our children resilience and self reliance I find it’s a constant balancing act.  I’ve mentioned before that I hadn’t realized how much “hovering” I did as a parent.  Let me tell you folks, I hovered.  So now, I feel in some ways that I’m in parenting 101.  In fact I mentioned to someone the other day that I felt like I knew what I was doing for the first 20 years and all of a sudden I’m not so sure…I mean heaven help you if you are the unlucky friend who runs into me in the Target baking aisle after a long day of me questioning my parenting approach.  (Apologies Michelle but you are considerably cheaper than a therapist.)

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Even with some of the “stuff” we have going on at the Morgan household I still feel like we did pretty well. I mean, I was 20 years old when Jordan was born!  20 people!  I was a baby–a baby I tell you!  But there’s always room for improvement.  I mean, you’re talking to the mom who apparently didn’t read the whole section on newborns in her parenting guidebook where it says that it might be a bad idea to put your baby to sleep on the same side every time.  Poor Jordan–it took two years for that kid’s melon head to even out.  (But he did do a pretty decent impression of a pirate with his “aye matey” squinty look.)

Now I realize that hindsight is 20/20 so I’m not beating myself up too much but I do want to be better.  So I find myself questioning my approach to lots of things at the moment.  Do I remind my children to do their chores each day?  If so, how many times do I remind them?  At what point does “reminding” cross over into “helicopter mom nagging” territory?  Do I pick up their mess or leave it there for 8 hours until they come home from work?  If I leave it there, how do I keep from going crazy looking at it?

If there was anyone left out there that thought I have my act together this should make it pretty clear that I don’t.  And you know what?  I’m kind of ok with that because that means there is room for improvement.  I think that too often we’re afraid to “let it all hang out there” because we feel like  everyone else is better at “this” (whatever “this” is) than we are. But I tell you what.  These last few months have shown me that we ALL have things that we struggle with.  None of us are perfect–it’s just enough to keep trying.  And besides which if I’m going too crazy Target’s right down the street and law of averages suggests  SOMEONE I know is bound to be there.  Hey Michelle–you have any baking to do???

Hey Mom–what's for dinner?

For some reason I had this crazy notion that once summer came this new plan of teaching my kids responsibility/independence/resilience would be easier.  Not so much.  I’m struggling to figure out when to do the room checks when kids are still lounging about until 11 am.  I know, I know!  I’m one of those moms who lets their kids sleep in during the summer.  I’m sure some of you are shaking your heads and saying, “no wonder her kids don’t pick up their socks….”  Heres the thing though–I ADORE sleeping in!  There was nothing that I loved more when I was a teenager than having the luxury of sleeping until my body told me to wake up.  I still love sleeping in though that tends to hardly every happen.  I also think that my kids deserve a bit of a break.  After all, during the school year all of my teenagers have to be at early morning seminary every week day at 6:10 am so I feel like being able to sleep in during the summer is a reward for that.  Call me crazy.

So…I’ve adjusted my expectations a bit for the jar method.  I’ve decided that for now, I don’t care so much about the bed being made because I still want to do my room checks each morning.  BUT–the room needs to be straight and they must have their daily job done before bed the night before.  We’ll see how that goes.  
I’m also getting ready to implement phase 2 of “becoming a responsible citizen/resilient child.”  The dreaded cooking aspect.  I’ve mentioned before that I pretty much hate cooking.  I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing it and here is what I dislike about it:
1.  Planning the menu–because there is NOTHING all six kids like.  Except when I make scones for dinner.  And fried bread dipped in honey does not constitute a meal.
2.  Shopping for the food–I seriously have to work up the courage to go to the grocery store.  I’d rather go to the dentist than Winco.  And don’t even get me started on Wal-Mart…
3.  Paying for the food–I have two issues here.  First, the money–but I don’t whine too much about that because Dave is my sugar daddy.  Secondly, I’m always slightly ashamed at the amount of sugar cereal, cookies, crackers, etc that make up my cart.  I feel like the cashier is silently chastising me for the amount of junk food I’m purchasing.  I always feel like saying–” I really buy healthy food too–see my bag of apples?”
4.  Bagging the groceries–it’s like Tetris gone bad.
5.  Putting them away–because this means confronting last week’s leftovers in the fridge and the soggy tomatoes in the vegetable drawer.
6.  Cooking the meal–it takes an hour and is consumed in under 10 minutes.
7.  Cleaning up–speaks for itself.
So as you can see, the only part I like is eating it.  Which is why the workers at Baja Fresh and Panda Express know me by name.  
But–I do want the kids to learn how to prepare a meal from beginning to end.  That means that I want them to plan, shop for, cook and clean up the meal.  This is going to be a huge adjustment for me because I am a last minute chef.  The kids ask for dinner and I never know–or I tend to change my plan from one minute to the next.  It’s like cooking ADD.  So, my plan is to assign each kid a night and let them be in charge.  I’m starting with just three nights a week because our summer is busy plus I don’t want Jose at Baja to forget me just yet.  
Wish me luck!

"Pomp and Circumstance"

The crazy train has ramped up to turbo mode the last few weeks around here so I haven’t posted for a while.  I know, you’re all cryin’ in your cheerios about that I’m sure.  Is it just me or is the end of the school year just nuts?  It’s been extra busy for our family as we’ve had Carter graduate this last week which is really fun–and really sad too.  It’s caused me to reflect on a few things so forgive me as I wax poetic here for a moment…

I’ve realized that even though I’m frustrated with my household’s lack of organization and discipline that somewhere along the line we did a few things right.  I mean, look at this kid:

Yeah,  I know I’m his mom and all but that is one good looking kid right?  And not only that, but he’s a really nice kid!  He’s thoughtful, he’s smart, he’s got college plans, he’s nice to his mother and in two short months he’s off to serve a mission in Brazil.  Brazil!  That is a long way from home!  But I’m so happy for him and the young man he’s become.  I also can’t believe how stinking fast it went.  I mean it literally seems like only yesterday he was wearing his “lucky shirt” every single day and carrying around his pet “chain.”  (Yes–I am one of those mean moms who won’t allow pets because heaven knows I can barely manage the stress of keeping six kids alive, let alone an animal.  Plus they smell.  And shed.  And need a babysitter when we go out of town.  Oh the list is endless really…)  Anyway, in lieu of a pet this kid had a dog chain collar he carried around.  EVERYWHERE.  Even the bathtub which is where it probably met it’s rusty demise.
It got me thinking because I promised to be brutally honest on this blog and I can’t lie.  The last couple of weeks have been rough in the parenting department at times.  Oh, we have our cute jars and some days all of the kids have their beds made and their rooms straight.  But just as many days none of it is getting done–I’m just getting richer.  And meaner. 
Case in point:  our weekly jobs were not done this week–one of the kids tried to get out of it by saying they didn’t know which one was their hook.  Seriously? Those flashcards didn’t help at all.   Anyway,  because of that I was out mowing the lawn at 9:30 pm Saturday night because I was mad and just too beaten down to make the kid do it.  I mean–he has it agency right?  Stinkin’ agency.
But then I stop and look at that picture of Carter or I watch Kennedy and Parker in their recitals, or see Davis and McKay headed out to a day long rehearsal, or watch Jordan playing the piano for the primary kids in sacrament meeting and I think, “you know what?  It could be worse.  There may be a mountain (and I tell you, it’s a MOUNTAIN ) of clothes in the laundry room at the moment, and there are still weeds in my front yard, and my bathrooms are nowhere near as clean as they should be, but I have great kids.  Really great kids.
But they better watch out ’cause summer’s here and I’m attaching names to those hooks. 

"I said, GOOD MORNING GIL!"

“I said, GOOD MORNING GIL!”—Bill Murray in “What About Bob.”
I’ve had that quote running through my mind a lot in the last few weeks as I remind myself that it is baby steps.  (For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about it’s time to watch that movie.  Hilarious.)  I have to keep reminding myself that it is the little things that lead to big changes–baby steps.  For example, we have started our new allowance system.  First, we started with our weekly jobs:

Basically each kid has their own hook–see how there are six together on the left?  I figured they were smart enough to know that it goes from oldest to youngest starting on the left.

I was wrong.

Each kid has asked me which one is their hook–some of them have asked me more than once.  I probably should label them or something but right now I’m too stubborn to do it.  I mean seriously–there are going to be harder questions that this one on the SAT–if they can’t figure out which hook is theirs then we are in trouble.  The hook on the far right holds a number of different jobs that any kid can do for more money.  Each kid must do their weekly job first before being able to do any extra ones.

I have to say that overall, this has gone really well!  Not only are the kids finishing their weekly jobs (mostly) but they are also doing the extra ones.  Jordan did an amazing job organizing the pantry–and it took far longer than I anticipated so he negotiated a higher price but I was happy to pay it.  McKay has really taken advantage of the new system to do a number of jobs around the house–I came home today to find him cleaning out our pond.  And for those of you who have been unfortunate enough to view the pond lately—I’m sorry…But come on by now ’cause it looks fantastic!

Baby steps…

With that, we are onto the first week of the reverse allowance system.  This is what we came up with:

As I explained, each month I put 30 $1 bills into each jar.  Every morning I check to see if their beds are made, rooms straight and dirty clothes picked up.  Since we just started this I don’t have much to report other than I will say, ALL the kids had clean rooms and neat beds today!  
Baby steps!
(Someone asked me where Jordan’s jar is.  We started out without him having one because, let’s face it, the kids is 20.  However he wanted something to be accountable to so he has one now but his works a little differently.  For every day his room is NOT clean I put a marble in it.  Each marble equals a $1 he has to pay towards gas money for the kid’s car.)
My laundry room is still a mess, my tub still has a (smallish) pile of clothes on it and I can see a couple of pairs of socks, but overall I think we are making progress!
I’m going to see how the next couple of weeks go because I have big plans once summer starts.  This involves three different areas:
1.  Cooking–I could seriously do like a million posts on how much I hate cooking/shopping/meal prep/clean up.  I think involving the kids will only make it worse but I think it’s a necessary skill they need to master on our quest to make them productive members of society.
2.  Volunteer Work-because we want them to sometimes work for the greater good.
3.  Apprenticeships/Job–I’m actually excited about this idea and have some things in the works so I hope to have some exciting things to report in the next couple of weeks.
Until then–I’m off to create flashcards so my kids can remember their birth order.
Have a great night!

Pinterest is of the devil

The man who invented Pinterest is a genius.  An evil genius.  Here is a place where people from all over the world can “pin” cute pictures of anything.  Like penguin pinatas.  I am not making that up–who knew there was a community of people who make penguin pinatas?  I have a serious love/hate relationship with pinterest.  On one hand, whenever I need a recipe or fun craft there is a wealth of information.  Have a craving for Red Lobster cheese biscuits?  (Also of the devil by the way.)  Pinterest has it.  Want to know how to make the perfect “smokey eye?”  Check out my niece’s make up “board.” On the other hand–let the coveting begin!  There’s nothing that makes me feel like the world’s worst homemaker/designer than scrolling thru this guilt inducing site.  After thirty minutes  I’m headed out the door with a list of craft supplies to create crepe paper pom balls–which two years later are still only halfway done and collecting dust on the shelf in my coat closet. Honest truth.  Don’t get me wrong–I love it.  But I hate it.  
Take for example my most recent search.  I was looking up ideas for my laundry room and here are a few I found:

Lovely right?  I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend HOURS in one of those rooms sorting/washing/drying/folding and putting away clothes?  Because let me tell you, with six kids it is hours folks.  Especially because I have to hunt down all those socks scattered around the house.  I’m sure your’e wondering, “so what’s the problem?”  I’ll show you the problem:
I would love to tell you that this site is an anomaly but I would be lying.  This is my laundry room.  Ironically, it’s one of my favorite rooms in the house.  When it’s clean.  Which is pretty much never.  The funny thing is, I’m actually pretty good about staying on top of the laundry.  I mean, there is always at least one load in the washer and/or dryer and usually one waiting to be folded so it’s not like I have baskets and baskets full of clothes to take care of.  The beauty of this room is that I have a big drawer for each of the kids so I can fold directly into their drawer.  The original plan called for them to empty their drawer every day but instead they just wander down here every morning and get dressed.  (Note–if you’re planning on dropping by anytime before 8:00 am you may want to call ahead to avoid half dressed teenagers…)
The real problem with this room is that it’s the general dumping ground for coats, shoes, backpacks and various odds and ends in addition to the laundry.  And so tonight while looking thru pinterest I was once again discouraged because I’m pretty sure my house is never going to look like the ones I find there.  Maybe I should start a ‘real life’ pinterest.  With pictures of bathrooms with the toilet seats up, old pizza boxes beneath a teen’s bed and a pair of underwear under the piano.  (Which may or may not be a regular occurrence at the Morgans…)  Who knows, maybe women will hail me as an unsung hero–a discouraged mother whose not afraid to show the world how we really live!  But probably not.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear how you all stay on top of your laundry rooms.  Because there has got to be a solution.  Pinterest says so.

"I'll need 150 one dollar bills please."

I mentioned awhile back about how we have had many forms of the chore/allowance system at our house.  Good news:  I have a new one!  I actually got the idea from a book I picked up at Desert Book the other day.  I’d tell you the name of it but I’m much too lazy to go upstairs to my bathroom and find the book.  (Yeah I know–I’m a total bathroom reader but I promised to be real so you don’t get much “realer” than that revelation.)  Anyway, the author used the jar system to inspire/threaten her kids and so we’re giving it a go around here.

Basically, each kid gets a jar at the beginning of the month with $30 in it.  Each day I check to see that my cleaning expectations are met.  If they are, they keep the cash.  If not, I take $1 out of the jar.  At the end of the month they get to keep what’s in the jar.  The kids liked this idea but I think that’s mainly because I offered them double allowance for the month of June to get the plan started.  (Normally they get their allowance at the beginning of the month and since this new system will work backwards with them receiving the money at the end I figured it was only fair to give them the expected cash at the beginning as well as at the end.  Also–it was worth paying extra to not hear them complain…)  So, this is what we agreed on as far as rules:

1.  Bed must be made–this should be pretty dang easy because none of them use top sheets.  I know, we’re barbarians around here.  Someone said once, “they need to learn how to sleep with a top sheet so they are used to it when they get married.”  Trust me–learning to sleep with a top sheet will be the least of their problems when they get married.

2.  Floor of room must be clear with clothes put away and trash in the garbage.  (Again, trash in the garbage should be a given, but remember, we’re barbarians.)

3.  Towels hung and dirty clothes in hamper in the bathroom.  (Seriously, why is it SO difficult to just hang up the dang towels?)  I could do a whole post on our towel situation alone.  Maybe I will…

4.  All must be done BEFORE leaving for school.  (If they are smart they will clean up the night before.  If they were smart.)

My part in all of this is to actually check the rooms each day.  That’s a pretty big commitment for me but I figure that it will be easier if I do it in the morning before my brain becomes to full of all the other things I have to do.  Like Facebook.  Or People.com.

So now you can go ahead and place bets on how well this system works.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ve stumbled onto the answer to all of our chore problems.  But probably not.

Progress Report and Cute Shoes

Well, I’d like to report that our house has transformed itself from chaotic and cluttered to controlled and clean.  I’d like to report that, but it would be a lie.  Because it looks pretty much exactly the same.  I managed to put away the clothes pile on the tub and I kept it clean for a whole day–a whole day people!  But the pile is back and it’s even bigger than before.  I’ve also added  4 pairs of ballet flats to the pile.  (I have a serious weakness when it comes to ballet flats, just ask my husband.) In my defense, this week has been crazy busy with a band auction, traveling out of town,  general life nuttiness, and the acquiring of two new pairs of ballet flats (they are ADORABLE)  but my house is still a mess.

What I CAN report is that we have made some progress in the area of giving our kids more responsibility and I’m finding that I’m becoming more aware of the times when I tend to step in and do for my kids what they can otherwise do for themselves.  If you would have asked me a few months ago if I was a “helicopter mom” I would have said no and that would have been correct.  Because I am a full on “search and rescue team Mom.” A kid forgets his lunch:  I’m running to school to leave it in the office.  Daughter lost her brand new ballet tights–I’m headed to the store for a new pair.  It’s a sickness really.  As I’ve worked to be more aware we have had some successes and here are some examples:
1.  Handsome Morgan Boy VS Cranky Teacher– we had a situation involving a scathing email regarding one of the Morgan Clan.  In the past, I would have tried to really get to the bottom of the situation and “fixed” the problem.  I’ve never been one to assume my kid is not at fault–in fact I usually assume my child is at least 75% at fault but I have always tried to remedy these situations when they arise. After all, though my kids aren’t perfect they are pretty great and everyone should know this. This time, I did speak with the child and then sent a quick email to the teacher telling her we had discussed the situation and I was going to leave it up to the two of them to work out.  And guess what–they did!  Without my expertise.  Imagine!
2.  Personal Assistant–one day my schedule was packed with work, driving kids to lessons, making a meal for a friend, meetings, etc. (Shopping for ballet flats may or may not have been on the agenda.)  I really needed to do some basic grocery shopping and figured I’d have to make a late night trip.   Side note:  I HATE grocery shopping.  Like seriously despise it so I tend to put it off as long as possible. And then, as my 20 year old and 14 year old were headed out the door to the mall I had an “aha moment”–these boys were more than capable of going to the grocery store for me.  So I wrote them a list and off they went.  They came home later (after a few frantic texts regarding brands of spaghetti sauce) with the shopping done!  
I know that doesn’t seem like a lot but I think it’s a start.  After all changing your thinking is really most of the battle and I’m finding that more and more I’m stopping and thinking, “Is this something I need to do for them or can they do it on their own?”  Surprisingly, most of the time, they can do it on their own and I think they feel a sense of accomplishment when it’s done.  That really is the whole point of this whole thing anyway–so maybe I’ll ignore that clothes pile for another day:-)

Putting First Things First

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to travel to Utah for a Women’s Conference sponsored by BYU, my alma mater.  The best part of the conference was that I got to attend with 5 of my sisters in law and my amazing mother in law.  I’m so blessed to be surrounded by such fabulous examples of womanhood.  I had spent some time looking over the different classes offered and found one that I just knew I needed to attend.  The title:  “Putting First Things First.”

How fitting right?  Most of the time I feel like my brain is going in like twenty different directions.  I’m sure that at one point in life (most likely prior to giving birth to these six monkeys) I could see a thought thru from beginning to end.  Not so much anymore.  At any given time my thought process resembles an eight year old on a pogo stick.  Here’s an example of the six thoughts running through my brain at this very moment:
1.  “How long ago did Carter take his pain meds and when is he going to stop drooling?”  (He got his wisdom teeth out this afternoon.)
2.  “What was it I planned to make for dinner tomorrow night and how many of the ingredients do I actually have in the house?”  (answer:  less than half and I went to the store yesterday!  And left the grocery list in the car…)
3.  “What time do I have to be at the school to help at the Bookfair tomorrow and how nice do I actually have to look?”
4.  “How am I going to remember to send the emails for the auction because I normally write my reminders on my hand but if I do that now in bed I’ll wake up with ‘auction emails’ tattooed on the side of my face from where my hand was squished into my cheek all night.  (And I know this because it has happened on more than one occasion.)
5.  “Wait–what am I writing about??”
See?  It’s a wonder I can string more than two sentences together coherently.  I’m a scattered mess!  And this gets back to the heart of the problem that started me on my blogging adventure:  how do I organize my life so that I can better help my children and be less frustrated with the state of affairs at the Morgan hacienda?  I think the answer lies in the title of that class, “Putting First Things First.”  I’d love to tell you that I came out of that class with a plan for establishing my priorities.  I didn’t.  Because the class was full and instead I wandered the cafeteria in search of a caffeinated Diet Coke–a fruitless search by the way, but I digress…
BUT–I have been giving some thought to what is most important to me and this is what I came up with:
1.  My spiritual/emotional/physical well being–because if I’m not taking care of myself how can I possibly take care of anyone else?
2.  My husband–after all when the kids grow up and leave (they WILL grow up and leave, right?) it’s going to be him and I.
3.  My children–because they are only under my care for such a short period of time and I don’t want to screw them up too badly.
4.  My church callings and assignments
5.  Other Volunteer assignments (Band, dance groups, community events, etc)
I’m still working out the kinks to how I’m going to make this work–if you have any suggestions, I’m all ears.  Oh–and bring me a Diet Coke while you’re at it…

PS–I read this post through the next day and realized that I only listed five thoughts, not the 6 I referenced.  I was going to change it and then thought, “Nope–that about sums it up…”

"If we had surveillance cameras this wouldn't be a problem."–Jordan

I thought it might be wise to give you a little background  on what I like to call, “The Evolution of the Chore System” here at the Morgan house.  We’ve gone through so many variations that the mere mention of chore restructuring brings instant eye rolling by the 6 monkeys.  Here are a few of the standouts:

Take Two:  This actually worked pretty well when we only had 4 kids and they were little.  I placed a basket at the bottom of the stairs where I threw all the stuff that belonged upstairs and every time they went up they had to take two things and put it away.  Then came kids #5 and #6 and I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was let alone remember to hound them to “take two.”

Mailbox:  I found this super cute mailbox at a garage sale and stuck it on the wall.  Each child had a slip of paper that they filled out each day that showed they had completed their individual jobs.  At the end of the week I tallied the slips and paid out.  Problem:  half the time they did their job and forgot their slips or I forgot to make new slips.  Also I never quite made it to the bank to get the cash out so I was always keeping track of their money in “the bank of Mom’s head.”  It wasn’t so accurate…

Zones:  A couple of summers ago I divided the house into zones and made really cute little tags that hung in each zone with the name of the person responsible for cleaning that zone.  We rotated each week.  Problem:  This worked for a a few weeks and then came vacations, scout camp, girls camp, a long nap, etc and we never got back on the bandwagon.

And so it goes, and so it goes…

This time I decided to let the masses decide the new system.  And thus began “The Great Debate.”  Some were in favor of policing each other but there was concern that could just bring on a whole lot of contention.  Some were in favor of instituting “family cleaning time” as necessary but others balked at the idea of not knowing ahead of time when that was coming (although you would think the foot high sock pile might be a clue.)  Jordan figured he had the perfect solution when he said,  “if we had surveillance cameras this wouldn’t be a problem.”  (Maybe the towels on the bathroom floor wouldn’t be the problem but I’m pretty sure we’d have a whole different set of problems if I installed cameras in the bathroom.  Creepy…)

But what we all agreed was that our main problem is accountability and follow through on the part of us parents.  With piano lessons, scouts, church stuff, jobs, volunteer work, homework, and everything else, (did I mention naps?) I have the worst time following up every day to make sure the chores get done.  I mean–most of the time I can’t even remember the name of the kid I’m talking to let alone remember what job they have, let alone if they’ve done it and what the punishment is if they don’t get it done.

 For now, we’ve made some new assignments and I’m working really hard on making the kids clean up their messes (assuming I can sniff out who made them).  In the past it just seemed easier to clean it up myself and in the short term, it probably is.  But if you remember, a big part of the reason I started on this little experiment/journey is to help my children be more responsible, resilient, motivated people and I’m pretty sure that me doing the work for them is going to have the opposite effect.

And so, with that in mind…I’d love to hear what you are doing.  How do you structure your chore and allowance system?  What works for you and even what hasn’t.  After all, we learn from our mistakes.

Full Disclosure

I had an aha moment today as I pondered this adventure of trying to gain control over my life/home/kids.  And what I found wasn’t pretty.  Since pictures are worth a thousand words I thought I’d show you a few:

Now, I’m sure you are all DYING to know who made those messes right?  ME!!!  I made those messes!  And I’m dang good at rationalizing those messes.  The top picture of my Cricut project run amok?  “Well that’s really Kennedy’s fault–it was her school project I was working on.  Making The Toast Launcher 3000 took up so much of my brain power I couldn’t possibly clean up the mess.”
My sewing table?  “This mess is for a good cause–bibs for less fortunate children!  And I can’t be blamed if the last time I actually sewed them was 6 weeks ago because I”M ON THE CRAZY TRAIN!”
And picture #3?  “At least 1/2 those clothes will most likely adorn my body in the next couple days.  Possibly. Besides, I’m saving precious time by storing them on the side of the tub–time I could spend sewing baby bibs!”
And therein lies the real problem at the Morgan house:  ME.  Yep–I said it and I’m owning it.  How can I expect my children to pick up their messes when I’m not picking up my own?  
Now I know what all you moms out there are thinking:  “But it’s not the same, you’re also keeping track of 6 kids and a husband.”  And they are right but you know what? I hate excuses and I’m really really good at letting myself off the hook so the buck stops here.  Or starts here?  What’s the correct term anyway?
And so Part 1 of my “From Chaos to Control” seems pretty clear.  It starts with me.  I’ve got to be the example.  And with that parting thought I’m off to uncover my bathtub.  Wish me luck.