Mom, The House Looks So Nice!

Today Number 4 walked in the door after school and said, “Mom! The house looks so nice!!!”

My kitchen is neat and organized.

My dining room is neat and organized.

My workout “room” is super neat and organized.

My mudroom is fairly neat and organized.

And now my office is mostly neat and mostly organized.

If you think your kids don’t notice the condition of their environment, you are wrong.

They notice.

And they appreciate order.

It sure does feel good not only to have your kids notice things, but to also appreciate them.

So the decluttering and organization continues.

Today was clean the office day.

I got most of it done.

It wasn’t actually that out of control.

But there were  no systems in place, there were papers all over the place, there was junk on the floor, my cute little blue chair was covered in random junk,

and my desk area was so cluttered I was just constantly annoyed and it was also causing me to waste valuable time.

Today I got everything pretty much decluttered and organized.

And as I sit here right now typing this, I feel light and calm and not stressed.

At all.

I’m not distracted by clutter.

It feels so good.

When I first made my little office, I had a small doughbox that I used as a charging station.

I painted it and sort of distressed it and it was super cute.

But it wasn’t really functional.

So a couple weeks ago I replaced it with a cabinet I had painted and was going to sell but decided to keep instead.

It works, but there was no system and I really just shoved a bunch of crap in it.

I also need a place to put mail/bills/papers.

So I went through the junk that was in the cabinet, found two trays in the playroom that weren’t really being used, and I put them inside.

One is holding printer paper, the other is holding today’s mail and a couple notices from the kids that came home from school today.

Now in order to maintain that and not have it fill back up with papers, and random junk, I’ll have to make going through the mail/papers every day a habit.

My plan is to do that every morning after the kids go to school.

We’ll see how that goes.

This may not be the perfect system, and I may have to revise it, but at least it’s a start!

My little blue chair is finally cleared off again.

I put everything that was on it in its proper place.

I notice now looking at this picture that one of my bulletin board squares was about to fall off the wall and it really bugs me that I took the picture without realizing it, but that has been fixed.

Every morning after I work out I have about a half hour before the kids wake up. And I’ve really been wanting to use that time to read, and I REALLY want to read in my little blue chair, but it’s been so gross in my office that I don’t want to sit in here if I don’t have to. Plus the chair hasn’t been accessible.

Now it’s accessible. And I can’t wait to sit in it and read tomorrow.

Finally, my desk and computer area is neat! (although after I took this picture I saw the bag of glue sticks hanging out of the basket up above and that REALLY bothers me. That has also been remedied).

That area to the left of my desk on top of the file cabinet is a little work area. My inclination was to put the trays for my mail there instead of inside the cabinet, but I REALLY want to keep that space cleared off.

Plus it’s where the cat likes to chill out which is why there’s a towel there.

She likes to hang out with me, and I like it when she keeps me company.

So she gets her own space, and if I need to use that area, I can just take move her “bed.”

I still need to address the bulletin boards, but that will happen next week.

I feel so much better in my house!

In fact, tomorrow I have to leave for a three day swim meet with the girls, and I’m kind of annoyed because I just want to hang out in my neat house, dammit!

But for the first time ever, I’ll leave for a couple days and my house will be in order.

And I won’t come back to a total disaster.

I’ll come back to calm and serenity.

Yesssssssss.

Stay tuned for Operation Organization to continue on Monday when I get back.

I have an area I’ve wanted to take care of for a couple years now, and I am excited to check that one off the list!

If you are trying to get stuff organized, keep going! Even just five minutes a day will add up at the end of the week.

You can do it, and I promise you, you will be so glad you did!