A sliver and putting things away

I have an onion sliver.  I had no idea it was possible to get an onion sliver, but as I was peeling the outer layers off the onion, I brushed across the root end, and came up with a painful something stuck in my finger.  I can't seem to get it out and it's hard to see.  It really hurts, so watch out.  You never know what your onion has in store for you.  All this time I thought they were after my eyes...
Anyway, on to the point of this here post...

As part of my goal this year, to have a place for everything, I have a smaller goal to help me get there.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could just spend a few days (or weeks) getting everything in order and nice and clean and be done for good?  Well, we can't.  :)  At least, I can't.

It would be a lot more fun to clean if I felt like things would actually stay that way.  Unfortunately, I live here, so things will just get messy due to that little fact.  Add on to that, I have kids, and the baby has suddenly decided that nothing can stay on any shelf anywhere.  She dutifully makes the rounds in the house, removing anything that we dare to put away.  How I wish it somehow went the other way.  It would be so lovely to have a child that finds joy in putting thing back on the shelf.  I guess I can give her a year or two to develop that attribute.

I have noticed through the past weeks, that I have a funny habit of not completely putting things away.  While cleaning my desk, for example, I will find something that belongs in the kitchen, so I walk in there and set the item on the counter and then return to the desk.  Why don't I just walk the extra three steps and open a drawer to put it completely away?  I don't know why, but it came to my attention when I noticed that my kids' idea of "away" was stacking things on top of my counters, or desk, or table, or whatever.

Putting things all the way away could make a huge difference in the feel of my home.  This is something that I can change, but it seriously takes a conscious effort.  Hopefully, as I work at this little goal, it will become natural and a habit.  We'll see.

Tonight is the perfect time to practice.  As I write, the table is still covered with the remains of our dinner, the floor is covered with toys and books.   The kitchen is a disaster with groceries needing to be put away and dinner dishes waiting to be washed.

Planner update...needs improvement

I'm going to try the full page variety of planner page for a few weeks.  We'll see if I like it enough to keep going.  I already have a few changes in mind for the page, so I'm glad I didn't print out 52 of these.

  For some reason the lines aren't showing up, but there are lines on that page.  I made them a little lighter so I could feel more free to scribble.  I thought I would really like having my planner right there in my notebook, but I haven't really used it in there.  I did do my meal plan and originally my thought was to take the page with me to the store, but I think that takes too much thought.  I found myself at the store yesterday, without my list.  No good.

Part of the problem is that my desk is too crowded.  I've been organizing different parts of the house, so my desk has been neglected and abused, becoming the dumping ground for items that I found during the organizing that need to find new homes.  The things that actually live on the desk have been smothered by the homeless, causing a bit of a mess.  Among the craziness is the camcorder (recently found), a stack of burnable c.d.s, the thermometer that was used often last weekend on baby, son and husband, a dry erase marker, last year's Father's Day card (husband doesn't know what to do with cards, it's not his thing), the camera and the camera case (sitting side by side so they can take up twice as much space), an old planner, a disk with cider press plans on it, a dictionary (found and needed for the ongoing scrabble games with husband, just needs a good home), a seed catalog, two books I made for Christmas, and the scrapbook from our wedding that I had been looking for and wanted to show the kids.  Oh, and the sewing machine is still here too, I don't notice it anymore.   That's how long it's been here.

If all this was cleaned, organized, and given homes, there would be room to actually set my notebook down and open it.  Today, I will make room and see if that helps the planner situation.  If not, I'll be going back to the smaller, more mobile variety, or I'll put dates on a little spiral notebook and use that.

The Planner Dilemma

Do you have a planner or calendar that you love?  Maybe I'm just hard to please, but I can never find a planner that I really like.    I had one of those leather planners when I was in high school and starting college, but it became just a large checkbook holder, as I never actually opened it to use anything else.  During college, I found that a spiral notebook was my best organizational tool.  I could scribble to do lists, copy recipes, jot down addresses or phone numbers all on one page.  It was everything I needed, well, except for the dates.  It was definitely difficult to plan ahead, but I was a college student.  What did I need to plan ahead for?

Then I got engaged and had a wedding to plan.  Suddenly, I needed to know what date it would be two months from Tuesday.  I had to find a planner, and I found the perfect one.  It was basically a half sized spiral notebook, but it included dates, imagine that.  Plenty of room for my scribbles, but it kept me organized.  It was on sale, since the year was already halfway over and I've never found one like it again. 

In my quest to find the perfect planner, I have seen all sorts of varieties.  None of them inspire me. Does that sound funny?  To be inspired by a planner?  I have to be though, or it will become my coaster instead of my planner.  I have to feel like opening it for it to work.  I do not need a planner that lists every hour of the day.  I just can't schedule my days like that, or I get uptight and then depressed when I don't accomplish things the way I scheduled it.  I like the page to contain a whole week.  That way, I can write my weekly to do list right there.  I'm awfully structured in my planner needs for being so unstructured, aren't I?

Last year, around this time, I was getting very frustrated.  I needed a planner, but hadn't found one to suit me.  Finally, I decided to make my own, and I did.  I liked it, I have some improvements in mind, but I like being able to personalize it for exactly what I need.  That planner had the week on one side, and then lines on the other side.  It was basically a book made of folded letter size paper, held together by string threaded through two small holes punched in the spine. 

Now, it's a new year and I am in need of yet another planner.  I'm trying to decide if I should do a full sized paper and keep them in my household notebook, or if I should play with the half sized format again.  I do want to add a spot for meal planning and a grocery list, but if I get too structured and crowded, I won't be able to use it.  I have to have space to scribble and sketch my crazy ideas.  Maybe I'll add a little picture too.  Something inspirational, or a reminder of what I was doing last year at this time.  I'd better get on it though, or I'll be stuck using my spiral notebook again.

Stranger Danger and Getting Organized

It was the other night, the door was locked, we checked on the kids, all was well as I lay down to sleep.  And then, a feeling of un-ease hit me.  A feeling that something bad could or would happen soon.  I knew that all was well in our little home, but I just couldn't shake the feeling.

Now, I'm an impressionable type.  Annoying commercial jingles, or songs from kid shows stick in my head for days.  My active imagination keeps books or shows playing in my head for hours after I watch or read.  I definitely can't watch horror shows, or I don't sleep at all.  I just lay in bed wishing that the bathroom wasn't so far down the hall.  I quit watching crime dramas a few years ago because I couldn't sleep just thinking about all the horrible things that could happen to me or my kids someday.

This wasn't like any of those things.  There was nothing specific on my mind.  I still don't know what it was all about, but as I lay there thinking, I realized that since moving to town, we haven't really emphasized safety to our kids, other than wearing helmets and looking both ways when crossing the street.  My kids are used to being surrounded by family and friends.  They don't know to fear strangers.  So, I decided to have a talk with them.  I hate painting such a horrible light on persons that we don't even know, but I know that my son will happily talk to anyone that will listen and my daughter is a sucker for candy.  They can be social with strangers when they are all grown up, but for now, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I still don't know what that feeling was about, but I feel better knowing that my children know how to stay safe.  It was a good little chat. 

Then, we organized!  My awesome husband was still out of school this week, so we've actually been getting things done.  He single handed-ly tackled the main storage closet that held the most mystery boxes and was the biggest mess.  There is now room in there to store the annoying tubs of baby stuff that have been on our closet floor, and still more room for my sewing machine.  There's still room to spare! 

While he did that, I worked on the boxes in our room and it's almost done.  I confess that there is still one box hidden behind my rocking chair that holds those papers I was working on and a few other things that I just didn't have the patience to go through, but it's down to one box!  Okay... I still have stacks of books to find a home for.  If only we had a book shelf... If only we had room for a bookshelf.  So far, their  home is on the shelves where a normal person would store their shoes.  Thankfully, I'm not a shoe person.

Next up is the pantry!

A New Organized Year?

"Cleaning the house while the children are growing is like shoveling snow while it is still snowing."

I thing that's how that saying goes and it captures my feelings pretty well.   I feel like I've been trying to swim upstream for the last few days, and I can't swim. -Really, I  can't.  Dead-man's float is my specialty.  I think we finally got our house back into tolerable order.  It always takes me about a week to completely recover from a long trip.  I feel like I've done nothing but laundry for four days.  Our Christmas was not huge, but it's been challenging to find homes for everything, which has lead me to my goal for this week, month, or year.  I'm not sure how long it will take me. 

I like order.  I want things to be organized because I function so much better that way.  Unfortunately, I am also a pack-rat.  I come by it honestly, just stop by my mom's basement.  I decided, after pulling everything out of that basement due to last spring's flood, that I would de-clutter and organize my things.

Then, we moved, and things were stuffed into boxes and baskets to be gone through later.  These things were stuffed into closets when we moved in to get them out of the way.  Now, we have no storage for the important things and the house feels small and cluttered.   My children are picking up on my ways.  They seem to think that cleaning means to redistribute the mess to different places.  Their room keeps getting smaller due to the cluttered corners growing larger. 

So, I decided that my main goal for 2011 will be to find a home for everything in this house.  That means I have to get tough and go through things and possibly get rid of a lot of things.   Mostly, though,  I just need to actually go through boxes and consolidate things together.  All my craft stuff can have one shelf, while my husbands tools can have another. 

I know this sounds so simple, but trying to do this with my kids at home makes things tough.  I finally started sorting through the piles of papers that have been stashed in various places yesterday.  I had a full head of steam and I was determined to get this one thing done.  Then, with piles of papers spread all over the living room floor, the baby woke up from her nap, so I had to hurry and put things away before she disorganized my newly organized piles.  Maybe today, I'll finish it all the way.  I also organized my notebook and my desk.  Just those things make me breath a bit easier.

Other steps to accomplish this goal include:

Print recipes from computer and organize recipe notebook

Go through pantry and pull out mystery boxes stashed in there

     -empty boxes, get rid of unwanted stuff, find homes for keepers

Go through storage closet and pull out mystery boxes

     -sort, organize things, then organize closet

Find a place to store extra hats and gloves, etc, where we can use them

Go through mystery boxes in my bedroom, sort, organize, etc.

Same for the water softener closet, pull everything out, sort, organize

Help kids find homes for all their things.  Maybe take pictures, so they can remember how things should go?

Sort through baby clothes, get too small put away, get out next size.

Help older kids sort through drawers and get out too small and summer clothes.

Okay that list doesn't look all that long, but it's probably going to take me forever.  I'd better go get started!

Fighting chaos

I haven't written anything in a while. We moved. And life is absolute chaos. Seriously.
We have lived with my parents for the past two years. TWO YEARS. We get along with my parents and they were not there all that much: all in all, it went well. But, my mom's house is full of STUFF. It's not all her fault, though. My parents have six kids and each of us has left things under beds, hanging in closets and stuffed into dressers as we moved on in our lives. She's too nice to just toss it all, so add all that STUFF together, and you have a full house. We squeezed the bare minimum of our things and ourselves into that house. It was only supposed to be for a few months. A year and a half later, we added a baby and all the STUFF that comes with them. It was a tight fit, so I'm very happy to be in our own place and glad that we have our belongings out of storage.
The chaos, though, is a result from my STUFF. After my experience these past two years, I decided to really get tough and get rid of all the unnecessary junk in my life. Unfortunately, I only have so much time to go through things. I have boxes to be gone through under my desk, next to my bed, shoved in shelves and closets... it's everywhere. It's going to drive me crazy, I think. It's hard knowing where to start. If I could get through everything in the closets, then I could actually store things in there that I want to keep, and that would bring peace to the house. If I start under the desk, I'll be going through papers for the next week, but it would make life here much more pleasant, and I just might find that box of checks that I need. The boxes near my bed need to go, but that will require my going through clothing and I'll have to decide what's worth hanging on to for the baby to grow in to and what can be donated. Then there are my many projects in different stages of creation. They need a home... the closet maybe?
So that's where I've been and where I will be for a while. Trying to tame this beast called STUFF!

When it rains, it pours and when it floods...

What a day. The result of April and May's wintery weather and then the unseasonably warm weather this week? High water. Way higher than usual. The last time it flooded like this was 1983 when I was just 3 years old. We spent the day yesterday pulling tons of stuff out of my mom's basement and then trying to get the water cleaned out. It was mostly dry this morning, until the water level rose again. Here are some pictures from yesterday, but the water is even higher today.

He doesn't have to stand in water, he just is.

The road to a sister's house.

The mares and foals.

We had to dig a trench in the road to relieve pressure on the bridge. It washed out today anyway.

Our yard. The kids are having a great time.
Yesterday was a really rough day, and it's still not over, but I did learn some things. First of all, de-clutter. I've always heard the statement "if there was a fire, what would you save?..." I would change that to, "If there was a flood, what would you not want to drag out of the house, soaking wet?" Second, have an emergency plan. I was so overwhelmed, I had no idea where to start working. As a result, several old blankets are safe and sound, but some of my food storage is ruined. I cried about that. And last, it takes a humble person to allow neighbors to go through your horribly unorganized and overcrowded basement. I was mortified when a few ladies showed up to help. I desperately needed the help, but it was so embarrassing to let them see the absolute messiest part of the house.
Well, I'm off to pump water out again.