Lists, Schedules and Routines

I am fascinated by organized people.  I want to be someone who is organized and maybe someone who has a clean house.  Since cleaning out my closet last week and re-organizing a few cupboards.  I have started reading more and more organizing blogs.

The pictures are so beautiful and neat.  I love all the neat baskets and clean spaces.  I have always enjoyed clutter and feel that it is also a part of who I am.  But now I am wondering if that is really true?  Could I be one of those people who has a spot for everything? 

As I am typing and thinking about what I want my house and life to be like.  The clutter doesn't really bother me but it what is bothersome is that it doesn't just stop at too many nicknacks.  I can handle nicknacks, but what bugs me and eventually overwhelms me is the amount of stuff that just becomes a huge mess. 

Mess is what overwhems me and weighs me down.  It also exhausts me and I get to the point where having people over is stressful and I don't invite people over.  I love having people over and it is a shame that I let a messy house take that away.

I am going to try and follow the steps on I'm an Organizing Junkie each week and from reading Shannon's blog and a few others....I am going to attempt to set up a House book.  With routines and schedules and lists...Oh My!  Now I must admit I am excellent at making all that stuff up and I love it.  The hard part is sticking to it. 

Closet

I didn't get to my closet on Friday but I did reorganize some of my kitchen cupboards and hutch.  I had been storing all our craft supplies in my lazy susan.  I liked that cupboard because for the longest time the girls couldn't open it, well now they can and we have so much stuff that it is a huge mess.  I moved some of my entertaining dishes around in my hutch and found that there was lots of room for the crafts supplies and I could lock it up too. 

Today I did my closet.  My closet wasn't really bad as far as being organized but it was over run with clothes that either didn't fit or I didn't like.  I now have three garbage bags full of clothes to give to the Thrift store.  The next goal on my organizing check list is to actually take the clothes there this month!

Organizing

My friend Shannon introduced me to this blog I'm an Organizing junkie.  It has only been a few days but so far I am enjoying it.  I have been doing a lot more organizing lately because of Tupperware and I have really fallen in love with it.  Let me explain...I really have no sense of organization, it has to simple and easy for me to do it and get it right.  I once organized my mother's cupboards, and I labled the shelves.  I thought I was doing a great job until my Mom came and looked and laughed at me.  I had labled 3 of the shelves other.  She still tells that story. 

So I have re-organized a few of my kitchen cupboards and I have fallen in love with nice clean cupboards. 

They went from this:

To This:

Since becoming a stay at home mom, I have found that a messy house really weighs on me and it affects my mood.  I hate having a messy house but I still hate having to clean it.  But I do find the organizing I do to help with the cleaning.

I actually organized the girls toys and put pictures of everything so that they could put the stuff away.  They still like to just dump the containers but one day....

So the reason I started this post was because I have been bitten by the organizing bug and I am going to follow along as much as I can with Shannon and I'm an organizing junkie.  It will be interesting to see how I can minimize clutter or at least make it look pretty.

My hope is that I will become a great organizer so that I will have a cleaner house or at least one that takes less time to clean.  Seriously, I won't invite people over if my house is messy and I get stressed before people come to the point of wanting to cancel.  But on the other hand I often need that motivation and enjoy the house afterwards.

For today - my closet!  I wonder if Mike will let me do his...



Guest Post

I wrote another post for Get Fit Chicks.  Check it out here  http://www.getfitchicks.com/index.php/2011/02/guest-post-letting-yourself-go/