Bringing Good Home

May is over. June is here. It’s time again for Laura’s Monthly Organizing Round-Up. This month’s challenge was the kids room - in part, in whole, or whatever! My chosen task was to organize the kids’ closets.

I mean, yeah, we organized them when we originally organized the kids’ rooms for the first challenge. At that time, there was still a large amount of stuff going back into the closets. It was organized, it was accessible, it worked. But it was still quite full.

Since then, I’ve reorganized the girls’ closet once or twice. Once when my friends came over and helped me in December. It still looked pretty good.

But the other closet - OH BOY. In the last year and a half we’ve used up some of our due-to-over-clutter-overstock, we’ve acquired some new things, we’ve been lazy about putting back some other things, we’ve gained new baskets, we’ve emptied others.. and then it looked something like this :

(As always, the pictures are linked to larger ones.)

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You might be one of them.

But I’m okay with that.

I didn’t grow up with the desire to bake or sew. I wasn’t into gardening or anything remotely close to homemaking, cleaning or organizing.

Now I find myself drawn to each of these. It’s thrilling to bake bread from scratch, make my own soap, grow our own vegetables, organize my home and even sew on occasion for special products. Granted, I’m still new at a lot of these, but I really enjoy it and I want to keep it up and get better at it.

I find myself thinking weird things like: “Wonder how you make your own crackers?” So far I’ve learned to make a lot of things to save on the cost of their store-bought equivalents - like granola bars, french fries, hamburger buns, egg nog, and hopefully soon yogurt. I’m not the best cook, but I just keep doing it anyway.

I also enjoy staying here at home, being the keeper, spending days in and days out here with my family. I like organizing and de-cluttering, keeping order around the house. I’m not going to lie, I don’t particularly care for washing dishes or mopping. But I do like that I have the opportunity to stay home and be a housewife - and I don’t find it demeaning or degrading or de- anything. To me, it’s a high calling. I’m not the best at that either, but I just keep working away at that, too.

Even with all that on my plate, I also enjoy homeschooling our children. It takes a lot of discipline and work. But I love it more than I can explain. In fact, I adore our children and love having them to care for and train and raise. They don’t always make it easy, either. Yet there’s nothing like a mother’s love is there? In fact, I’d even like to have another. Some people say I’m crazy just for that.

I also love my husband, and I don’t have a problem with the word “submission” because I don’t see it as being defined as “doormat,” “servant,” “puppet,” “opinion-less,” “zombie-like” or “ignorant”… but rather I define it as “gladly serving under the leadership of.” I’m not always good at that, sometimes I screw up, but I don’t have a problem with it at all. It’s something I strive for.

I love God most of all. And sure, there are plenty of people who’d say I’m crazy for that. Some people, even other Christians, might look at me like I’m some kind of off-the-deep-end nut, because I completely believe that God is in control of everything, everything that happens is by God’s plan, everything that happens can be used by God for my spiritual good, and no matter what happens I will always trust in God for everything.

If you wrap that whole package up together, I guess I might come off as a little strange to some. Maybe you don’t get it. Maybe you do. I hope you do. But maybe you don’t. And that’s okay.

Raise an eyebrow if you must.

Just know that I don’t regret or dislike a single moment of it. I’m not brainwashed or brainless or backward.

I am, though, happy. Loved. Complete.

I guess what I’m saying is, that if this is what “strange” is… then sign me up.

It’s that time of year again. SUMMER! Swimming pools, outdoor fun, and higher temperatures. It gets pretty hot here in central Texas and also in our house which doesn’t have particularly good air conditioning (like 90 degrees inside sometimes!)

Last year we devised a way to make it through the hot afternoons, and it seems it’s time to switch back to the same summer schedule as before.

1. First off, we need to do the bulk of our chores in the morning, before it gets so hot that we don’t want to lift a finger. We can do school after that since that mainly involves a lot of sitting.
2. Secondly, we switch the bath times from before bed to mid-afternoon. Once the day hits its hottest point, the children can take turns, taking long leisurely cool baths. This not only serves to cool each child down, but gives them a little alone time during what could be our crankiest part of the day. Also, you get to put on a nice, clean (non-sweaty) outfit and everyone looks cleaner and less frazzled when daddy gets home for dinner.
3. If you or your child gets so sweaty that your discomfort is interfering with your day - go ahead and change! I know this makes more laundry, and it’s hard for me to do because of that.. but what’s the good of saving a little bit of laundry if you’re going to be crankier and less effective because of it?
4. Buy lots of cheap popsicles (or make your own) and eat them frequently! That’s not hard to do, right? It’s not uncommon for my children to have multiple popsicles a day during the worst part of summer. It really does help to cool you down.
   
5. Cook out on the grill as much as possible! I mean, there’s no need to add EXTRA heat right? Especially since my kitchen faces west which means that side of the house has direct sunlight when it’s time to make supper. Ew. Seriously, if I ever build a house the majority of the house & windows will face north and south!
6. Take a break and finish later. When mid-afternoon hits, we stop and take it easy. Okay, okay…maybe that doesn’t fit the “busy momma” definition.. but in this case I make exceptions. We rest (and take our baths and eat our popsicles) and watch a movie together or some other activity until time to start on supper. After getting the kids in bed, the house will have cooled back down again. At that point I can finish cleaning up in the kitchen and picking up elsewhere so that we don’t start the next day with a messy house. That takes some self-discipline, since I want to rest after the kids go to bed, but if I don’t want to do it throughout the afternoon then I need to make it happen later.

So those are my tips for beating the summer heat indoors. Got any other good ones? Go ahead and share!

Works for Me Wednesday is hosted by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer who talks this week about how giving her kids an online allowance works for her. Check it out!

After the response I got with my last giveaway, I’ve been inspired to add a new item to my Etsy store - a do it yourself kit for making homemade, green, eco friendly, affordable laundry soap. It’ll come with full instructions and cost comparisons. You can read more about my soap making experiences here and here.

Look at these! I mean, how beautiful is that? Doesn’t it just warm your cheeks, make them glow, give you the chills? Honestly it makes me feel giddy.

And they were FREE. A gift from my sister-in-law as she cleaned out her storage shed. She had extra storage bins - and she thought of ME. *sniff* See? *sniff* That’s love right there.

Of course I instantly starting counting off on my fingers all the many ways I could use them. Last week I replaced the two shoe bins in the girls closet with these four.

In case you’re wondering: YES, they are labeled, and the girls ASKED me to do it. Girls after my own heart.

I’m taking the old purple ones for myself, to replace the white ones over the washer and dryer so that they can go in Little Prince’s closet. I mean, really, does he need purple ones? I think not. I’ll just take those, thank you.

I would like to know what evidence supports the claim: “boys are easier to toilet train than girls.” Really? Where’s the proof, I’d like to know. We are still tackling toilet training. 7 days, 1 lucky coincidence and I-forgot-how-many messes on my floor. Well, to be fair, a couple of them were in the yard.

Seriously.

Toilet tackles aside, I’ve been purging the remaining winter clothing and packing it away. I really liked the idea Laura posted about a purge box. Some of these things need to be passed on; some need to be held for the fall; some need to be taken to the thrift store. Rather than trying to make separate stacks, I’m putting it all in one pile to be gone through and divided at the end of the month. That helps me get on with the rest of the organizing and cleaning at that moment, and prevents me from wasting time by saving the dividing process and trip to thrift store for all on one day. Yee-haw!

There are also a couple of other tackles I’m working on this week, but I’ll take pictures and share those next week.

Tackle It Tuesday hosted by 5 Minutes For Mom.

I’ve made a tutorial video for homemade dishwasher detergent. How awesome is that?

You know, I have to admit it was a lot weirder watching myself on camera than I thought it would be. I was surprised how self-conscious I am about about my teeth when I’m watching it. Of course, you probably wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t pointed it out. Go ahead, notice. I’m over it. See? Forgotten already.

It’s up on Imperishable Beauty, so go check it out. Also, I’m asking for constructive criticism, for the making of future vidoes, so hit me with your best shot.

Laura’s challenge for this month is the master bedroom. Seriously? Man, mine is still organized from the spring challenge last year!

Amazing, isn’t it? I mean, yes it has gotten a little cluttered and dirty sometimes, like when we got behind on laundry and it backed up in our room. But then you do laundry and it’s clean again.

But we’re not talking about clean. We’re talking about organized. And as far as organization goes, everything is still in place. It’s still working. With a few minutes of clean-up I’m able to transform our room back into the sanctuary it is supposed to be.

Hallelujah and praise God! God can teach an old messy some new habits!

So back to the challenge…the only thing that I really didn’t organize before was the small drawers across the top of my dresser. I think I did one of them. Sadly most of what was in them had probably been in there for a loooong time. Here’s the before:

What you see here is:

• pair of old glasses, 2nd pair of current glasses which needs a screw replaced, old prescription sunglasses in case, empty glasses case, glasses cloth
• cover for dvd player, 3 remotes
• Power of a Praying Wife/Husband prayer card books
• 1 screw, 2 buttons, 3 pushpins
• hand lotion, foot lotion, 2 wooden back massagers
• old purse
• necklace, a wooden jewelry box
• loose change, $2.22 to be exact
• box of small ribbons for a quilt my mom made when I was little - that I do still have in the closet. also a small bag of ribbons that should be in the box.
• miscellaneous receipts
• dental floss
• keepsake garter from my wedding
• 2 extra cartridges for my labeler
• an eraser, and a rubber stopper - from my baby gate?
• hair clip
• taper candle
• 2 boxes of matches - for all the candles!

It doesn’t like look like all that stuff is in there, does it? Yeah, well, it is!

The first step was to pull it ALL out.

The next step was to assess what I had, what I wanted to go back in the drawers and how I could group them together. After putting everything else in the trashcan or a new, more appropriate home, this is what we’ve got now:

1. I know what I’m putting there but I’m not showing you!
2. The current book I’m reading for before-bed reading, and a place to store my glasses when I put the book back.
3. Boxes. The jewelry box, which doesn’t fit in my standing jewelry armoire. The box of ribbons that I haven’t decided what to do with yet. The box of matches, again, for all the candles. I like candles. I have them all over my house.
4. Everything related to the skin - the lotion, the floss, the lip balm, etc.

So that’s it. It was a quick and easy task, really. Which is great because with all that we had going on in the month of April, I didn’t have time for BIG challenges.

So hats off to all who accomplished something for the Roundup, whether it be big or small. A step in the right direction, regardless of size, is still a step closer than you were before.

The Monthly Organizational Round-Up is hosted by Laura at I’m An Organizing Junkie.

I realized after I wrote my last Works For Me Wednesday post, and especially since I titled it “Stopping the Screaming” (I was trying to sum up the point and I thought that would grab interest,) that the whole thing could come across as a little… manipulative.

To clarify: I try really hard not to manipulate my children. I try to avoid bribing, bargaining and giving in to their manipulations.

However, I also try to be realistic.

It’s near impossible to train one child while he/she’s arguing with another child, don’t you think? I have found there are times to work with my children as a group, and times to work with them individually when I can give them my undivided attention and they can give me theirs. Going with that line of thinking is the “why” behind the separate tasks.

Sometimes I will train my children to work together and take turns as a group.

Sometimes I will train my children separately, while they take turns individually.

Both skills are important skills they will need as an adult. The benefit behind separating them and then switching them is that they are still learning to work together and take turns even while they are separated. There is still beneficial good behind that method. It’s not a cop-out.

Once I embraced the freedom in giving them separate tasks instead of enduring the elbow to elbow screaming at the bathroom sink, I found I was actually creating a better environment in the home, setting a better example and passing on a better lesson to my girls. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

Mrs. Darling at Dishpan Dribble has invited a small amount of “controversy” in her post “Mrs. Darling’s Instruction for Home-Keeping,” and the benefits, or rather the pit-falls, of Home Management Binders. While she does have a very good point, and I’ll get to that in a minute, I felt the need to GOOD-NATUREDLY defend my very own Home Management Binder. Because you see, unlike Mrs. Darling, I just love it.

A little about my ‘Home Management Binder’ as I loosely call it, mostly for lack of anything better to call it.

As you can see, it’s nothing fancy - only the artwork of Little Prince which I haven’t bothered to try to clean off yet. Priorities, my friend, priorities.

At the very front I have a yearly calendar (which I use mainly to mark scheduled vacations and holidays for school since we go year round,) and monthly calendars for this month and next month so that I can write down when bills need to be paid, appointments, etc.

Next I have a section for my home. The main component for this section is my re-usable daily task sheets, with daily, weekly and monthly tasks. I tend to be a bit scatterbrained, easily distracted, and yes a bit obsessed with perfection. No, my home is not perfect. But without focus and goals I can find myself spending and entire day only on one room.

For example, the living room can be de-cluttered, vacuumed, vacuumed under every piece of moveable furniture, de-cobwebbed, the couches can be vacuumed, the cushion covers washed, the wood arms and slats cleaned and polished, the tv screen cleaned, the back and under the tv and electronics dusted, the tv stand cleaned, the books on the bookshelf straightened and re-organized, the bookcase dusted and cleaned with wood cleaner, the movie rack straightened and dusted, the fishbowl cleaned, the windows washed, the curtains washed, the piano can be polished, the picture frames dusted, the walls wiped down, the baseboards cleaned… see my point? Throw in preparing meals and schooling and Big Daddy would come home to a pile of dirty dishes and laundry and various other undone tasks. To help, I sat down one evening after the kids went to bed and made a list of everything I could think of in each room, prioritized them and arranged them by frequency, and divided them per day. The next night I plugged my lists into Excel spreadsheets, and since I slipped them inside sheet protectors I can re-use them with a dry-erase marker, meaning that I don’t have to reprint them unless I decide to change them. The goal here is not inflexible legalism, but rather focusing on the tasks for the day and leaving the other tasks for the other days so that I’m not overwhelmed by the constant stream of endless tasks. ‘Worry’ today about what needs to be done today, ‘worry’ about tomorrow when it gets here.

Next I have sections for myself and for my husband. Mainly consisting of things we each receive in the mail that require action, both sections also have a page protector to serve as a pocket for things I don’t want to punch holes in, like the property tax papers for my husband’s business.

The next section is an important one- the section for bills that need to be paid. When I open the mail, bills get marked on the calendar at the front and then filed into the bill section until it’s paid. When it’s paid (usually over the phone or internet) I mark on the bill with the date and reference number and then file it in the expandable file. Since I’m trying to switch to paperless billing, I’ll be creating a simple spreadsheet in excel to record that information. When I do that will go in this section also.

The expandable file is kept with the binder, and will be used to collect everything financially related over the entire year. When it’s time for taxes - it will all be in one place. And that will be something for the record books, to be sure! Though I’ve been using my binder for over six months, the expandable file is a recent addition. I’ve moved everything from the last three months over from the binder to the expandable folder so we’re off to a good start for taxes.

The remaining sections are a bit less-interesting: Kids, Special Projects (I used this section a lot when I was helping out with the ladies’ brunch but I don’t have anything going on at the moment), School, and the last one is blank with room to grow. I might file prescription info for the kids until they’ve finished taking them, or information for school curriculum I wish to purchase, etc. By far these last sections are used less than the first sections.

So that’s it. Nothing fancy. I already had the old binder, the sheet protectors, the dividers and pink card stock here at the house. I didn’t spend an extra penny on it since my main goal was function over frills and so far it has served me well.

It’s still a work in progress, too. I’ve worked on it a little at a time, refining, changing, adding. I have plans to add phone and address lists, and maybe a few other things. But I work on it as I get time. I have some days where I don’t use it, but the days when I do I usually get more done.

Now, I can appreciate the fact that Home Management Binders aren’t for everyone. Shucks, you might be organized enough without it. Or maybe you’re not the organized type and hate sticking to lists and guidelines. But if you’re not organized at all and you’re hoping that making a binder is going to fix everything for you, well, I’m sorry to tell you that it won’t. It’s not a magic wand.

My binder has served as a functional way to focus my efforts. But there has been a mountain of effort behind that. I have learned that I simply will not get enough done around my home if I don’t:

• Get up early! Yes, it’s sad, but true. Alas, for I like sleeping in late. (Proverbs 6:6-11)
• Get busy, and stay busy frequently throughout the day. (Deuteronomy 5:13)
• Foster good habits, such as folding the clothes straight out of the dryer, unloading the washer as soon as it’s done, and cleaning up immediately after dinner. (Proverbs 14:23)
• Establish a routine. It doesn’t have to be detailed. However, if you get up, eat breakfast, start school and have naptime at approximately the same time each day, the day will have a certain natural flow to it.
• Most importantly, I must meet with God first! I used to be a bible-study-at-night kind of person. Now I find that if I spend time in the morning studying God’s word, praying with him, and seeking his will from the start of my day, then the rest of my day with flow more smoothly and I’ll be able to keep a true perspective on my goals for the day.

All these things together still do not make for a spotless or perfect home. I have three small children for cryin’ out loud! But it will help things run smoothly– and a well-managed, smooth running, fully functioning home is the number one thing that makes the biggest difference in our attitudes and relationships with each other. After 10 years of marriage I have finally learned that this is the 2nd most important thing I can do for my marriage. (Number one should be obvious.)

Having said all that… I absolutely DO agree with Mrs. Darling’s diagnosis that spending too much time on making the binder and not enough actually doing the cleaning will completely defeat the purpose of the binder in the first place! The binder should not control me, consume me, or define me. It should strictly be a useful tool.

I also agree with her diagnosis that the best thing you can do for a clean home is just to get up and clean. Hasn’t that been my battle cry for 2008? “Just do it!” I was just telling my Princess yesterday that there will be many things in life that we have to do but don’t want to do. I hate dishes but they have to be done. If we learn to just do what needs to be done, life will be a little bit easier for us.

So I just do it. But I do it with the help of my binder. I have always been a list maker. I love lists. I probably always will.

So whatcha think? Are you a binder person or no? Weigh in and speak up. I’m interested to know!