A plan to reorganize the house

Most people probably feel like their house is out of control 99.9% of the time.  This is especially true when there are kids in the house.  You often find yourself just operating in survival mode and let lots of things slide.  Then one day you wake up with an incredible urge to clean and/or reorganize practically everything in your house, but the sheer size and scope of the task is so paralyzing you don't even know where to start.  That was me a couple days ago.  Everywhere I looked there was a project/task that could be started.  I had to come up with a plan.  Using some ideas another mom presented at my mom's group at church a year ago, I'm going to try and take 15-30 minute chunks of time whenever I can find them to work on one small thing or area.  Then when I have some larger chunks of time I can tackle the bigger projects.  I think I will be more motivated to tackle a larger project if I can see progress and gain encouragement from the smaller ones. 

I am going to try and document some of it as I go.  Hopefully this will hold me accountable.  I know that nothing stays the same, so even if you "clean" something one day it could very well be "messy" again the next day.  Therefore, I also hope to develop/experiment with some different organizing strategies.  Please leave comments to let me know if you have any good ideas that have worked for you!

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I completed my first task on Wednesday night when I transferred everything in my recipe binder to a new, larger binder I purchased at Wal-mart two months ago.  I looked through every paper.  I recycled any recipes that had only gotten an "Okay" rating by my family and the ones I knew I'd mostly likely never make again.  I also recycled three years worth of monthly recipe calendars.  I always thought I'd go back and look at them and reuse the ideas, but I haven't.  I plan meals based on Austin's travel schedule, grocery store specials and what I already have in the house.  Plus I'm always trying new recipes from my favorite magazine Simple & Delicious.  Which is another whole project--for another day.

Today I complete two small projects.  While the kids were playing after breakfast I sorted through the mail in the organizer on the counter that Austin had already looked through and saved for me to read and/or deal with.  It literally took 5 minutes to go through more than a week's worth and most of it ended up in the recycling.  That's something I could do at least once a week while I'm waiting for Emily to go potty or get her coat on, etc.

The second project was cleaning off the top of the fridge.  I don't know how your kitchen is set up, but we have a nice space on top of the fridge that becomes a catch-all for everything that must go "up".  This includes toys and other items that were put in "time-out" and then forgotten about.  Ours had gotten to the point where anything you put on top was at risk of sliding right back off.  So I took 20 minutes while Emily was at preschool and Lincoln was napping to take everything off the top and give it a good cleaning.  After one trip upstairs and one trip downstairs to put things away in better homes, this was my final result:

Using some Ziploc containers that no longer have matching lids, I have one spot for things like the headphones and iPhone armband Austin uses when he runs and one for what I labeled "Controlled Art Supplies".  This includes some frequently used items like the Elmer's glue, watercolor paints and occasionally a scissors that is in "time-out".  The package next to it is our pumpkin carving kit that will go in the larger "Craft" box upstairs after we use it next week. :o)

P.S. This whole venture is dedicated to my husband who is the neatest, cleanest minimalist I know.  Thanks for putting up with us and our messes!