No apologies for yesterday, no promises for tomorrow, but I'm here today and today I'll post a little. I have tons of good stuff to share that I've been saving up for the past year - at least 3 more posts worth, so yay for personal blog fodder!
I finally caved in this summer and hired a housekeeper who comes twice a month. It took me at least 3 months to get into the groove so that the spaces I'd like her to clean are actually clutter free enough for her to do so. What a difference that has made in my frame of mind!
 |
| Microscopic mail/office counter=clutter magnet. |
We moved from 3000 square feet of open floorplan and 10 ft ceilings to 2500 square feet of 1980's hexagonal glory. My house feels like it was built using a plan designed by a five-year-old using Legos. It's multi-level. Let me elaborate. The main floor has the living room, dining room and kitchen. Go up the stairs to the bedrooms. But to get to the garage, you go from the main floor down TWO steps, into a sunken room sort of situation. Down those 2 steps is a huge bonus/tv room, 2 microscopic bedrooms, stairs to the basement, a decent size full bath and a microscopic laundry room. The bonus room is a giant rectangle that's been very difficult to figure out in terms of useful space. I finally determined I'd set up a double computer bank and homework station on one end, and that's working really well right now.
When I learned the previous owners raised 4 kids in this house, I involuntarily snorted as I laughed out loud. It's a hot mess of a house and our 3000 square feet of stuff doesn't fit in 2500 square feet of chunky chaos-driven floorplan. Spaces in this house are either microscopic or enormous, there's really no in-between.
So I've focused really hard this summer and fall on the main floor. And slowly I'm getting right with it - microscopic kitchen is at last purged of pretty much anything not necessary to a life lived in an RV. Dining room shaped up quickly this summer with addition of a sideboard that I got for a song through a local-to-me online auction. Living room still need pictures put up, but with the addition of the piano this summer (Thanks Mom & Dad!) I am now ready to paint and get the final touches put in. And replace the couch, it's 15 years old and should have gone ages ago.
My weekly goal is to keep these 3 rooms as livable as possible, meaning no toys, no junk mail, no dumping stuff on the center kitchen counter (I call it an island but my ever-helpful son reminded me that it's connected and therefore it's really a peninsula, Mom...whatever).
I expect in the next year to have the contagion of clean spread to that sunken bonus room so that all of the public spaces are in "come on in, unannounced visitor" shape. A girl can dream.
I didn't think it would take a year for me to get here. I frankly set a goal last October to have the whole house to the level where I'm comfortable that it can run itself. Didn't quite make that, but I did make significant headway on:
 |
| Mid-stride. Center stripe is now black. |
- creating, teaching, and managing age-appropriate chores for the kids each Saturday - that's for another blog post on another day
- purging a lot of extra dishes, appliances, and cookware
- replacing broken or damaged kitchen items with good quality, long lasting items
- putting together a process to tackle the weekly laundry crisis
- reducing bathroom clutter and messes so it's easy to clean all of them in a short time
- painting and decorating one of the micro-bedrooms for one of the twins - they spent about 3 months in separate rooms before deciding they wanted to be back together
- building a double computer desk, ordering replacement computers, and solving the "how do I control when the twins can get on the internet" conundrum by going wireless with removable wi-fi adapters, 100% Mom-controlled
 |
| $5 door from an online auction and some $4 Ikea legs did the job! |
 |
| Added an Ikea cable rack to keep cords off the floor...works great! |
 |
| New computer desk for the twins, ready for school! |
That's a lot of progress for me in a year. When I get discouraged about how much is left to do, I come back to this list and feel better. I did accomplish a fair amount given the available "free" time I have to work on these things.
So here we are in October again. It's goal-setting month, looking forward into 2016. I will again set the bar high, and look back on the past year knowing that we moved forward. That's victory.
Later 'taters!
