Happy New Years! Its "Do Over time!!!"

So I have been thinking alot about all this resolution stuff I hear going around, and I for one have never really made any solid commitments one way or another on New Years day for doing or not doing anything in particular.. Did you catch that? I hope you did because I think I just confused myself! Basically what this means is I am to chicken to say or commit to something I may regret or break later, so I decided to commit to not making any resolutions I don't think I can keep. Does this mean I will make any resolutions? No, I will not, because as sure as I am that the sun will rise I am sure that as soon as I say I will or wont do something I'm gonna do or not do it. You may be lost by now, if so go back and read it again. I had to read it twice just to make sure I am making some sort of sense. If you are not lost, good for you please take a moment an explain it to us.
In lue of making "resolutions" per say, I have decided that I am going to call this my "Do Over List". Please feel free to use this term as your own. Here are some things I would like to "Do Over" this year:

Decluttering My House:
This is a very big one for me as I am a consummate collector of all things, which results in massive amounts of clutter. I tried some "decluttering" techniques last year and some of it went well, and some of it wasnt so great, therefore decluttering will be on my "Do Over List". I have huge amounts of "stuff" to go through and will depend on the Lord to help me be brutal with clutter.

Organizing my desk area:
This is a constant battle and no matter how many times I say Im going to clean it up it never gets done very well. I suppose I could blame it on the kids and the husband, but that wont fix the problem. Being totally un-organized is a sure sign of insanity, and insanity defined is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. With this in mind I will attempt a new organizational plan..not sure what it is yet, but will give whatever it happens to be a shot.

Husband Attention Time:
This is something I have had alot of trouble with recently, like say for the past couple years. It seems as though I always have time for everything BUT my husband, which should not be. Since I am homeschooling, a good part of the day consists of dealing with the inevitable " Mom, what do I do here?" questions, which is probably the bulk of the time I spend going from child to child. The other thing that tends to take my time and sap my energy is cleaning the house, or coercing the kids to do it, whatever the case may be. My husband needs to have my undivided, non-resentful attention occasionally so this is something I will be "doing Over" during the day. Pray for me.

Servant Hearted:
I really need to work on this, as I am learning I am not as Servant Hearted as I had originally thought I was. Oh I have no problem giving things, but try and volunteer me for something, watch it, your going to get hurt. This year I would like to try to serve my family and friends a bit better than I have, and not be so...so...mean, for lack of a better word, when my husband or a friend "accidentally" volunteers me for something I don't really want to do. Please pray for me..again.

I am sure if I sat and thought about it I could come up with some more things to "Do Over" this year, but I wouldn't want to overwhelm myself, or you with all the prayer requests I would be needing. By the way, I started up my Craft Business again, which without the help and prodding of my daughter,  would not have gotten done, so if you don't mind, you can pray about that also:)

Happy New Years!

A Change Of Pace....

The week before last, the children started resisting our typical homeschool day, with groans and feet dragging. This year has been going so well, that it took me slightly by surprise that they would suddenly begin to debate the usefulness of Fractions and Vocabulary and Bible Study. By the end of that particular week, I was frustrated and so were they, so I , in my infinite wisdom, decided without any forewarning, to "do something different". I thought about it all weekend, talked about it with several people and came up with a plan to make the little twirps "grateful" for all those worksheets and spelling tests. Little did I know,  by the end of this school week,  "I" would be even more grateful then they were.

The week started out typical enough, with our usual Bible study time, and after that,  there was little resemblance to worksheets or your normal school type of work. Monday we did "Property Management and Design" this is a fancy  name for splitting wood and stacking it. Talk about hard work! I must be really out of shape because by the time we were done I was ready to take a nap...I suddenly had a little bit more compassion for my kids who have to stack wood and my husband who has to split it. I'm typically wandering around talking about how much I do, however its not near as physically draining as carrying and stacking wood. Good thing I have teenage boys to help out. 

On Tuesday we learned about " Wild Game Processing and packaging" that stands for cutting up the elk and putting it in the fridge. It can also be Home Economics, but for my purposes I wanted a more professional term. We only process wild game once a year, unless I can talk my husband into taking it to the Banderobs, and usually it is a deer, so its really hard to remember how to cut them up. After many many hours of cutting, wrapping, hand cramps, back aches, and tears we FINALLY finished. That was the LONGEST school day ever, and not one I would like to repeat anytime soon. 

The rest of the week was a little more mellow, we learned "organizational skills"(that means we cleaned the house), they learned the art of "Laving" ( that means laundry), and then on test day, which is usually a Friday , we continued practicing what we had learned that week.

The whole week I was hoping I would make the kids more grateful for our typical homeschool day and I don't know if I accomplished that, but  I DO know that I am more grateful for it and will do alot less whining about it in the future, hopefully they will to. By the end of the week I was totally exhausted and absolutely thrilled to have just gotten through it. Im not so sure we will do that again for a while, even though I know it was very good for us to be able to accomplish what we did. For now though, if you know of any big extravagant terms for things you would call chores, let me know, Im always on the lookout for suggestions

Once Upon a Time.....

These words are the beginning of your typical fairy tale. Well my week was anything but a nice sweet fairy tale. This is life, no one said it would be easy, at least for me. Everywhere I turn there seems to be some sort of struggle over any number of things. I spent the majority of my weekend upset and angry, and not getting any sleep. I didn't want to be angry, but I was, and it was a real struggle. I also had a yard sale this weekend, so you can add tired onto the list. On the second day of my yard sale, I wasn't feeling well, so I sat in my vehicle the whole time, only occasionally crawling out to visit with someone who had stopped. This week didn't start out much better. Monday had its own troubles and today has started out that way, (I don't think I want to do the checkbook or bills anymore) so the tone has been set. Tuesday was actually very productive as I was able to have the whole day to organize my office space. It is now nice and neat and you can see the floor! As always though, I managed to forget to do something. I must have early onset Alzheimers, as sometimes I cant seem to remember to do the smallest things, like take out something for dinner.
On the blessing side of things, I'm not angry anymore so I am getting much more sleep, and with the sleep and rest, I'm not as tired, and I feel better. Another blessing, I have a checkbook that I can mess up, some people don't have one right now. I have a house that can get messed up and cleaned, another thing some people don't have right now, and I have a fridge that has food in it that I can forget to take out for dinner.
All in all comparatively speaking, I have a great life, a great husband, and a great family. I should remember my blessings instead of complaining about my struggles, which are many. I am hoping that this week will get better somewhere along the way, after all there is only 2 more days to it. Maybe I should go take something out of the freezer for dinner, then get some laundry started, then get my living room straight. All the school books (and most of the other books in the house) are on the living room floor and stacks. I managed to get most of it sorted on Sunday, but when I went and cleaned the office/computer space yesterday, I found a bunch of things I forgot I had, things my children will wish I never found I'm sure.
I think that we will be ready to start school next week, hopefully. I am feeling excitement and dread all at the same time. Excitement, because we are starting a new year, dread because I know my kids will most likely give me a hard time. Our homeschool life is never easy. There is always some sort of struggle going on the whole time. No matter how prepared I am, there always seems to be something. The blessing side of this, I live in a country where I can still homeschool my kids, some people do not have that option.
This is my reality, even though my life doesn't always seem as pretty as someone else's , Jesus still loves me and my family, even if we don't have the perfect home, the perfect homeschool, the perfect menu plan, God has the perfect plan for us, always.

Now we are getting somewhere.

After having a couple rough days with no motivation, I got back into the swing of things yesterday by finishing up my closet, clothes and room for the most part. I still have my containers stacked everywhere, because I cant really put them in the attic as its not clean yet. I was up there the other day and for some reason it seemed worse then before. I think when you are un-motivated everything looks worse than it is. Unfortunately it is still to hot up there during the day to do any real work so I spent the rest of the day yesterday trying to get a walking path in my living room and finally succeeded and was able to get dinner done, the kitchen clean and my bathroom clean. Thank goodness for grilled cheese sandwiches, Im not sure I had energy left for anything else!
I can now get to my pile of yard sale items and get them over to my storage shed, and I have enough stuff to have a sizable yard sale this next Friday and Saturday also. I have to make sure that when I am done I am willing to take whatever is left to the thrift store and resist the urge to put it back in the storage and have another one.(BTW I have gobs and gobs of childrens books so I am willing to let my friends get first chance at picking some up before the yard sale)
So I have the girls pink and red totes stacked by their bedroom door and the boys blue totes against the wall in their room for easy sorting. Everyone now has a memorabilia box for things they do not have hanging on their walls, but want to keep. I think that was the funnest part of this, getting to see things Ive kept for sentimental reasons, but its still mostly birthday cards.

The overly stuffed hall closet.

My next project for today is working on my hall closets. They are so stuffed, sometimes I cant even get the doors shut! I have no idea whats even in there. When I open the door it all usually falls into a pile on the ground and I have to push it all back in. That can not be good for the door hinges I'm sure. And that's only the small closet. I want to bring my new dryer home so the laundry closet needs some work to. It has everything in it but laundry stuff.  I have actually worked on it a couple times, but it one of those things that I had to many projects going at once and it didn't get all the way done. Some advice I received recently was to pick one thing at a time and finish it before you start something else, but like my husband says, women are like spaghetti, they are all over the place :)

The laundry room closet

 Now that I have my projects picked, I need to finish my coffee, get dressed, get the kids up, and make a decision that this is what Im going to finish today. The fact that I really really want my dryer over here should help me with getting the laundry closet done sometime today, but if I don't get it all done, that will be okay to, I cant expect to be completely organized in just one week when it took years to get this way. But like my life with Jesus, I am a work in progress, not completed until he takes me home. I hope it doesn't take that long to finish my house.

Let the games begin.....

As with any project you need a place to begin, soooo I decided that my room would be the start point as it didn't really seem fair to be harassing the kids about cleaning their rooms if mine was a wreck. I got out my handy dandy 18 gallon tote containers and went to work. Starting with my dresser, I proceeded to start sorting clothing that I hadn't seen in a while and found some things I didn't realize I had. I was in awe. I had been looking for shorts in my drawers (which are usually crammed to the top and overflowing so that I can't get them shut) and I found like 5 pairs! To bad summer is almost over, those would have been nice to have when the weather was warmer. The other thing I found was that I couldn't fit in most of it anymore. This is due to me not being able to find them for so long I'm sure. Being the clothing fanatic that I am, I decided if it didn't fit me then it might fit my girls next year, thus allowing me to not have to get rid of it! I promptly labeled another container "Girls Summer Clothes 2011", and began filling it. I did manage to let go of some things but only after determining that the girls wouldn't wear it and I couldn't ever fit in it again.

clothes that don't fit anymore that were to cute to get rid of.

I think my friend would be proud of the sacrifices I am making. This is rough stuff,  I dont know how I will get through it, as I can hardly bare to give things up. But alas I will survive ! I have been assured that I will feel much lighter when I am done. I know this is true because when I finished my dresser I could actually shut the drawers! After my dresser, which was hard enough, I started on my closet. I wish I would've remembered to get before and after pictures. The closet was even harder than the drawers. I couldn't believe all the things I couldnt fit in anymore. There were so many clothes in it, like my dresser, I found things I hadn't seen in a long long time. Im only supposed to be packing and sorting winter type clothing, but 3/4 of my hanging clothes didn't fit me anymore so I figured I would pack them to. Again, I looked for anything the girls might like for summer next year, and then I packed all the clothes they might like to have 10 years from now in a separate container that I have yet to label! I didn't have to get rid of but 1 or 2 things that time! By the way, color coordinating by season went out the window, its now blue and orange for boys and pink and red for girls, unfortunately the green ones were out of stock.

Stack of yard sale items

I am actually finished with the closet for the most part, I decided not to pack winter sweaters as I have them on a shelf out of the way, but will instead just sort them into things to give the girls for winter, and things to put in my yard sale stacks (which seems to be getting bigger and bigger as the days go by). I'm thinking that by the time I get through packing all the winter type clothing, ( I still have all the kids rooms and the attic to sort) it will almost be time to unpack it and start packing summer clothes. At least I will have a good start on next year and then I can move onto a different project. I think it will probably be the desk area next, as I cant seem to find anything anymore, and when I cant find it there is a definite problem. I think I might want to get a bulletin board of some type and some more of those little plastic containers for supplies, and maybe even another shelf unit, but I digress. I probably should do just one project at a time, because when I get overwhelmed everything comes to a screeching halt and nothing gets done.

My next project!

Help! Im not Organized!

This will be my first attempt at any type of Blogging.
It seemed that organization would be a good topic for my first post, as I am probably the most unorganized person I know, and this seems to be the problem I am dealing with at the moment.
Oh I have friends that are really good at it, but for some reason I just can't seem to get the hang of it. Coming from a long line of collectors has been a severe damper to any type of organizational skills I may have at one time been able to cultivate. My mother is a collector, my Grandmother was a collector, and her mother before her, and so on. With those type of odds, I would be surprised if  I ever accomplish any organization at all.
Fortunately for me, I have a close friend that LOVES to be organized. She is a source of inspiration to me (even though I tend to zone out whenever anyone says anything about getting rid of my considerable amount of STUFF.) I always manage to come back to earth and listen at some point, but I'm sure she can remember seeing a glazed look in my eye a time or two when talking about seasonal clothing or getting rid of stuff in my attic.

My Attic

She did come over once to help with my attic. It was brutal! I haven't been able to go up there since to organize, as I'm afraid I may find things that I know I should just get rid of.
With all that being said, I finally came to the realization the other day, that I cant take it with me, and after I'm gone no one will want it. It was very hard for me to think my things may not be important to anyone but myself. I asked my kids for 2 things each that they would want from my considerable amount of stuff (since I have 6 kids that adds up to at least 12 things I wouldn't have to get rid of, which helps the appease collector in me). Surprisingly, they all mentioned things that were actually practical. I was amazed that not one of my girls asked for my sewing things. One of them did ask for my clown collection.
Right now I am working on organizing Winter clothing. I ordered 24,  18 gallon containers in a variety of colors hoping for inspiration. I thought red and orange for summer and fall, pink and green for spring and blue for winter. I will be surprised if I manage to get it all the containers, let alone color coordinated to a specific season.

Pink Containers

Right now I only have the pink ones (the boys are not happy) and I'm trying to decide how to use my 24 containers to organize the large amount of clothing I have scattered throughout the house and I think I may try to use them for other things also, like my sons baseball memorabilia, or things I got them while I was in Australia, or years and years of accumulated birthday cards. The possibilities are endless! Actually, maybe I wont have to get rid of anything! I can organize it ALL In my new containers! Cool!