I believe in 2009 around the time of my carcinoma in-situ diagnosis God put into my heart to "get my house in order". I'm sure a lot of us will feel like we are being called to do something and ignore that .... I know I did and still do. It has been four years and I still do not "have my house in order". My number one goal for 2013 was to clean out the clutter and get my house organized. I have done bootcamps, organizing calls, watched organizing video's ... you name it to try to figure out how to accomplish this... I realized that it doesn't matter how much I listen to or watch if I don't do the steps then it will not get done and there's no housecleaning fairy that comes in and cleans out the clutter every night while I sleep... I really do wish there was. My issue is making decisions on what to do with stuff. I have made decisions pertaining to Nicole and her illness without a problem or any other decisions I need to but when it comes to whether I should keep, trash, or give away I have a problem.
The most important thing for me to get organized was all of Nicole's medical records and paperwork which for the most part was in a wicker trunk. Starting in January every morning for 30 mins. right after I watched Joyce Meyer I would go through the trunk and organize the paperwork that eventually made it in binders. I have about 20 binders that range from hospital records, labwork, SSI, insurance, prescriptions, and then one for every current doctor she has and then one binder for all her past doctor's. This project took me roughly 6 weeks or so. I have continued to work 30 minutes every morning on keeping all of Nicole's medical documents, etc. organized... there's always work to be done. That wicker trunk is now used to store yarn for crocheting.
The worst rooms in my house are the spare room and the living room which we really don't use on a regular basis. I believe in May or June I converted the spare room to my "home office" with my desk etc. and let Nicole take over the computer/homeschool room so she could have more privacy and more space to get organization for her art supplies etc.
I started on a daily basis trying to spend 30 minutes in the living room doing some type of decluttering and I am amazed at the amount of things I have given to my friend, Margaret, for her yard sale, goodwill and thrown away and I look at all I still have and can't understand how I accumulated so much stuff. I'm not where I want to be in here but it's looking better that it has in the past. I am still embarrassed to have people come over though and see it.
I realized though that my first priority must be the spare room as this is where all the medical binders are, the file cabinets and all the paper that comes in to our house and this is where I waste the most time looking for things. I try to spend 60 minutes on Mon., Wed., and Fri. decluttering. On Wednesday of this week I started concentrating in here. I had converted the closet into shelves several years ago so I was able to clean them all off and have a purpose for each shelf. It is too hard for me to squeeze in this time on Tues. and Thurs. when Nicole is at pulmonary rehab or has doctor's appointments so I double up on the other days.
Last week I went through all my cross-stitch and latch hook projects that I have that were in the living room. I haven't worked on them in a long while but I am not ready to give them up so I decided to put them in drawer organizers. I had a couple already around the house that I could use and then bought another one yesterday when they were on sale at Target. It looks a lot better in that area now. All that's left is to label the drawers. I also have all of Nicole's homeschool schoolwork that needs to be organized/thrown away and anything that I don't need in the spare room/home office finds a home out there temporarily.
I have the a pretty good collection of photo boxes that you can get at Michael's that I accumulated over the years. I had a bunch of these on the bookcase in the dinning room that had pens, highlighters, pencils, and post it notes in them. I knew I had some clear containers and decided this morning to transfer them into clear containers.... this is where I learned something about myself... I need to store stuff in clear containers so I know what I have. I have enough of pens, pencils, and highlighters to last me for years and years. I don't have as many post it notes as I thought which was a surprise to me but I have another little decorative box as well as a desk drawer or two with more so all together I probably have a good collection.
I hope that I will repurpose these boxes and use them for other things like keepsakes, pictures etc. and store on the bookcase in the living room at some point.
I feel so good about myself and my goal of cleaning out the clutter when I get some area even if it's my dining room table cleaned and organized but I get frustrated at the same time because I have a hard time realizing and visualizing that at some point it will be done .... even though that can' t come soon enough.
As Joyce Meyer always says "I'm not where I need to be ... but I'm not where I use to be." I need to focus more on how far I have come and not how far I still have to go.
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