Focus

Quote by Charles Dickens in Dombey and Son.

Summer

first swimming lesson

Every summer I start out with a massive to-do list.  The school year keeps me busy enough that I rarely accomplish much at home, so I always think the summer will put me on top.  Get me ahead.  Make me feel like superwoman.  You know what I mean.

With a full work schedule and a 3 month old daughter, this school year has ended with me racing to catch up to normal, whatever normal means.  Next year  will most likely be busier.  For sanity’s sake – mine and everyone else’s – I’m declaring this the summer of habits.  Instead of making a summer to-do list 5 miles long that I will only accomplish 1/3 of, I will make this a summer of beginnings.

Since habits are not easy to establish, the list is short:

1. Make a monthly menu plan and stick with it.  I’ve done this for a while now, but now with any great degree of consistency.

2. Work on improving one room of the house every month.  We live in an older house with a lot of remodeling needs, so this means every thing from fairly difficult remodeling projects to simple cosmetic touches.

3. Begin to become a morning person.  This one will be by far the hardest {and the most necessary!}, but early morning feedings and the demands of my husband’s job should help.

That’s my plan for the summer!  Do you have a summer list?  What does it look like?

Wordless Wednesday – Kitchen Organization

10 things for which I give thanks

1.  Bright yellow orchid, bursting into joyful bloom

2.  Hot pink dogwood trees in full blossom

3. Little old ladies in pink sweaters walking fluffy dogs

4.  Sunday brunch pancakes drenched in maple syrup

5.  Friends gathered close, chattering over coffee

6.  Fresh-cut grass, scenting the air all around

7.  Friday night outings

8.  New book smell, heady and intoxicating

9.  Car windows rolled down to better soak up the sun

10.  One entire week, free for my own scheduling

Yep, that's right...I'm on spring break this week!  
Rejoice with me, all ye who teach!
When is spring break in your area?  
Does it have any effect on your schedule?

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Hot Spot #2 - Paper Clutter

This one is truly the bane of my existence.  Paper in my house breeds and grows overnight – and turns into a huge, impossible mess.  We have all the paperwork that comes with owning a home, plus a small business, plus an entire filing cabinet of music (that never stays in the filing cabinet), plus recipes that somehow never stay organized.  You get the picture.

Anyhow, here’s what I did this week.  My husband pays all the bills, etc., while I handle taxes and archive paperwork we need to keep.  We have a basic system that works for us, but there was a LOT of stray paperwork that needed sorting.  When I gathered everything up, it looked like this:

Here are pictures from the sorting process:

I had a large box of shredding, since I hadn’t purged our files recently.  We’ll shred it slowly, or take to an office supply store.  Side note – I suppose I’m the only one who would find humor in the “to be shredded” label on a potato box?

Truthfully, I didn’t get all the way through these “take action” boxes.  A great deal of the articles in them are pictures and cards that need to be stored decently or disposed of, and I didn’t have the energy to get into that large of a project right now.  Pictures and other memorabilia are going on my [very long] spring-break-project list.

I did sort and purge my magazine collection.  Somehow, it’s incredibly difficult to get rid of my favorites.  I did keep all of my old Domino magazines, since it’s no longer in print.  From now on, I’m sticking with a “one in, one out” philosophy on magazines, unless the whole magazine is really worth keeping.

I moved some notebooks so I could keep all my planning in one place.

My husband’s notebooks needed some new labels too

Although I didn’t get everything done that really needs done, I did really appreciate Tsh’s organizational steps and helpful hints.  This is where the rubber meets the road for me, and it will really help to simplify our daily routine!

Hot Spot #1 – My Closet

So, this was not really where I was hoping we would start this simplifying process.  But what Tsh says in her post makes sense – we women do need to take care of ourselves.  And lately, my mornings have been pretty hectic…evidently that happens when you don’t get all the laundry done and you’re not sure where your clothes or shoes are!

I have clothes that need mending hanging from the top of my closet, stacked on the shelf, and driving me crazy.  Methinks I need to add a mending day into this month.  There’s also clothing that needs to journey to the dry cleaners, laundry that I haven’t had time for, and shoes that are pretty much everywhere.  Yep, a good place to start decluttering.

Honestly, I just did a fairly thorough job on the closet when I was on Christmas break, so this time it only a few hours.  I pulled everything out, dusted, swept, cleaned, sorted…

Tried on a LOT of clothes with my trusty mirror and my college-age sister for reference, and got rid of more clothes than I expected to.  I also sorted through my hubby’s clothes, but since he doesn’t have much outside of uniforms and a few church clothes, that didn’t take long.

The shoes only took a few minutes – and I only got rid of one pair.  I also threw the sneakers in the wash – ick!

I did sort the closet by color.  I’ve done that for a long time, but it never occurred to me to use the rainbow for a reference before.

Making good use of the shoe boxes I have made my shoes organized in a hurry.

This pile just needs to go to the thrift store.  From now on, I’m really thinking I should be more intentional about the clothing I buy.  I’d really like to get in the habit of a “one thing in, one thing out” mentality.

The closet turned out so good, I ended up cleaning the entire bedroom.  The only thing still to do is sort through the dresser drawers…and I just flat ran out of time for that!

No problem – that’s what spring break is for!

Project Simplify – My Goals

Tsh Oxenreider, of the crazy-popular blog Simple Mom, has a new project running.  She is daring her readers to declutter 5 different “hot spots” in their homes over the next 5 weeks – one project per week.

I have been “lurking” on Tsh’s blog ever since I discovered it 2 1/2 years ago, and I LOVE her writing.  So much she says resonates with me and so many times she’s posted just when I most desperately inspiration.  I also feel a kinship with her globe-trotting family lifestyle, due to the fact that I grew up in a culture that was not my own.

On Friday, she wrote about how having a family purpose statement helps in the simplifying process.  I’ve been working on this for a long time, but it’s been remarkably difficult to come up with an actual statement.  My family consists of just my hubby and I, and we’ve had several conversations about what our life’s purpose statement should look like.  Somehow we just could never actually get anything on paper.

This weekend, I finally wrote out our purpose statement.  I’m going to print it on photo paper and frame it.  As I declutter in the next few weeks (and thank goodness spring break is part of the next few weeks!), I’ll use the purpose statement to help motivate me.  Since my house is mostly neutral colors, I decided to go with a serious hit of color here

My goals for the next few weeks are fairly simple.  I do intend to participate in the projects that Tsh outlines every week, and I will post before and after pictures on this blog.  I also want to streamline a lot of the everyday flow in our household – most especially the office and general paper management.

What do you think of purpose statements?  Are they helpful?  Does your family (or do you personally) have one?