A great year to practice dostadning

Every year I practice dostadning which is also known as Swedish death cleaning. 

Of course, I'm not doing it because I am dying (that I know of) or that I think I'm going to die soon, but clutter makes me anxious. I am the opposite of a hoarder. 

D often worries this time of year that, when I'm on one of my tears, I might throw him and the children out. 

With this being my natural tendency when the whole Marie Kondo trend came along, it was easy for me to do her version because I have long asked myself questions like, "Do I love this item?" and "Do I actually use this item?"

Last week, I cleaned out nearly every room in the house. The storage closet. The furnace room. The litter box room. 

I made one huge run to Goodwill and have my trunk full of other items that I've cleaned out from the garage. I threw away small grocery bags full of junk and cut tons of boxes into small pieces to recycle. 

As much work as this has been, it has occurred to me that our level of stuff is minimal compared to others considering that neither I nor D like to shop and I am habitual about sorting, donating, and dostadning(ing). Plus, for years I have consigned the kids' toys and old clothes as a way to clean out and make a little money to pay for their seasonal needs. 

Of course, as soon as I did all this cleaning, I was gifted some items that are thoughtful but that I have no need for (like another coffee mug). 

[Which reminds me that I haven't cleaned out the mug cabinet....]

It seems to me like 2020 is a good year to clean out clutter....whether that be in one's house or in one's mind or in one's priorities. There's nothing like a global pandemic to help a person put everything into perspective. 

This was one of the reasons I unfriended a hefty dose of individuals on social media. Because they caused me aggravation and unhappiness. They didn't spark joy for me, and I honestly don't have a relationship with them anyway. Just because they are a neighbor or a parent of a kid my kid used to play with ages ago doesn't mean I actually need to be "friends" (however loose that word is when it comes to social media). 

If there is something or someone you don't love, don't need, or doesn't have much meaning to you, 2020 is probably all the excuse you need to clean it/them out. 

Operation "Make My Hutch Useful"

When D and I married, my parents gave us either $3,000 or $5,000 to cover expenses.

We were very frugal and ended up having enough left over to purchase a hutch/base, table, six chairs, and a washer/dryer.

I have always liked my hutch....until recently.

We have a very large dining room that we rarely use for eating.
I use the space for planning lessons or writing articles.
The boys use the space as a catch-all for their random toys and whatnot.

The walls of the room are travel pictures and paintings. I have always called it my travel room, and it gives me joy to look at the places we've been and to see things friends and family have brought to us from places I may never visit.

I decided that I want to make this room more of a sitting room/office space.

D has his office in the basement, but if he's working in there, I don't feel like I can use it to do my stuff (whether that be scrapbooking or writing or whatever).

So I've been thinking about what purpose I want my dining room to serve.

I managed to find a $15 Bassett chair that I'm going to have recovered in a few weeks, which gives us a place to read if kids are in the basement or living room, and we want to make ourselves scarce.

I have been looking for bookcases with drawer storage for the dining room, but I haven't found anything I really like.

Last night, it finally hit me: Get rid of all the unused pretty stuff in the hutch and use it for your books, binders, and crafting stuff. 

So at 8 pm, I began the purge.

I pulled out a set of dishes my mom made 30+ years ago in ceramics that I have used maybe once in the past 21 years.

(Dishes on the table; dishes on the floor, 

none of which ever get used.)

I told myself, "I love my mom, but I never use these dishes. The dishes are not my mom; they do not represent love or relationship or anything. They are plates; I can donate them and not feel guilty."

I am donating a ton of pretty things D and I got as wedding presents that have been sitting in that hutch used for 21 years. There is one item I am keeping because I remember exactly who gave it to me.

I threw away all the random wine corks we had been saving in a bowl (For what purpose? I have no idea.)

I am moving the kids' Santa banks and handprint plates to the Christmas stuff because I always forgot to put these out as decor at Christmas because they are in the hutch and not in with the Christmas stuff.

I have to wait until the kids go back to school before I can purge some of their stuff.
(I move junk to the basement, and when they don't say anything for 6 months/1-year, I know that I can get rid of it, but if they catch me moving it, they remember how valuable and precious it is.)



This is my 2019 project--a work in progress. 

Good to the core or a b**** in the name of efficiency and work well-done

Someone recently sent me a sweet message and told me I am good to the core.  I can think of few better compliments.

Occasionally, I actually live up to her assessment.

Not yesterday.

I wasn't bad or rotten or intentionally mean-spirited, but I was on a mission to both attend a PTA board meeting and avoid staying at said meeting for 2 hours.

I purposely stay in a periphery position in the PTA to avoid having to have meaningful and frustratingly long conversations about things I consider insignificant.  A friend mentioned that she once sat in a PTA board meeting during which there was a lively discussion over which two shades of colors should be the selected for a certain school activity.  I envision her sitting there suffering through the saga of "What color is that dress on the Internet?" except among PTA moms.

Yesterday morning, I posted on Facebook my intention to greet everyone and say, "Let's keep this under 90 minutes, or I'm outta here," and that is basically what I did when I walked in.

I didn't intend this as a threat or because I hate the people on the PTA.  I happen to like many of them very much.  But I also very much like my time.

There is a smidgen of me that worries that I came across as a jerkface, even though the two biggest things I did that may have ticked people off, if they weren't already ticked off by my Facebook post, were the following:

1. I said "I'M HAVING SENSORY OVERLOAD" when women at different tables were talking very loudly at women at other tables while a discussion was going on.  I wasn't trying to be rude, but I couldn't keep tabs on what anyone was saying because everyone was talking.  I felt like the lone Asperger kid in the classroom.  It was too much.

2. At the 1 hour mark, I said, "OK, everyone.  I'm notifying you that it has been ONE HOUR."

I think I may also have said "Thursday" every time an event was listed as being on a Thursday, since they always are (and I asked why is this, and no one knows).

None of this was with the goal of being an asshole, but it most certainly was with the goal of attempting to ensure my time as a volunteer wasn't wasted.  I really feel like most meetings, especially among people WHO AREN'T BEING PAID FOR THEIR TIME TO SIT THROUGH THE MEETING should be managed as efficiently as possible.

I suspect I am the mouthpiece for some moms who no longer attend these meetings because they have, at times, gone on entirely too long.  Or moms who just want to know what is going on in the PTA but don't want to socialize.  I didn't join PTA to socialize; I joined to get stuff done for my kids' school.

I have no intention of attending every one of these board meetings every month, but when I do, I suspect I will feel I've surrendered my "good to the core" commendation because I'll be playing timekeeper or commenting about sensory overload when everyone is talking at once.

The Great "Return to School" Purge

Fortunately, the start of every school year coincides with a seasonal kids consignment sale I participate in.  The first days of school for the kids mean I get to go through all their crap and decide what gets sold.

It is very disheartening to me when I begin this process.  I haven't even gone through their toys and games, and I have loaded 99 items into the consignment inventory.  That is 99 pieces of clothing, shoes, and books.

After entering these 99 items, I went back to the boys' room and pulled out probably 10 more books and a set of sheets that is pretty babyish given that the baby will soon be 7 years old.

The kid-stuff purging results in a general all-around purging in my house.  I start tossing everything and really looking with as objective-as-I-can-get-them eyes.

I ask myself these questions:

Are these items of any legitimate use to me?
How long has it been since we've used these items?
If these items have been sitting in a pile for 6-8 months, what is the likelihood that I will actually use them for anything other than pile-sitting?
Do I really like these items at all?  

What astounds me is that I don't really like to shop and, yet, we still have all this stuff.

It is usually at this point that I think about what a terrible pioneer I would be for many reasons, but most of all because I couldn't get everything I own into one wagon.  

One instance of brilliance this summer and a whole lot of dumb

Watch this first.

Basically, what the second turtle says is what I've been saying to myself ever since June 5.

Going to Disney?
Dumb.
Signing up for a grad class I actually have to attend in person versus online?
Dumb.
Signing up for this in-person class that begins the day after I return from Disney?
Dumb.
Scheduling doctor visits for the kids on Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday mornings this week?
Dumb.

I'm used to this, of course, since it pretty much sums up any number of parenting decisions.

I have had one singular moment of brilliance.

Even though I blogged yesterday about not caring, that isn't entirely true.  I am me, and as long as I am me I am always going to have to try some kind of little snippet of structure, of engaging the kids in some way.  I have discovered a tiny bit of something that allows me to comfortably and without guilt let the kids do whatever they want as long as they do these things each day.  The only kind of "schedule/routine" that I can handle:

That's it.  The brilliance.
Every other idea I've had has been dumb.  

Christmas is not a holiday for minimalists

On a typical Christmas Day I spend the hours wandering around the house searching out clear plastic bins in which to store all the new crap.  Newly opened gifts don't sit under the tree for very long.  By mid-day, preferably, they are put into their new homes.

Christmas is, without a doubt, the bane of minimalists.

This year I have been trying to keep from spending all of Christmas Day in a fit of anxiety.  I have, therefore, spent the entire month in a perplexing state of both buying new stuff (because I have to) and unloading lots of old stuff (because I want to).

If I had my preferences, every adult in both mine and D's families would forego gift-giving.  We would get together to eat, watch the kids open gifts and chat.  And every adult would be limited to giving each child only.1.gift.  But that isn't going to happen, so I go buy stuff for gift exchanges and try to accept that my children will be lost in a pile of stuff from grandparents, aunts, uncles and Santa.

At the same time that I've been shopping, I have been throwing out stuff that is either outright junk or stuff I don't truly love.  Earlier in the month our neighborhood had a bulk pick-up so I tossed baby bed parts that I had thought, "Maybe some day I'll become a carpenter and up-cycle something completely cool."  

After 17 years, we shipped our first Christmas tree to Goodwill.  We bought it for our first married Christmas when we had zero furniture and 3 fewer children.  It was huge, and over time simply didn't fit into the space.  A number of years I didn't even put limbs on the back and held the bottom down with hand-weights to keep it from being quite so huge.  I felt like 17 years was a good run for a tree, so didn't mind spending $100 for a smaller tree.  I also donated tons of Christmas items that had been given to me over the years; things I didn't love.

I've gone through toys and clothes and pulled aside things the kids no longer touch or wear and have them in the basement, ready to be sorted and priced for the spring consignment sales.  This week before the kids are out of school I'll be going through their bedrooms and desks, pulling aside precious items of half-written on paper, rubber bands and other things that qualify as trash in my book.

It is terribly difficult for me to reconcile within myself what Christmas should mean with what Christmas actually is.  My long-standing issues with Christmas date back to my childhood, so I think it is mostly a personality thing, although the materialism of the holiday worsens every year.

I think I've decided that my favorite holiday is the 4th of July.  No gifts.  No madness of grocery shopping for pumpkin-oriented items and stuffing.  No overabundance of candy and rabbits and plastic eggs.

Simply getting together, eating, playing outside.  The only downside is the humidity. 

The winter that is consistently making me lose my shit (a reflection on routine)

I had a revelation recently about routine that has given me insight into my personality and how I mother my children.

Even as a child, I hated days that didn't follow routine.  Major holidays were especially awful.  I'm sure I liked summer, but I was always more than ready to get back to school in August.

When I was teaching, I realized that what I especially liked about my profession was that there was the overall structure of the day, the classes and their times, but within that structure was lots of newness.  Different kids, different ways of teaching them, different books.  It was "structured chaos," and I very much enjoyed it.

What I have recently recognized about myself is that even though I am very motivated and organized and routine-oriented, I am unable to CREATE my own routine.  I must have routine thrust upon me from the outside.  Once I have this, I am able to function and excel.  Without it, I don't cope well.

After N was born, my mother suggested to me that I have a day for different chores.  Monday would be vacuum day, Tuesday would be laundry day, and so on.  But not only did this not sound appealing, I instinctively knew I could never hold to that structure because it was something I would have to do myself.  I clean when stuff is really funky dirty or when my children are getting on my nerves.

When my children were potty-training, I never did charts or M&Ms or anything like that because I cannot keep up with it.  It seems another case of me having to rely on myself to create what is essentially an arbitrary routine.

My discipline follows this similar route.  I don't do behavior charts and "good deed" jars and all that.  My discipline is "In public, you don't act like a bratty ass-hat or we leave."  At home, you don't hit or kick me, you talk respectfully or I lock you in your room (or hide in my own room until you get your shit together).  This loosey-goosey discipline at home may be part of the reason G has trouble with me at home and not school where there is more.....ahem, structure.

I'd be willing to suggest that this whole routine thing within my personality plays a role in how I act and feel about religion, authority, and politics.

Maybe this is why I've never been a huge fan of beach vacations where endless days are spent just being on the beach and pool.  The only reason I think I am better able to handle the prospect of beach "lazy butt" vacations is because at least 2 days I plan some kind of activity that sorta buttresses me.

I think when my kids were babies, prior to school, the routine of my day was based around naps.  Once they started school, I was able to slide back into that comfort of school providing the basic structure of the day.

For all of these reasons, snow days are absolutely abysmal for me, and this year my kids have had 5 snow/cold days off from school in about 6 weeks time, plus 2 weeks of winter break and Martin Luther King holiday.

Not only does the specific snow day deprive me of structure, but the continuing snow days make it difficult to maintain the routine of the routine.  You can't rely on a routine if the weather is constantly upending your expectations of what the routine should be.  My kids, especially G, who takes after me in all the wrong ways, have been bucking me and the unfairness of life whenever they do have to go back to the routine of school, since in all truth it hasn't been routine at all this winter.

I don't do well with the lack of routine of summer, either, but in summer I am able to structure our activities, give us a general outline of a routine to follow.  We join the pool and go there a few days a week.  Every evening we play outside once the day cools off.  Plus, summer doesn't sneak up on me.  I know the day it will start and end.  There is an order on which I can rely.

Snow days....not so much.  It is freezing outside, nothing is open, the roads are terrible, and there is no expectation of what the following day will bring.  Delay?  No school?  School is on?

I know I'm not the only mom in the world who abhors snow days, but it helps me to understand that a big part of my snow day despising has nothing to do with my children and everything to do with simply who I am and have always been. 

Goal-setting

My goals for 2013 are to paint the kids' bathroom and do a little makeover.  I want (my husband) to install new hooks with the kids' initials over them that they can actually reach and perhaps begin the fine art of hanging up their own towels.  I'd like to get a new shower curtain if I can find one that doesn't cost a zillion dollars (why are shower curtains so expensive, anyway)?

I also want to add a little blue faux painting to our bathroom.  I have not been pleased at all with the  Sherwin Williams HGTV-Home paint I used in there.  It flakes like crazy and is not nearly as good as their SuperPaint (but I couldn't get the color I wanted in SuperPaint).

Other goals are to take the kids to church once a month (that's right, I have started taking the kids to church, but that is a whole other blog post....as well as one that I'm getting paid to write so I will wait until after publication before I write anything on here).  I want to walk on the treadmill 3 days a week since I was able to manage 1 day a week last year.

Like our finances whereby I do the bank account version of the "envelope system,"  I like to compartmentalize things so that I have personal goals, mom goals and house goals.

It's a wonder I found anyone willing to marry me and all my goal-setting/organizational nerdiness.

I'm Carrie, and I have PADD (and a cleaner garage, and a fondness for doing things on the cheap, and a crayfish)

I have diagnosed myself with PADD, which is like ADD except it specifically concerns painting.

I have many symptoms of PADD.  For example, I hyperfocus on the need for paint in the house, either because the paint is dirty, scuffed up or worn or because I am tired of the color.  I am impulsive about painting; I tend to just up and decide to paint.  I also have emotional difficulties....not about paint, but about everything else.

This year I have painted 3 bathrooms and the garage (in addition to hiring a painter to paint the dining room, kitchen, family room, hallways, foyer and stairs).  Because I don't like to waste and am cheap, I used the same color paint in 2 of the bathrooms, and leftover paint from the dining room in the third bathroom.  I am going to use the leftover gray paint from the garage to paint the kids' bathroom.

I painted it lavender when N was about 3 years old, and now that I have 2 little boys also sharing that bathroom it seems a little too frou-frou.  Plus, I put cutesy little fish wallpaper up in spots and wrote "Under the Sea," when N was completely engrossed in Disney Princesses.  Five years in kid-time is like 20 years in adult-time.

I am keeping the fish wallhangings and shower curtains---just changing the paint color.

The garage looks much better now that a coat of non-flat paint is up; we've been in the house 11 years, and the walls were downright funky.  Garages, like ovens, should be self-cleaning.

D is going to hang organizing grid all over the place for rakes/shovels/brooms and hooks for hanging bikes up.  Perhaps we will have room to walk around our cars when all this is done.

N is going to dress up as The Mad Hatter for Halloween this year.  Being the cheapskate I am, I found directions for making a hat out of cardboard online.  I used old fabric I already had, a glue gun, a Halloween pin I bought a few years ago and a green popsicle stick to make this:

We also have a new pet in the house....a crayfish from N's class.  At first I put Poo (her name) in a blue plastic bin, but I didn't like the look of it on my kitchen counter.  So I decided to make use of a dip tray I never use.  I added some aquarium rocks I had in the basement, and voila!  Poo has a nice home.

This is mostly what I've been up to these weeks when I wasn't planning or celebrating boy birthdays or writing articles for my freelance work.

She moves in miserly ways

Today I dropped off close to 200 items (toys, books and kids' clothes) to sell at a local ginormous consignment sale.  It makes me a little sick to my stomach because that is a lot of sh*t.  And my stack was nuthin' compared to a lot of the other moms who were dropping off all their stuff.

I like to play a game as I'm considering what to purge at these consignment sales.  It's called, "I Didn't Spend Money on That."

Most of the stuff I sell I didn't actually buy.  This doesn't mean I only sell stuff that other people give the kids.  It means that even though we have oodles of kid stuff, a sizable chunk of it comes from other people at Christmas and birthdays.  From where I sit at the kitchen table, I can see 5 toys:  Lincoln Logs, a Thomas the Train ride-on toy, a Fisher Price Little People tall ramp, a Fisher Price Little People small ramp, and a Fisher Price Little People Batman ramp.  D and I purchased one---the tall Fisher Price ramp.  Everything else was from an aunt/uncle/grandparent.

I tell myself that aunts/uncles/grandparents would prefer that I sell gently used items so that I can purchase the clothes/shoes that I put on the kids' backs during the next season (which will then be sold down the line).

I buy a lot of G's stuff at consignment because as a boy, he generally doesn't care what he wears, whether it matches, or whether it has "bling" on it.  And boys are hard on clothes....all that wrestling in Target and all tends to take its toll on fabric.  Since I know M will one day wear whatever I purchase for G, buying gently used is especially thrilling.  If I can get some pants for $3, I've only spent a dollar and half per boy.  Huzzah!!!

I've gotten to the point with N that I don't want to shop with her (because that is just annoying), but I don't want to shop without her (because she is so darn picky, and I don't want to spend money on something she won't wear).

Hey, I made a reference to another U2 song without ever actually intending to.  Cool.  

As I'm going through kid stuff prior to consignment, I sometimes wonder if I am a complete miser.  I have friends who just donate their stuff to like....anyone.  I am not so giving.  I have certain giving requirements, which is that the recipient is either family OR needy (as in 18, unmarried or unplanned pregnancy or all of these).  I don't just give stuff to my stay-at-home mom friends, most of whom are like me, upper-middle-class suburban moms whose husbands make decent (if not really great) money.

I've had friends just give me stuff, but I always, always offer to pay them.  I wish they would let me....mostly to lessen my feelings of miserliness when I don't give them stuff.

Just whatever

Not much going on round these parts, which is quite nice.  I've been hell-bent on getting some things done and completely put to bed because I am just so stinkin' tired of them hanging over my head.  I am quite certain this enjoyment of calm will be short-lived, and I will find some new project or volunteer thing to do.

****In January, here is something that made my OCD soul a little happy.  This is what my lazy-Susan cabinet looked like before:  my flour in gallon-size ziploc bags; no order to any of it.  

And now thanks to Harriet Carter, my cabinet looks like this, which might not seem like much of an improvement, but it feels huge.  

****One of my projects is to do a home inventory so in case our home is ever destroyed in a fire or we are burglarized, we have a thorough list of everything we own.  I got the model and serial number off of every appliance, every tv/dvd/xbox/speaker/technological whatnot and emailed them to D.  I have been taking pictures of all our furnishings that do not have model/serial numbers.  I have been attempting to scan receipts for all big-ticket items.  

Right now on iPhoto, there are a bunch of pictures like this hanging around.

Wow, an almost 15-year-old chair and ottoman with enough cat hair on it to knit a sweater.   Worth a fortune!

****It occurred to me at some point last month that I should take a photo of M with his dog Scout.  He sleeps with him every night.  M goes through spells when he ignores the dog, and then he will decide he wants Scout to go with us everywhere.  When N was a toddler she had 2 little bears that she still sleeps with.  G never had a stuffed animal lovey.  It is nice that M has carried on the tradition a bit.

****D celebrated his 43rd birthday.  I made Greek spice cake for the adults and cupcakes for the kids.  I love it that the kids so love birthdays.

****G and M, when they aren't killing each other, are turning into really good buddies.

We will soon be doing what I hope is the last round of musical beds (version 1 and version 2) in this house---moving N into her own room (which is now M's nursery) and putting both the boys in the larger bedroom.

Bedtime has become a farce because N wants to read chapter books.  Due to their age, neither of the boys have any interest in chapter books.  If I am attempting to read to N while G is sitting with us in her bed, he gets bored and proceeds to flop like a fish or jam his finger into my belly button to see just how deep it will go or simply get out of bed and go disturb M in his room.

M can stand to read in bed with me, N and G but only until his book is complete---then he starts doing the fish flopping routine, eventually climbing out of bed and saying, "Da-ee, Come!," beckoning to D with his hand.  (D sits in the rocking chair reading Twitter, waiting for all hell to break loose and me to instruct him on where to take whomever is being especially disruptive or for M to give him the "Let's go into my room" command.)

****As I mentioned in another post, M's latest thing is to "Peck" his own clothes.  And he always, always selects pajamas.  This was his choice one day last week.

****Last night G had a sleepover with my mom and dad.  N was supposed to go but she ended up sick over the weekend and today so G went on his own.  Boy, the house was so quiet and peaceful.  G stepped in the door and it was back to screeching and fighting and tears.  I think we know who is Mr. Excitement around here.

Keeping only what you love or is practical

I take pride in the fact that we have nothing in our attics (we have one over the bedrooms and one over the garage).  Well, we do have an antenna in one of them so that we can get more than just 4 television channels since we long ago got rid of satellite/cable television, but that is the only thing up there.

There are no holiday decorations, no knick-knacks, no old clothing, no old furniture.

This is not to say that we don't have any of this stuff, but it is in our basement storage area, which is pretty limited in size.

We never stored anything in our attic in our first house either.

There is something about the idea of attic storage that makes me think of fires and safety and it sorta gives me the heebie-jeebies to even consider putting boxes and boxes of flammable materials up there.  Not that the stuff we have in the basement couldn't go up in flames, but somehow fire being under my feet is slightly less heart-attack inducing than fire being above my head as I sleep.

In some parallel universe, I think I am a professional organizer (or a financial consultant since I love talking budgets and savings and meeting money goals).  Of course organizing is enjoyable when you really like de-cluttering, saying sayonara to unused stuff.  Some people with OCD do the hoarding thing, but clutter is what makes me feel anxious.

D and I rearranged our basement furniture over the Christmas break.  As part of that project, I pulled out more than 50 books that had been taking up space on our bookshelves.  Some of them I read in college and didn't remember.  Some of them I had read for book club and didn't really like enough to make them part of my book family.  The ones that are staying are books I truly, truly adore (like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights), books that are classics and have stood the test of time (Treasure Island), and more modern books that I really, really liked (The Secret Life of Bees).

I guess the theme of 2011 was to rid myself of stuff, the extraneous that doesn't really matter now.

When my 20-year high school reunion neared in June 2011, I went through all the photos and albums I had saved from high school and trashed probably 94% of it.  Pictures of my high school friends and their dates at dances (and even numerous pictures of me with my dates at dances) simply aren't important anymore.

As I enter 2012, I am trying to be mindful of how little I need and that much of what makes me the happiest and most content is not stored in drawers and bins and compartments.   

Reasons why being organized and on-top-of-things is a big pain in the arse

No one likes an organized person (especially when that person also has OCD and will continue bugging people via Facebook email about RSVPing to a 20-year high school reunion that is 3 weeks away).  One has reached critical-mass annoyingness when one has OCD, is organized and, on top of it all, does not engage in procrastination.

I am a naturally organized person and always have been.  Even as a child, I kept my room neat and everything had its place.  Some people are born that way and some people aren't.  There are many times I wish I could be a more go-with-the-flow type of person.  (My meds have certainly mellowed me out in the last 7 years, but the fundamentals of my personality are still there.)

Being organized brings me a sense of calm and creates the illusion that I have control over my life.

In college I found that the more classes I took, the more organized, efficient and successful I was.  My best semesters were those in which I took 6 classes and worked part-time.  I didn't have time to waste so I didn't waste any.

Once I became a mom, I also realized that when I put things off, inevitably something came up at the last minute (usually a sick child or a horrible night of sleep), and I was left scrambling to get something accomplished.  So I just do things well in advance.  To maintain that semblance of control.

I often get the comment, "Oh, but you're so organized," and I'm not sure how to respond to this.  I feel sorta compelled to apologize or downplay my organizing.  And while it is very true that I can juggle planning a reunion, writing for a local magazine, being president of a moms group, and being on the HOA board, I also don't take a shower every single day and many times forget to brush my teeth or put on deodorant or both.   I wear the same clothes over and over without any idea of how many days they have been on my person.

I have my watch set to beep during the week when I am supposed to pick N up from school....because I would forget.  I actually need it to have a "snooze" function so that it could remind me repeatedly until I am actually in carpool line.  (For the past 6 weeks, she has taken a gymnastics club on Tuesday afternoons, and every week I was driving like a bat out of hell because I forgot about picking her up since my watch alarm didn't sound beforehand.)

So being organized and involved and on-top-of-things does have its downsides, namely in terms of hygiene in my case.  And in my ability to drive other people bat-shit nuts with all of my organizing.  

Things we're trying around here (again or for the first time)

I.  Exercise Redux
D has high triglycerides and his good cholesterol is too low so I harangued him into visiting the doctor.  The Rx was for D to exercise.  Being the supportive wife I am, I told him I would exercise with him.  If I'm putting the kids to bed, he walks on the treadmill.  If he's putting the kids to bed, I walk on the treadmill.  Whomever is putting the kids to bed walks on the treadmill after he/she has marched G back to bed for the 11th time.

On the weekends, our goal is to walk for a longer stretch.  Yesterday we took the boys to the park in the morning since N had a sleepover with her Mamaw so when we got home last night after a busy day, I asked D if he was gonna walk on the treadmill.  He said, "Nah.  On the weekends, I have to walk in the morning because being with the kids all day wears me out."

And I replied, "Yeah, I don't know anything about that."

II. Meal-Planning....finally
Desperation has finally forced me to make a monthly meal plan because I am sick to death of trying to figure out what to eat every night at 4:45 p.m.  Oh hell, who am I kidding---it's totally 5:30 p.m. before I think about dinner most nights.  And we eat around 6:10.

I printed out a calendar-like chart and planned meals for 5 days of the week.  I figure the other two days will be leftover days or eating at the grandparents' homes or ordering takeout pizza.  There are four weeks scheduled.  But I'm being very loosey-goosey about it because I don't like to feel committed to making meatloaf on a Thursday if I don't want to.  So what I'm doing is making sure I have ingredients to make 80% of the meals and then picking the ones I want to fix given my mood on that particular day.  Once I've made it, I cross it out.  If I think of another meal I can fix, I add it at the end of the month (moving into week 5).  If I have to purchase any perishables, then those meals that I've tentatively scheduled will definitely be fixed that week.

At the top of the calendar, I've got about 4 side dishes planned that I can pick from for the month---side dishes made from scratch....not like pre-packaged mac & cheese.  The remainder of our meal will include veggies (canned or frozen) or salad.

This is only week two of the "plan," but I feel much less stress about what to fix.  Just having the meals written in front of me takes a lot of the work out of making dinner.  Half the battle is just deciding what the eff to prepare.

III. A New Shopping List
I googled grocery-shopping list templates, found one I liked and reworked it so that my new grocery list is one that categorizes items (dairy, produce, canned goods, etc) and lists the items I tend to purchase the most (like balsamic vinaigrette and steel cut oats).  I printed off some on the backs of old paper and now when I need something I can just check it off on the list.  And since everything is lumped together based on where it is in the grocery, I will hopefully avoid circling back multiple times to get coconut, and then nuts and then dried mint.

I am hoping some of this efficiency will enhance my motivation to clean out and re-order the garage and my craft closet.
But I doubt it.

Another brain dump...

This is my third post that I've begun this evening.  The other two went nowhere, which means I have a lot to unload but none of it is substantial enough to actually fill what qualifies to me as a blog post.

So this is gonna be the stew.  A little of this.  A little of that.

KIDS
I have decided to teach N cursive since she is showing interest.  Of course this requires me to instruct her, which is like whacking my head against a very large piece of quartz.  Because N, in her mind, already knows how to write in cursive.  Tonight we worked on A-G in both capitals and lower-care.  At least 14 times, she said to me, "Mom, I know."  Of course, at least 5 times she said, "I can't do it!," (which seems to negate her earlier insistence that she knows exactly what she is doing).  Deep breathing required.

G is a complete and total mess.  Every day he throws like 6 tantrums.  I really want to be patient and sympathetic, but by tantrum #4 I have HAD IT.  (Because, ya know, I still have 2 other kids who like to be whiney and annoying at any given moment too.)

M is gonna nurse until he's 14.

WAS IT THE DRUGS?
I noticed this afternoon when M wanted to pet the cat that he is quite gentle, for a boy.  When G was the same age, he just smacked, walloped whatever he wanted to put his hands on.  I tried my darndest to get him to understand gentle, but it never took.  G has always been a roughneck.  M can certainly be rough & tumble, but he is more of a blend of what N was like and what G was like---a nice mix of gentle/sweet and snips/snails/puppy dog tails.  If I hadn't been on antidepressants during both of my pregnancies with the boys, I really would think some of G's problem was his exposure.  But evidently, it is just his personality.

BUSYNESS

I love my day-planner.  One of my favorite times of year is in December when I purchase a new one...all sleek and clean and full of the promise that a new year holds.

Looking at it right now, I am very much aware of how busy I am.  Not in a "I'm gonna freak out because of all this crap to do" way.  Just an acknowledgment that life is chock full of things to do.  If it doesn't get done this week....there is always next.

Here is what my planner says for the week:  (I put in BOLD what I actually accomplished today.)

Monday:  Speech (G) 10:00 (although I took him at 9:30 for extra time since he didn't have therapy last Friday).  Scholastic order (needs to be finished and check mailed once N's teacher emails me that she has selected her free books).  Pick up stuff from P (reunion envelopes & such).

Tuesday:  Exercise, 9:00.  Eye exam for G, 2:30.

Wednesday:  Field trip, N.  Carpet guy over, 10:00.  Code move for D.  Girl Scouts, 6:30 (take Dr. Seuss books).

Thursday:  Wellness Assessment, 8:15.  Pay registration on cars.  Transfer $ to various accounts.  Make cake for school festival and cupcakes for N's class.

Friday:  Speech (G) 10:00, Reading response due (N's homework), School winter festival, 5-9.  Take cupcakes to N's class after 3:00.

Reason #46,970 my husband gets aggravated with me....

I am getting ever closer to having the office closet uber-organized and the office put back together (or as put back together as it will be until I consign stuff in the Spring/Summer gigantic children's consignment sales in my area).

Today I continued sorting and tossing.  Up on the top shelf of the closet were two components to D's old stereo system that we used when we married.....13 years ago.  We had long since sold the speakers on craigslist.com and recycled the cd player (because it no longer worked).  One of these components was a.....I don't even know what it was.  And the other was a tape deck.

So I asked D what they were and what purpose they served.  He said I could recycle the no-identity component but maybe we should keep the tape deck one, to which I replied, "To listen to the tapes that we no longer own?"  To which he replied something muttered and on the order of, "I'm not gonna argue with you.  Here," and handed me the tape deck.

Now my comment about not owning tapes anymore was not screamed, hissed or said while beating him in the head with a stick.  It was merely a comment that it doesn't make any sense to keep a tape deck if we have no tapes to listen to.  But to D this is argumentative.

Anyway, I did save his bag of Dungeons & Dragons books and "notes" or whatever they were that I found in a briefcase because I suspect this has some sentimental value to him.  And I saved my journals, although I tossed most of my childhood scrapbooks because they contained pictures of people whom I no longer keep in contact with as well as about 345 pictures of Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran.

I am not heartless.  I haven't tossed his U2 books or shirts (although I would like to have my mom make him a blanket out of them rather than just have them take up space in his closet).  I don't throw away his childhood pictures.  I kept his baby shoes.

But then I remember that my husband loves his Xbox and iPhone almost as much as he loves me....and possibly even more because his they don't throw out all that is made of fibreglass, phenolic resin, copper, tin and carbon or the cardboard in which these items come.

Airing my dirty laundry

We do not store anything in our attic.  I simply refuse to have enough stuff/junk/clutter that we need to mess with that part of the house.

In our basement, we have an office/bedroom with a sizable closet where I keep all of our holiday decorations (Christmas, Easter, Autumn/Halloween).  This is also where we keep all of my wrapping paraphernalia, our financial paperwork, D's comic book collection (which I made him purge a couple of years back so that it is now 3 boxes full instead of 10), and empty or mostly empty cardboard boxes.

D is a box hoarder.  If I wasn't in the picture, D would purchase an item and keep the box forever.  I do not have a problem keeping the box for the duration of its warranty.  But once the warranty is past, get that cardboard the eff out of my space.  In the 13 years that we've been married, we've finally come up with a system of sorts.

Once a year, I go through all the boxes and throw shit out.  D answers basic questions like, "What the hell is this box for?" and "How long have you had this particular item?"  I don't ask him to help any more than this (usually) because he overthinks.  He would think stuff like, "Well what if one day in the future I need this tiny little wire for god only knows what function?  And if I throw it away, then what will I do?????"  And this drives me bonkers.  So I do it myself.

This year I am really having at it.  Tossing pay-stubs from the jobs D and I worked at when we met (in 1995) and from even earlier.  Donating items that my aunt made me in ceramics when I was a kid that have been sitting in a box for years.  Recycling virtually all of my teaching files and check registers dating back to 2000.

In the past 2 days I have broken down probably 50 cardboard boxes.  So many that I had to call my neighbor and ask if she had space in her recycling bin for some of my cardboard.  And there is still more cardboard sitting in the office needing to be put out.

 This is what the office looks like right now.  A god-forsaken mess.  

These are the items still under warranty.  But they now all have the purchase dates written on the boxes so next year I can quickly scan them and chuck 'em.  

This is the box of instruction manuals, brochures, warranties, etc from various items in our house.  I haven't even touched this.  I need to toss paperwork for items we no longer own.  And organize the papers into "Appliances," "Technology," and other categories.  

This is the pile of cardboard/paper that needs to be recycled.  It is only a molehill now.  

Yesterday it looked like Mt. Kilimanjaro.  

This is the obsolete electronic stuff that will soon be taken to the local technology recycling dump rather than the regular landfill.    

This is the bin of papers to be shredded.   

This is the box to donate.  I still have to go through DHS videos, although D told me I have to save the original Star Wars movies.  I can deal with that. 

 I haven't decided whether to try to sell the LPs on craigslist or just donate them.  

These are the gift bags I organized today.  There is a hangar for solid-colors, birthday bags, baby bags, Christmas bags, and then a miscellaneous holiday/pattern bag hangar.  

This is the shelf with the tissue paper, a bin for bows/ribbons, a bin for smaller pieces of wrapping paper, and a bin for labels.  

This is the bin of need-to-keep paperwork.  

This is the pile of teaching materials that will find it's way into the recycling bin tomorrow.  

And this is the box I don't dare touch.  It is full of wires and wires and more wires.  Connectors and cords and god only knows what else.  It keeps growing every year, but the only thing I know to do with it is to hang myself from the chandelier because it is such a pile of junk.

Seriously, who needs this many cords?

Apparently us.  

De-cluttering, budgeting, Christmas shopping in July and other projects

De-cluttering--
I have the opposite of the OCD folks on Hoarders.....I love, love, love to de-clutter and organize.  D gets so tired of me moving things around from one spot to another, but I do it in the name of efficiency.  In the name of attempting to be efficient---unfortunately, I have been known to move things around so well and so much that I no longer remember where I moved them (and have had to pay $100 to have a safe-deposit box cracked into as a result of this relocating of items).

There is a pile of kid-related items in our basement office for next month's kids consignment sale.  And today I dropped off stuff at Goodwill.  And I finally just threw some junk away that had been sitting in a closet from before M was born, waiting for me to "fix" it.

In the midst of the chaos of children and toys spread out from one end of the house to another, taking a little slice of house and getting it organized gives me a sense of control.  I know it is only an illusion, but it makes me feel better, more relaxed, like I have a handle on my life.

Budgeting--
I also love, love, love to save money.  Even though we tend to live pretty frugally (I think), I am always reading articles like "How to Save $500 Extra Dollars a Year" or "Bleed Money From a Stone."  But I am forever disappointed because I am already doing many, if not most, of the things these articles recommend.  Like dropping gym memberships (never had one), discontinuing cable for public television (already did it), and buying generic brands (do it for most things).

I use coupons as much as I can, don't buy clothes/purses/shoes/cosmetics, and get virtually everything for the kids via consignment or on sale.

Every so often I try a different budget for saving more money.  Right now I am trying a 26-week saving system, which equates to saving more over the course of a year than if I was just saving one time a month.  I am trying to save 49% of every paycheck and still have enough money for milk, fruit and diapers before the next paycheck comes.

Which brings me to.....

Christmas shopping in July--
In years past, I always had a dollar budget for my kids, nieces and nephews birthday and Christmas presents.  But with having 2 kiddos in diapers and more health-related spending every.stinking.year, I am opting out of this program.  The whole point is to give a gift you think they'd like, not whether you spent $15, $25 or $30 for it.

And I was forever busting my hump trying to get to that specific dollar amount, which sometimes meant I had 2 or 3 items for one child and only 1 item for another.  Shopping is torture enough for me without having to worry about keeping things even, fair or resembling equitable.

It occurred to me last Christmas that 1. for the most part, kids just want toys (ANY toys), and 2. even if they say they want a specific item, they are "over it" by December 26th or the day after their birthday.  Since we watch either PBS or something from the Netflix queue, my kids aren't exposed to a constant barrage of advertisements, which helps minimize the insistence on the "Be All and End All" gift, at least so far.

So I refuse to stress over what toys I buy the kids in my life.

With that being said, Target had some toys on clearance at 50% off, so I was able to snag something for my niece for Christmas and my nephews (for one's November birthday and the other's Christmas).

So I've Come Full Circle--
Now that I've completed this post (almost) it occurs to me that I am back once again to needing to de-clutter, as  I now have brand, spanking new boxed toys in my basement taking up space for the next 4 months.

What I do on Christmas

First, I enjoy seeing my kids open their presents.
Then, I eat a big breakfast of egg/sausage casserole and gourmet muffins.
Finally, I spent the remainder of the day flipping out in a futile attempt to find new homes for all the stuff that has become a part of my world.

It seems this year my organizational anxiety has come early.   Perhaps this is because for the past 2 and a half months, I have been living in the baby-induced world of crap just flung everywhere.

Basically the first year of a baby's life is a near constant rotation of baby items throughout the house.  There is a crib, but for the first four months baby sleeps in a bassinet or bouncy seat or swing or some combination of these.  There are at least 2 baby carriers either in the car or in the main living area.  There are receiving blankets in every room in case one needs to lay the baby down.  Pacifiers are littered all over, as are burp cloths.

And once the baby outgrows this early infancy stuff and begins sitting up, you breathe a sigh of relief that you have your "house back," but then out comes the teething toys, the exersaucer, the johnny jump-ups, and the never-ending parade of plastic playstuffs which lasts until.....

Well, I don't know how long it lasts.

Since M doesn't have his own bedroom, I don't have the luxury of dumping junk in his room.  His clothes are in a laundry basket in my living room.  His diapers and wipes are on top of my dresser, and on top of a bookshelf in the living room.  I can barely get my laundry done because most of my baskets are being used for daily storage of baby-related goods.

But back to Christmas.  Sorta.

Today I cleaned everything off the dining room table, which had become my work-space for MOMS Club binders, N's school book orders, Christmas card preparation, bill payment, etc.  My to-do area is now in the kitchen, at the desk, where it should have been all along.

N and I also cleaned out all the Halloween candy from the pantry.  And by cleaned out, I do not mean we ate it all.

Awhile back I bought an Ikea storage cabinet from my neighbor, with baskets in it for storing the kids' toys in the basement.  It was missing two baskets, so last night I called and begged her if she could scrounge around to find them (ya know, since she doesn't have enough to do with getting ready for Christmas).  Because I am preparing to convert a whole bunch of living room toys into basement toys, as any new stuff will become living room toys.

I know that one day I won't have kid stuff strewn far and wide throughout my house, and I suspect I will kind of miss these days.

Naaaaahhhh.  I will most certainly miss their childhood--the innocence, the laughter, the cuddles-- but not the stuff everywhere.

Of course, I will then have to address the fact that I have 10 trillion baskets and nothing of mine to put in them.

Marking stuff off my list

Today I filed paperwork that had been sitting in the office for....well, I don't really know how long. I also attempted to do some scrapbooking, but I ran out of tape after the first picture. Clearly, I wasn't meant to do that today.

Next weekend, D is going to put up the crib in our bedroom, and N said she would help me put the baby linens on it.

Still on my to-do list or my "nag hubby until he does it" list:

1. Buy newborn diapers

2. Finish scrapbooking all pics from April-current

3. Sand & paint wall behind bookshelf in basement --this is D's job. I just gotta harass.

4. Try to repair the VCR -- another job for D. I get to improve my badgering skills.

5. If VCR can't be fixed, take to electronics recycling center along with shredder that no longer works.

6. Put down more lava rock in front flower beds.

7. Buy G's birthday invites, plates, napkins, etc.

8. Schedule a pregnancy massage.

There is more that needs to be done, but I haven't thought of it yet.

Nesting mode has hit. D and I broke down old speaker boxes that had been sitting in our basement for 7 years. I feel the need to purge the closets for Goodwill donations.

Nothing like knowing that for the next 2 years or so, you will have virtually no free time and so I better do alot of shit now.