Organizing My Life Away...

Looking for a better way...

I love that Eddie Rabbit song "Drivin' My Life Away". One of these days I'm going to download it so I can listen whenever I want! I also love "I Love A Rainy Night".

My organizer came on Wednesday. Not sure what exactly was the straw that broke this camel's back or maybe it was more a convergence of "signs" that it was time to call for help again. Either way, Wednesday morning from 9-1 was it. We tackled the girls' room first. Dug all the way into the deepest darkest corners, drug everything out, purged, cleaned, and organized it all. It looks AWESOME! Initially I didn't want to use her services on the kids' toys because I figured that was something easy that I could do myself. But circumstances aligned and I decided that we might as well go ahead and start there. And now I am so glad that we did. The girls' room is a closed, defined space (unlike the entryway which we did last time) with finite influences on its cleanliness. Being able to get it all done in one fell swoop, start to finish, was great. Now I find myself wandering in there a few times each day, taking in the new serenity of it, and pretending that the rest of my house is clean. C Lee and I spent 4 hours on the girls' room. I am going on 4 days of working in Ryan's room and am not done yet. So definitely much harder on my own. Life and its demands have a way of poking in. The time is not specifically reserved (nor paid for!) and so, while I have been working hard, I have not been working nonstop until the job is done.

I look forward to the day that I can get more spaces in the house done. At this time, I can't afford to bring C Lee back more than once every couple of months. But that's okay. Doing some of it myself is good for me too. A good way to apply what I am learning. Put into practice all those things I know in my head but never get around to actually doing.

The biggest reward has been the kids. They all love the clean room. Bella said that she liked the labels best. Ryan said that it was just so nice and relaxing to be in the clean room. And all of the kids have been playing in there. There is a large floor space to play in now that the beds have been bunked (the process that started it all, one of the contributing "signs" I suppose from a couple weeks ago) and the room has been re-habbed. There are two windows so there is plenty of daylight. It's just a nice play to be. And 4 days later, it is still just as clean as it was when C Lee left. Hopefully we can continue to maintain it.

I have been enjoying having a home for the toys that I find around the house. Now when I find a pirate's treasure coin lost in a corner, I know where to put it. Or when I pull a piece of plastic cake out from under the couch, I know where the food basket is and I know that it only has plastic food inside - nothing else that shouldn't be. I have organized the kids' toys so many times before but it never lasts. Partly because they don't follow the plan and partly because I don't enforce it. It seems different this time. Maybe because they are older. In part because a better, more thorough job was done with the plan. In any case, I love it and hope this time it will be different.

So wish me luck in staying strong and dedicated to the cause of a clean house!