LGO Week 1 - Basics

Ok, I'm a little behind on blogging about this (see my last post) but as well as doing the Simplify Your Life 52 Week Challenge I am following Becci's Let's Get Organised 2012 Missions at Beccis Domestic Bliss. I like to be organised but I'm not very good at actually getting around to doing the work that's required to get me there. So before 2012 began I decided I'd like to look at a couple of programs being run on line to help keep me on track. These are the two I've decided on. Why two? Because I couldn't decide between them! I have a really hard time with decision making! And I've been managing both quite easily so I've got no plans on giving either up.

So, in week 1 Becci challenged us to:

• Shine our sink
• Do a load a day of washing
• Pack away the Christmas Tree.

Now I found this an easy challenge. I too have been following Flylady for a couple of years now and while lots of her concepts really work well for me, not all of it does so I pick and choose. But shining the sink and a load of washing a day really makes a BIG difference to me.
Shine the Sink

I have 3 kids aged 5 and under. My day starts early and I hit the ground running. Waking up to a sink full of dirty dishes just makes for a bad day for me. If I start the day with a clean slate then somehow it all seems to run that much smoother. I put our dishwasher on every night before I go to bed and then I put it away each morning while I wait for the coffee machine to heat up - I won't tell you that I race the coffee machine to see if I can put it all away before the coffee machine is ready.... Don't judge!

Load a Day of Washing

With a family of 5 the washing pile is never ending. I actually do at least 2 loads of washing per day. Between a 3 year old that is (not so successfully) toilet training, a 17 month old who wears most of her food, and having a pool that is being used a lot at the moment we make a lot of washing very quickly. I'm sure this phase won't last forever but at the moment washing every day is essential to my survival.

I try to put a load on each night so it's ready to hang out first thing in the morning. Then I bring it in by lunchtime and it's put away during the afternoon. I try to iron every day too. I know not everyone irons but I do and if I keep on top of it it's maybe 15 minutes or so compared to if I let it pile up where it can become hours. I'm not so good at this bit but I do
try.

Pack away the Christmas Tree

I was already a step ahead here. The christmas tree sitting in the  corner of our family was starting to gnaw a hole in my brain and I couldn't stand it any longer. I packed it away on the first weekend in January. We were also heading away for a family holiday and I wanted it packed up before we left.

So the first week was easy peasy for us! Thanks Becci! I'm looking forward to joining you this year!
 
                                             

A fresh start

We've had a busy month. A really busy month. Some of it planned, some of it not so much.

We had friends visit from interstate and overseas. We've been on holidays. And we've had some unfortunate events occur in our family - one being the death of my Grandfather, the other a tragic accident which put my nephew in hospital for a couple of weeks.

I started out this year thinking I would be healthier, relax more, and generally focus on my little family a bit more. This hasn't happened. Instead I've drunk too much alcohol, eaten too much bad food, not exercised and been super cranky with pretty much anyone in my path!

So I'm making a pledge to get back on track. As of today, things are settling down. Our friends have gone home, holidays are over, school goes back next week, my Grandfather's funeral has happened and my nephew is home from hospital and on the mend. Time to start looking after me again. 

All that stuff I've been saying in my family motto about slowing down etc, I need to take that advice!

Just putting it out there... It feels good to get it off my chest

If you're looking for me, I'll be hanging out here (I wish!)

Source: 4.bp.blogspot.com via Belinda on Pinterest

Our Family Motto

Deb over at Home Life Simplified has challenged us again this week. She asked us to come up with a Family Motto.

This has really made me think. I love being a Mum but sometimes feel we get so wrapped up in the day to day rushing around that I forget to take a step back and look at the big picture. I'm so afraid of my kids "little" years whipping by me while I rush around "getting things done". I need to focus more on them and enjoy my time with them.

Part of the reason for me doing this challenge is that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with life at the moment. I want to step back, relax and focus on what is important to me. When I am overwhelmed I snap at my kids and my family, I am not as caring to my husband as I should be and I just generally don't enjoy life. I don't like the person that I am when I am like this.

So, when I read about Deb's challenge for making a family motto I thought this would be a great way of reminding myself every day of what is important to us and therefore stop me from "sweating the small stuff".

Here goes!

The mission of our family is to slow down and spend time together doing the things that we love. We will try to prevent times when we get too busy.

We believe in and will make our choices based on respect, trust, honesty and kindness.

We will fill our home with love

We want to teach our children to be authentic, considerate, respectful and loving.

We will encourage each other to pursue our passions.

This is really exciting for me! It's giving me focus and direction. Thanks so much Deb! To finish up, I found this sign on Pinterest which I think sums up my family mission statement perfectly. I am going to try and print it out and frame it.

Source: Uploaded by user via Belinda on Pinterest

What are my Values????

The challenge for Week 2 of the Simplify Your Life 52 week Challenge is to define your values.

This isn't something that I've really ever thought about before but the more I read, the more it makes sense as to how important it is. If we are aware of what we truly value in our lives, we can make the best decisions for OUR lives.

So, I've sat down with the list provided by Deb and narrowed it down.

My list when I started was as follows:

Growth
Contentment
Gratitude
Intimacy
Balance
Family
Health
Happiness
Nurturing
Love
Creativity
Self Development
Playfulness

Then I thought about each one and worked out my top 5 :

Family - For me this one value actually encompasses several of the values on the list including intimacy, love, nurturing and playfulness.

Happiness/Contentment - I combined these into one value.

Balance

Health - This encompasses physical and mental health.

Self Development/Growth - this includes personal growth and continuing education for my work.

In 2011 (and still now) I had huge issues with anxiety. This was mostly associated with returning to work. I discovered that these values are important to me because in one way or another they affect my mental well being. My husband and children are the most important thing in the world to me but when I am unhappy/anxious/stressed they are the first to suffer. 

I'm loving this challenge so far. It really is putting my mind into gear thinking about the things that are most important to me. Thanks again Deb for doing this for us!

I'm in!

Image Credit

Deb over at HomeLifeSimplified is running a 52 weeks to Simplify Your Life Challenge and it seems like it is right up my alley!

As I've explained in previous posts I feel a bit like my life is a bit out of control at the moment. I've started out doing both "The Happiness Project" and Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation and while they have helped I'm still floundering. Anxiety is a big problem for me and I think simplifying will be a big help. Just the idea of where to start overwhelms me!

So Week 1's Challenge is to - Create a list of everything that went “right” in 2011 

Here goes....

• I didn't think I would ever say this but 2011 taught me how good exercise and eating right is for me. I started the Michelle Bridges 12 week body transformation in September and I felt so much better for it. I have never been an exerciser, I don't enjoy it and because I have been blessed with a good metabolism I never really saw the need. However, when I realised that I was setting a bad example to my kids I decided it was time to change my ways. 

• My marriage. My hubby and had a big period of adjustment in 2010 after moving states then having our third baby. But we came out on top in 2011. He really is an amazing man. Love him!

• My kids. Parenting is the most stressful thing I have ever done in my life but they really do make it worthwhile. My 5 year old went to 4 yo kindy this year and thrived on it! He really had a ball and was blessed with a wonderful teacher. We got my 3 year old's hearing sorted out after a good 6 months of ear infections due to glue ear. My 1 year old has been a delight. While she rules the family with her "evil glare" and squeals if she doesn't get her own way she is blossoming into the most precious little princess that I could have ever have wished for! 

•  I enjoyed spending time on my craft - I sew, quilt, scrapbook, make cards.... the list goes on. I threw myself into a lot of this last year but burnt myself out - I need to get a better balance of this in 2012.

• I have good friends and family members who are always willing to lend an ear.

• I began to organize my life in 2011. It's a strange thought but since moving out of home over 10 years ago I've never really thought of how I want my home and life to be organized. I've just carried on with what I was taught at home - despite the fact that this didn't actually always work for me and my family. In 2011 I made the decision to make my home MINE!!!

• We had 2 holidays in 2011. We went to Bali in January then to Wave Rock, Hyden at Easter. Both were wonderful holidays shared with our family.

• I returned to work. This has been a huge challenge for me after having 3 years off while I stayed home with my babies. So much changed in the time I was away and I have really struggled to find my feet. It really unsettled me and caused huge amounts of anxiety but it did make me realise the importance of balance in my life. After starting work I began the process of decluttering and simplifying my life to try and reduce some of the anxiety while still being able to juggle working part time and spending quality time with my kids on my days off.

Thanks for organizing this Challenge Deb! I'm excited to get the next challenge in a weeks time! Who else is in????

New boys bedroom

Last post I left you with an emptied out room ready to move my two boys into a shared bedroom. Well, they are in it and they love it!


New boys room (complete with boy #2 napping on the bed)

We started out by just moving their existing furniture into the room and working out what we need from there. I am also only putting in things that we definitely want in our lives (ie. books and toys that they love, the clothes that they actually wear and a box of memories each). This process for me is about simplifying and organizing! So I am also trying to make it easy to maintain by creating a "home" for everything that belongs in the room.

I pinched an idea from Jen at iheartorganizing and organised their Lego using the Trofast storage units from Ikea. Works brilliantly!!!

Lego Station

I also sorted their colouring books and activity books into magazine holders and placed them on to of the Lego station. Their crayons and pencils are in the pots on the shelf (slightly higher than Master 3 year old can reach to minimise unsupervised "activities").

We still want to repaint the room and I have bought them matching doona covers also (not photographed yet). But overall we are pretty close to done apart from a few little tweaks here and there.

Our next project is moving our daughter from the room which is next to our bedroom at the front of the house into the room which was our oldest son's room. The room which was hers will become our home office. I'm hoping that in the redesigned room we won't have a repeat of the chaos you saw earlier! Next post I will show you the results! 

I have a secret....

I have a secret, the bedroom right at the very back of my house is a shambles! No one would know it because the door is ALWAYS closed. I'm about to take a deep breath and share it with you. We're opening the door...



And stepping inside...

Step carefully over all the junk and look back toward the door...

This room is supposed to be my craft room and our home office. Doesn't exactly scream creativity or organisation does it? Come to think of it, my creativness has taken a turn for the worst lately and I've got no doubt that it is because of the state of this room.

There is so much stuff here! Every time I need to put something in this room I end up dumping it because either I don't have anywhere to put it or I can't get to the place where it is supposed to go. It's also become the dumping ground for anything that doesn't have a home! Then on the other hand, if I want to work on a craft project, the thought of having to deal with this in order to find anything puts me off.

TIme to take a stand!

My husband and I have been talking about converting this room into a shared bedroom for our two boys (it is the biggest bedroom in the house other than the master bedroom). We will then separate out my craft from our home office and make them separate rooms.
The first step I had to take was to begin to at least sort out what was in this room. It didn't take me long - two days. I threw out LOTS of paperwork from the bookshelves, removed the trestle table from the room, put all my fabric into baskets, put away anything that had a home. Then it started to look more like this.

Maybe you need a side by side to really see the difference:

Before                                                                  After

And the wardrobe



Before                                  and                                After

Better but not great.

Then hubby took some annual leave to get some of the projects done around the house. So we emptied the bookcases entirely (onto the floor of our living room).

Moved the bookcases and filing cabinets out of the room. And moved the boys in!

Watch this space! I'm pretty thrilled with how it's turning out! And so are they!