Organization . . . In Baby Steps

I can organize . . . at work, I am very good at organizing and keeping things organized.  At home, not so much!  I would love for my house to be organized and tidy all the time but I don't think that will ever happen.  I just don't have the time or energy to have a "perfect" house.

But something has got to be done because not only is it not a "perfect" house, it has become an absolute disaster.  Not quite sure when the tornado went through, but it did and the results are not pretty.  Every room seems to be overflowing with unorganized piles of stuff.  And it makes me want to scream or cry or sometimes even both.

It is so overwhelming, that I don't even know where to start.  So, I just don't.  I started trying to organize our back room in the fall, got overwhelmed and quit.  I haven't touched it in months and it is worse than ever.  

So, I've come up with a new strategy.  Instead of trying to tackle a whole room, I am just going to pick one job at a time.  I am going to organize my house in baby steps.

Over the Christmas holidays, I took the "in with the new, out with the old", philosophy, getting rid of anything that could be replaced with the new Christmas items.  Three boxes of stuff are ready to be delivered to New Moon Rabbit Rescue for their spring garage sale.  Good bye baby toys, hello toddler toys!

I've also organized my recipe box.  Now, I know this probably sounds like a quick, easy job, but it wasn't!  

I didn't want this anymore!

I spent hours sorting and rewriting recipes from scraps of paper on to proper index cards.  So that it could look like this!

So much better!!

In the grand scheme of things, it is a little thing, but it has brought a glimmer of organization back into my kitchen and some motivation to keep going!

Last weekend, I decided to organize my spices.  I bought a lazy susan type spice rack when we moved into the house eight years ago.  It was a nice spice rack.  I really liked it at the time.  But not anymore.  Now, it had become a counter top dust collector.  And my spices had long since outgrown the rack and were now taking up space in two different cupboards as well.

The spice rack dust collector!

A mess of spices in the pantry.

Another unorganized mess of spices in the cupboard above the stove.

So, everything came out onto the counter.

YIKES!

Once it was all on the counter, I had no choice but to continue.  Everything got organized, containers got filled and labeled.  Then, it all got nicely placed into a drawer.  There was lots of garbage.  There was lots of mess.  There was lots of sneezing.  But I am so happy with the results!

My new spice drawer!

And I am still motivated to keep going.  I'm not sure what I will tackle next . . . more kitchen cupboards?  My desk in the back room?  My bedroom closet?  The bathroom closet?  The possibilities are endless but I will keep taking organizational baby steps through my house.

Cleaning and Organizing

My house is a mess.  There are piles of stuff everywhere.  And as much as I try to deny it when Henry complains, much of it is mine.  It is time to do something about it.  It is time to get organized.  It is time to get rid of the stuff we don't need or use.  And once it is cleaned and organized, I need to figure out how to keep it that way.

Last night I spent an hour trying to clean off my desk.

I found an entire box of paper items to recycle that were just taking up space and collecting dust.  (Seriously, I think my current city councillor has killed an entire forest of trees with all the fliers and crap he has sent out.  It is utterly ridiculous!  Sending me the same information twenty times isn't going to make me more likely to vote for you!)  

Although it isn't prefect, it is much better than it was!  Tonight, I will tackle the file holder on top of the desk and the bulletin board on the wall.  Hopefully I will soon have time to tackle the drawers and the two shelves on either side of it.  

I want to be able to write more.  But I need a useable work space and my desk was anything but useable!

I want to be able to get back into scrap booking and card making this winter.  But I need to sort and organize my supplies, which are stored in the same disastrous room as my desk.

I have been saying for days, weeks, even months that I am going to get this room cleaned up and organized.  And it just hasn't happened.  I thought that blogging about it might give me the motivation needed to actually do something about it.

I know that I am not going to get it done tonight or even this weekend, it is going to take time to get everything sorted and organized.  (There are two large book shelves, two trunks and a whole bunch of other crap in the room as well!)  But I know that if I really try, I can do this.  I just cleaned and reorganized Liam's room after we painted it and it looks so much better.  I want need to do the same with the rest of my house.  So, I will start with this "back room" and hopefully work my way through the entire house over then next little while.  If we're not going to use it, it's GONE!

Please wish me luck!  Send me encouragement (wine and chocolate work well!) and don't laugh at me too much as I complain my way through this larger than life task!  And if I do go completely crazy in the process, please do visit me in the insane asylum.  (Really, I know that sooner or later someone will reopen an insane asylum.  Probably specifically for me!

What else are they going to do with me when this life drives me stark raving mad?  I know counseling won't be enough.  A regular hospital psychiatric ward might be fine for a short time, but when I go insane, I plan to be completely, fucking nuts, you know to the point where I am too crazy to know that I am insane but still sane enough to know that I'm not normal.  Although, maybe I am already there, because I am pretty sure that makes absolutely no sense.  

And I think that this post as digressed to the point where I am wasting both my time and yours!  

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to clean and organize I go . . . hopefully I will survive the massive amounts of stuff and dust!

When is my Weekend?

"The weekend -- one or two days, typically Saturday and Sunday -- is a time during which most paid workers do not work. This is a time for leisure and recreation, or for religious activities. There is substantially less activity on many websites on weekends."  (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/weekend)


That does not at all sound like my weekends . . . how about yours?  I no longer get to sleep late on weekends, unless 6:30 am counts as sleeping in.  I spend my days cleaning and organizing the house, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and whatever else I didn't have the time or energy for during the week . . . all in between looking after a one year old.


Gone are the days when I could just tell hubby that I was going out shopping and go with out any worries. Gone are the days when I can go out for a girls night.  Gone are the days when I can do anything without planning ahead and packing a diaper bag complete with snacks and sippy cups.  Gone are the days when the weekend is, like the definition states, a time for leisure and recreation . . . the weekend is now the time for my "other job" the one without a pay cheque!


Side note . . . as proof of how busy my weekend days can be, I started writing this post at about 8:00 am and am not posting it at almost 5:40 pm.