One Down, One to Go

I finished the coupon declutter...sort of.  It's all put away and contained at least, but I really need to take some time to go through and toss the expired ones.  Sigh, another day.  For now, I'm going to TRY to simply focus on the fact that at least the clutter is hidden away a bit.  And I have enough space to put new circulars away, so the clutter should stay away for at least a little bit.  I don't have a ton if extra space, though, so tossing old coupons may quickly become a priority.  Anyway, here are my after pics:

The yellow folder on the left is where I threw all my loose coupons.  Not ideal, but at least if little hands grab it now, they won't scatter all over the floor.  Eventually I'll find homes for the binders and other things that are just sitting there, but for now, this is better than in was!

Oh, and if you were wondering all those coupons went here:

I'm thinking about getting an accordion file to hold them that way I wouldn't be chained to the filing cabinet every Wednesday when I'm clipping for grocery shopping.  It might work, but it's also another thing to buy, and I don't have the money right now.  :) Eventually I'd like to have my home all spiffy and organized in cute ways, but until I can afford that I'm trying to just plain get it organized.  In whatever ugly/functional way I can.

OYOL Week 14 and Misc. Thoughts

 I've been working since the year began to declutter my home and get rid of the excess that's just sitting around and over all I think I've been doing pretty well.  I've noticed now that some places are getting cluttered because the organization within them is not working.  For example:

This cabinet isn't bad, but I can't get to the back and it's hard to get new stuff put away.

 So I end up with things here:

 And here.  Especially on grocery days.  I eventually get them put away, but only after a good 45 mins of resorting.

Another area is my couponing.  The files are currently so full they are busting and so I haven't put any more away leaving me with this:

 This:

 And this:

I'm hoping to get one or both taken care of tomorrow for my Week 14 OYOL (decluttering).  I'll let you know how it goes!

OYOL Week 13- After

Well, we were really busy this week, so my "after" generally looks about the same, if not worse, as the "before".  One of my friends was holding a consignment sale this week and I helped out with it a lot.  Sooo, yeah, not much going on at or with the house.

I've found that I like sharing the dirty details of my home with you guys, so I've decided to post a few more.  Partially to make Brenda feel better, too :).  I'll admit that the pictures I took for the before post I tried to really focus in on the spots that give me the most trouble, so here's a view of the full, in action, version ;)...


My kitchen after grocery shopping and cooking dinner:

(Sorry for the crooked picture)

 Good news is after only ohhh, 3 hours or so I finally got it cleaned.  Not straight cleaning though, I got distracted by two little faces that wanted me to play ball with them.

How could I say no?

I've been trying really hard to keep on top of things, though.  My goal is too not let my mess go past the end of one day into the next.  So I do try to get things mostly straightened before I quit for my night and over all I've been pretty successful so far (I also don't beat myself up if it DOESN'T get done).  It's helped that I've started looking at it as just something the needs to be done (as in "it's basic maintenance that helps my house run smoothly"), not as something I have to get done (as in "bleh, I can't believe I have to do this again").  Attitude really does make all the difference.

OYOL Week 13- Before

I seem to have missed a few weeks in here... :) I guess I got sidetracked and distracted, so I'll be going back over those.  I started trying to redo my home management binder, and like a true perfectionist, it's taking a lot of my time right now.  My thought was to redo that binder and separate out the menu planning stuff into a new binder and have it all coordinate and look nice together.  In theory it sounds good, but in actuality it's not coming along very fast.  I probably need to got back to work on just getting the basics of my menu planning down and then work about making it look nice.

I've also discovered many, many new blogs about decluttering, cleaning, organizing, the whole nine yards and I've been spending a lot of time perusing those.  Lot of good ideas, but not a great use of time.  I really need to work on DOING and then pick up maybe just a few ideas at a time.  What can I say, I'm a dreamer :).

I did successfully cook big batches of two dinners.  One was a pork roast, which Kent will eat, and the other was a Black Bean Chili, which only I eat, but they have successfully been frozen and reheated without complaints, so I'm thrilled with that!

Anyway, on to Week 13.  This week we're tackling our main clutter spots.  I can tell you right now what mine are without even walking through the house.  Honestly, right now my entire living room is cluttered because I'm taking a break from tagging some outgrown kid's stuff for a consignment sale that starts Thursday (yikes, only a day and a half left!  I need to get moving!),  but overall I've been doing a fairly good job keeping the our house picked up and straightened.  These are just the spots that I can't seem to get rid of (if you follow FlyLady, these are my "hotspots").

They are:

                                         My counter next to the door we come in and out of.

 My "laundry chair".  The place where all good laundry intentions go to die.  Seriously, it's like once it's on the chair, it's good enough.  :) At least this time I've actually folded it, usually it's just a pile.  Also, you can see another of my projects behind the chair where we're trying to pick a new wall color.

                    Computer desk.  The top but the shelf under it could really be included as well.

And lastly, the laundry basket in my room.  This one just frustrates me, it's been there since we moved in last June and it's really just a catch all that sits there and I never take the time to go through it an MOVE the dern thing.  If I could get this cleared out I could actually have a mostly clear floor.

I have a few other spots that come and go depending on life at the moment, but these four are the most consistent that I deal with.  (Opps, just reread Brenda's blog and we were supposed to only pick our top three.  :) Oh well, I'm close!).  I'll work on decluttering these this week and get some "after" photos.  The tough part is that I really just need to stay on top of these spots so that they don't come back every time I turn around.

OYOL Week 10

This week for OYOL we're doing Menu Planning.  Oh, how I needed this!  I've been thinking and thinking about this all week because I certainly TRY to do this, but it just hasn't been working for me.  What I've been trying to do is sit down on Wednesday (before my shopping trip Thursday) and plan out for the week.  I have tried doing just dinner as well as doing all meals (including snacks) to try to keep us out of ruts, but nothing seemed to click.  I can do all the planning, get all the food and yet somehow something always happens to distract me.  Either my day goes crazy and we end up eating out, or we don't feel like eating what's on the schedule and we end up eating out, or Kent wants to do something nice and knows cooking is a huge job for me so we end up eating out (noticing a pattern here???).  So, obviously this isn't working and I need to come up with another way to go at this.

So here are the truths that I have to work around:

1.  Kent is super picky.... all casseroles/mixed foods are out, he won't touch them.  Oh, and he doesn't do leftovers very well.

2.  Abigail is picky but doesn't want the same things day after day ... she will eat jelly sandwiches for 4 days straight and then refuse to touch them for a few weeks.

3.  Nathan is still testing new foods for allergic reactions and is also picky ... sigh, what did I do to get all these picky people in my life?? :) Good thing I love them so much!

4.  Cooking is fun from time to time, but not one of my favorite chores (yes, I consider it on the level of mopping, something I HAVE to do) and when I'm doing it for people who are soooo picky it loses even more of it's appeal.

5.  When ever I go into the kitchen to attempt a meal, I have two little locusts swarming me the entire time. One trying to help and wanting to get a lick from everything (My fault, lol, I've let her bake too much...baking I enjoy!) and the other screaming for reasons only known to him.

Soooo, where does that leave us???  I don't know for sure, but I have two ideas that I'm playing with and will probably end up combining.  First is the once a month cooking.  I really like the idea of having everything cooked up at once and minimizing the amount of day-to-day cooking I have to do.  I found this website, Once a Month Mom, that really gives some good info on it.  The other is the idea that was posted on Brenda's Week 10 post by Reagen which is the "30 Meals Plan".  Basically you keep the ingredients on hand for your 30 go-to recipes.  Your 30 includes only those that your family loves so it's a guaranteed winner.  I'm going to start going through meals a few at a time to try to find things that everyone will eat (though, the toddler picky stage where they randomly stop eating things may make this difficult) and try to stick to ones that freeze well.  Kent said he would eat BBQ that has been in the freezer, so that's one of the first that I'll be attempting.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes :).

Oh, and for added fun, I forgot to mention that I'm trying to keep all of this relatively healthy so I don't begin to put back on the weight that I've lost so far.  Just don't tell Kent, because whenever my fried meat and potatoes man hears "healthy", he gets a little nervous :).

Weekly Schedule

I know I promised this for earlier in the week, but we've picked up another head cold around here, so my thought process has been pretty fuzzy. My routine following has been terrible as well, but I'm determined to not beat myself up about that. Hopefully tomorrow I can get back into the swing of things. If I can get the house a bit more under control tomorrow, then Monday it should be easier to dive back into my routine. We'll see...

Anyway, here's my weekly schedule, such as it is: (as always, this is my goal, not what usually ends up happening!)

Sunday- clean out the fridge (trash comes Monday), plan out my week (any lessons for Abigail, personal goals for the week)

Monday- dust, Kent's day off so generally we run errands or just spend time with Daddy

Tuesday- sweep and mop floors

Wednesday- wipe mirrors and then glass on the back doors, make menu for next week and grocery list

Thursday- change out sheets and towels, grocery shopping

Friday- vacuum rugs (our house is all tile, but we do have some area rugs that need to be done from time to time), possibly play date (try to schedule them for Fridays, but it depends on schedules)

Saturday- visit grandparents

Again, for the most part this follows FlyLady's weekly home blessing hour. I'd love to say that this is how all my weeks go, but in truth this is just an idea in my head. I don't think I've ever accomplished everything in one week, but I'm trying. If I make sure that I at least hit different things each week, then at least it will all get covered eventually, right? On the plus side, having done all this OYOL work, I'm at least beginning to get a better idea of WHY I feel like my life is crazy. I actually DO have a lot of work :) even if I am "just" a stay-at-home mom!

OYOL Week 8

Here's my daily routine. I use the FlyLady system for this (though I've put it together in a way that fits my life) so I've linked everything that goes along with her website. I have no set times on this because I just do it as I have time, but I do try to get each section done in it's part of the day. Not sure that really makes sense, but it should once you see the schedule.

AM:

Devotional

Shower & Dressed to Shoes

Eat a Good Breakfast

Clean up Kitchen (ideally in under 10 mins. I set a timer to try to get it done fast)

Brush Teeth, Hair, Makeup (if I don't do this together, I never come back to it)

Start a Load of Laundry

After Lunch:

Clean Kitchen

Put Laundry in dryer

One item from the Weekly Home Blessing List

Daily Mission

15 Min. Decluttering

Fold Laundry, Put Away

After Dinner:

Clean Kitchen

Shine Sink, Lay out new towels

Clean up Toys (with Abigail)

Exercise (I've been doing this earlier in the day, though, so I might need to move it. Also, this ideally would be an everyday thing...it's not)

PM:

Lay out clothes for tomorrow

Brush, Floss, Listerine

In bed (relaxing, not necessarily asleep) by 10

Since I'm already past my 10 o'clock time now I'll just post this and be done. I'll try to post my weekly routine (there's not much to it) tomorrow...hopefully :).

OYOL Progress Report

So, I've gotten behind on my OYOL weeks. I guess part of it is understandable, since one of the reasons I'm trying to get more organized this year is because I get sidetracked and forget/put off important things. I'm a work in progress, what can I say? Brenda and the other ladies have just begun week 8, but here's a quick run down of what I've missed.

~Week 5: Cut, Combine or Delegate (using the list we made from weeks 3 & 4)

~Week 6: Kid's Chores

~Week 7: Get a Routine on Paper

This week- week 8- Report for Duty (DO your routine)

Week 5: I never posted my detailed list, though I do have it written down. Basically I came up with a lot of things that I need to CUT. With my babies being only 3 and soon-to-be one, there's not much I can delegate to them. Hubby is currently working one full time job and volunteering part-time at a ministry, so he doesn't need anything else on his plate, either. So delegate is a no-go. Combine is one that I try to not do too much. For me personally I'm a TERRIBLE multi-tasker so I do much better when I focus on one thing at a time. One thing that I am trying to combine is my "me time" during nap time with some light cleaning. I'm thinking if I can fold laundry while listening to podcasts or music, then I'm (hopefully) refreshing myself while still being productive for my family. So, that leaves cut. Basically, I'm cutting my expectations and my impatience :). God has been teaching me over the past few months that this time of my life, while tiresome and draining, is short. The time I spend where my children rely on my for just about everything is going to be short when viewed from the end of my life, should God grant me a long one. But even if He doesn't, my kids are the job God has given me now and I need to pour everything I have into helping them grow, not rushing them to grow. So, I cutting my desire to have everything perfectly set up for an organized house and instead I'm focusing on my kids and working on organization habits little by little. I'm cutting my desire to be involved in every church ministry/home group/mom's club that comes along, in order to focus on having enough down time to relax with my children at home. I'm cutting my constant struggle to find a way to contribute financially. I know the extra income would be nice, but God has given my husband a job that provides beyond just our needs into a lot of our wants. By trying to find a way to make money from home I'm only distracting myself from my true job and honestly making more work for my overworked husband by leaving the housework undone. And lastly, I'm trying to cut the idea that everything has to happen NOW and instead just enjoying the process.

Week 6: I skipped this one. My three year old helps clean up her toys at night (when I remember to have us do it), so for now that's all I want from her. We are embarking this week upon the potty training journey (again, for like the third time. Think it's finally going to stick!) so until we get that taken care of, I don't want too many other distractions.

Week 7: I have a routine that FlyLady helped me get together and I'm going to really try to stick to it this week (starting tomorrow! Today didn't happen). I'll post it up next.

So that's my OYOL catch-up! Hopefully I can start doing this on time :).

OYOL Week 4

I have so many things that I want to write about, but I'm really having trouble getting motivated to do it. So for now, I'll stick with this :). I might get to more later...but no promises!

Anyway, Week 4 on One Year to a more Organized Life was creating a pie chart (or in my case a list) of your roles and how much time you spend in them. Once you've decided the most important down to the least, and how much time you want to spend doing them, you are to take it and use that to sort through the list from last week.

I'm not good with pie charts, I get too hung up on getting each to be a perfect representative slice, so instead I made a simple chart/list. I put each category of my life across the top and then while thinking through my average day, I put down the general time I spend doing it. We're pretty scheduled around here, so everyday that we are at home looks pretty much the same, making this fairly easy for me. Then I totaled up each column for easy comparison.

Here are the totals:

Spiritual- 0:30

Personal- 1:00

Housecleaning/Homemaking (includes preparing/cleaning meals)- 4:45

Kids- 4:25 (time solely focused on them, though I'm not sure even then it's the best quality of time as it includes diapering, getting dressed, basic hygiene, etc.)

Husband- 0:30 (again, focused solely on him and this might be lower depending on the day...I know, I know, we're working on it)

Exercise- 0:30...ish...maybe...

Time-Stealers- 4:20 to 5:20 (if Kent's not home that night and I don't exercise)

So sad to look at, but very informative. Especially the time stealers. My excuse has been that I do a lot of my TV/computer time while the kids are sleeping (my children go to bed early), but that still doesn't mean that I shouldn't make more of that time. One of the things this doesn't show is our weekend schedule of visiting extended family and going to church, but it's a pretty decent representative of our week. I definitely will be working on redeeming my time more in an attempt cut back on that wasted time.

One other surprising thing was when I split the homemaking category out a bit to see how it was divided. I discovered that I spend roughly four hours per day just making food and cleaning up from meals. No wonder I feel like it's a never ending job! That's a full quarter of my day! I also only spend about 45 minutes doing actual housecleaning as of right now (out side of cleaning the kitchen after meals). Of course, I'm working to change that, but I wanted to take an honest look at my habitual day. No wonder I feel like I can't keep up!

I'm not going to try to put percentages on each area, because, quite honestly, I'm not sure how. I am, however, going to be cutting down on the time stealers and also making sure that I keep my priorities in the proper order. That means, if there's a question of what to do the top priority always happens first. Oh and if you were wondering, here's how I ranked them:

1. God/Spiritual

2. Kent

3. Kids

4. Housecleaning/Homemaking

5. Personal (except showering, which ranks higher, lol)

6. Extended Family (not on list because isn't a daily thing)

7. Exercise

8. Hobbies (again, not daily)

Anyway, definitely want to do some tweaking. I've mentioned some of the changes, but one I failed to mention is increasing my time spent in spiritual pursuits. That one is a big one as well. I try to mix it in with the others (unfortunately, this kind of format doesn't show where things overlap very well) but it's a category that deserves more individual time as well.

Sooooo, to wrap this enormous post up, I hope this is helpful to you, it certainly was to me!

A Bit of Encouragement

I am working on my OYOL Week four assignment (I'll post about that later), but I came across an article that I think is immensely encouraging as we go through this journey. It's called 10 Things NOT Found in Proverbs 31. Hope that gives some encouragement :). I'll catch up with all other items later.

The TRUE Bare Minimum

Last post I put up what I considered to be my bare minimum amount of house work to be done each day/week. This week, my husband and two kids all ended up sick. I now know what the true bare minimum is to keep my house running (though not really presentable, I think that's where the division comes in). So here it is... laundry and keeping the dishes up to speed. That's it. As long as I kept up with those two things my family could survive because we always had plates to eat off of and we always had clean clothes to wear.

So now I'm trying to start that as my bare minimum and adding a few things at a time that would be nice to accomplish. Things that up the "presentable-ness" of my home or that make my day easier through maintenance. We'll see how it goes :).

The challenge this week (#3) was to start a list of anything and everything you'd like to accomplish on a routine basis and to write it down under the headings of weekly, monthly, yearly, etc. (You can find the post here.) I have worked on it sporadically this week and will probably continue it for a while as things pop into my head. Looking forward to what the assignment is for next week now that I can actually focus on something other than pure and basic survival!

Taking the Plunge

My good friend Jackie recently posted about her goal to get more organized this year. As this is my neverending quest I read her post with great interest. The concept is "One Year to a more Organized Life" a weekly challenge/guide directed by Brenda over at her blog Unsolicited Advice. (I realize that's a lot of links in just three sentences, but I wanted to give credit where it's due!) As they are already three weeks in, I'm a little behind, but I'll make it up here.

I hesitated at first to join in with this as I'm already trying to follow FlyLady's system of babysteps and I didn't want to add too much to my plate, but having looked through the ladies who are also doing this, I really felt like this is a group of like minded moms that live in the chaos that I live in. I looked through the links of all the other ladies (lol, stalker much, I know) and if you're looking for someone to understand that you didn't get things done because your kid puked all over the floor (again!) or you baby woke up screaming and kept you up for hours so you're exhausted (for the third-fiftieth night in a row) or you can't find the funky smell because it's coming from your laundry pile (mountain!), then this is the group for you. I've come home :).

With that being said here are the first two week's assignments (I'll do the third next time after I actually do the worksheet):

#1 My Purpose(s):

To get my house running smoothly so that...

~drop in visits won't stress me out

~my children will no longer live in dirt and clutter

~my husband can come home to a tidy house and happy--well, peaceful--wife

~I have time to do things OTHER than barely keeping the house tolerable (including but not limited to: spending more quality time with God, my husband, my kids; reading (wait-what's a book?) or other hobbies; exercising and taking care of myself, etc.)

This a a general list, the main catalyst being, as many of the other ladies mentioned that I have realized that I am just not being a good steward of my time. I spend so much time running around putting out fires and looking for whatever it is we have lost (again!) that I waste precious time that I could be spending with my husband or children or using to minister to those around me. Most days we spend in crisis mode where I run from one HAVE to get done item to the next. I want to be rid of crisis mode. That is my goal. It's hard to be intentional with your day when you're in crisis. This leads us to assignment #2...

#2 The Bare MINIMUM (so hard to just leave it at that!)

Daily Do or Die:

~Fit in some prayer time (so sad to have to include this...I'm good about getting my Bible reading in, but prayer is a different story)

~Laundry! (Wash AND fold AND put away)

~Clean dishes out of sink after each meal (or before bed at the worst)

~Clean up toys before Abigail's bedtime (keeps chaos to a minimum in case of surprise drops ins)

~Not just brush, but floss and Listerine, too (I tend to get cavities otherwise...) oh, and TWICE a day

~Ready for bed (i.e. computer off, teeth/mouth done, clothes ready for tomorrow) by ten (gives me a time limit so I'm then forced to have time to unwind)

~30 mins. of FlyLady cleaning (this is where I'm trying to tie FlyLady in...in case of emergency, this will be the first to be dropped)

Weekly Do or Die:

~Wed: Grocery List

Somewhere on there exercise needs to be fit in. I don't know where yet, but the importance of taking care of my health has been brought home to me the last few years and so it is becoming something that I'm trying to remember is important enough to go on the "do or die" list.

Well, that was a monster post... I apologize for the length, but now that I'm caught up, the next ones should be shorter. If you are searching for a way to get organized I hope you'll join us!