I guess I can

I've expressed my love of all things organized before. As well as my complete lack of talent in this area.

I couldn't sleep last night because I had told  Beckham that today we were going to clean his room and his room was an explosion of Legos and other little boy paraphernalia. It totally overwhelmed me.

Now usually, when faced with such a task, I call in reinforcement, usually in the form of my mom, and hide behind her amazing talent. I still do the work, but I take ques from her vision.

I decided that today was the day that I was going to put my big girl panties on and see if any organizing talents had rubbed off on me.

I am happy to announce that they did! I clean and organized every last nook and cranny of that room. All by myself! I also rearranged furniture, because what's the fun in organizing if you don't make things look different, and vacuumed everywhere!

I made Beckham help for most of it. I would put things in piles and then tell him where they go. But the final moving of furniture and such was going to be a lot easier with one less body in the room. When I was done, I sent him to see the final results. I asked him what he thought.

He informed me, "I was frozen."

"Why?"

"Because I loved it so much I couldn't move."

AND I still had dinner ready by the time Kevin came home!

(well, if I am going to be totally forth coming, dinner was ready because I asked Karaia to open 4 cans of chili and dump them into a pot. But I turned on the stove and grated the cheese. That counts for something right?)

I'm almost done with all the rooms in my house. It's a nice feeling.

A skill I don't have

I'm feeling a little, blah. It happens about every other week lately. I can't quite pin down the cause.

I suspect it has to do with wanting my house to look and feel something like this



And instead it feels (and kind of looks) like this


It's not THAT bad, but it's not nearly as good as the first picture. The main rooms that are bugging me......well actually it might be easier to list the rooms that aren't bugging me.

The rooms on the acceptable list are:

Tennyson's room
Dinning room

(although there are still design elements in there I want to add and some furniture painting I want to do---but other than that it feels mostly organized)

Kitchen

(again, design elements missing, but I can get it organized quickly----I must point out this does NOT include the pantry.)

Main Floor Bathroom

(design elements.....yada yada yada)

Basement floor Bathroom

Aaaaaaaaand we're done. Depressing right?

The unacceptable rooms are:

Master bed room
Master bathroom
Sander's room
Family room
Office
Karaia's room
Beckham's room
Sewing room
Playroom
Pantry
Hallway closet
Laundry room
Garage

Sigh.

Now we're not just talking decorating, we are talking functionality; i.e organization.

I've surrounded myself with friends and family very skilled in this area for years, hoping that a glimmer of their talent to organize everyday life would rub off on me. And it has, a very little. But when my whole house feels like a big ball of Christmas lights tangled up the year before it's a bit daunting to even come up with a game plan as to how to get them all nice, neat, and presentable.

I have managed to add to my list of talents "Keeping up with the laundry". A skill I struggled with for years. Now, there is a nice little schedule that keeps things rolling along.

Beyond the massive amount of space and stuff that seems to paralyze me from even starting is my frugal-ness. (I'm sure Kevin is laughing his head off at that statement......)

I am always on the look out for containers and other organizing paraphernalia but I have a hard time actually buying them. It never feels like a necessity. I understand you usually don't have to spend a ton to get organized, but when I don't have a clear end picture in mind I have trouble spending ANYTHING. Or I have a amazing end picture in mind, but it would cost a ton to achieve and I would rather wait until I have the funding rather that settle. I'm stubborn like that....which doesn't help my cause, I know.

What ends up happening is me waking up determined to get something organized only to end up walking around my house thinking, "Ok, well I've got to do this, this, and this first before I can do this room....."

Perfect. (please note the well placed sarcasm)

I'm full of excuses. It's a super annoying and super hard habit to kick. My excuses feel so valid and yet logically I understand they are just excuses.

Something has got to change. There are only two options people.

A) I change my expectations of how I want my home

B) I change my skill level by actually doing something about it and try to minimize my use of excuses.

I keep trying option A and I keep coming back to feeling blah.

They saying knowing is half the battle.

The other half is actually doing something about it.

Command Central

Its finally done!!!

Command Central is up and running!

I have been dreaming and designing this area for over six months now.

And its DONE!

Hooray!

There are letter bins and file folders for every one!
(EEEK! Can you believe I found such awesome folders?)

Kev and Dave made the shelf. I designed it to be large enough that an 8 1/2 X 11 inch paper can be placed on there comfortably enough to write on it. It sits just above waist high.

And finally the

Pièce de résistance

My calendar.

It was made of plexi glass cut to just the right size, framed with simple molding (thank you Dave!), and calendarized by vinyl created and cut by my cute sister Annie. Check out her site here. She could do the same for you!

It works just like a white board, only you can see the wall behind it. You simply use white board markers a voila!

I have loved it. It makes me feel so organized, something foreign to me...but not for long!!!!