Organizing the World - One Piece of Crap at a Time

I know I'm not alone when I say I like organization. I'm fairly sure I am alone when I say I want every ioda of my life to be organized. I want my clothing categorized by season and color. I want everything in my pantry, all the dvds, spice cabinet and under the sink organized alphabetically. I want all of the storage items in my garage organized by purpose. I want my makeup organized by feature (IE: eyes, skin, lips). I even want my dirty laundry to be organized by person and article. Is it certifiably insane? No. Leaning on the side of OCD? Possibly. Would it make my life so much easier? Definately? Is it likely I will ever acheive all of this? Certainly not. But I'll try, damn it. I'm revamping my work book. When I was pregnant with (or possibly shortly after his birth) my first child I constructed a home management binder that kept my life organized. Everything from scheduled daily, weekly, and monthly chores; recipes; important numbers; etc. It kept my life running smoothly. After the birth of my second child I had less time to devote towards maintaining a perfect home with counted food calories and nutrients for each family member. I didn't abandon my organization completely, but instead wrote down a list of daily to-dos for myself in a composition book - my work book. Now that baby number three is here (all three babies in 2 years) my life is a chaotic disaster, but I take solace in knowing that even though I barely have time to shower, can't pee without a bystander in the bathroom asking for M&Ms, and am constantly cleaning stuff off of, well, stuff... I still have my daily to-dos and it's my job as a good mother and wife to make sure it all gets done. Although I love the simplicity of tasks on lined paper that I can cross off when I finish them, I think I may feel better about my world if I had a defined day-to-day docket of sorts. I found some great ideas on the internet and now my mind is in a fury trying to add one more to-do to my list for today (create dtd docket) which will be far more time consuming than I want it to be. I'll have my normal list of things to do for the day but I will also have 3 MUST HAVES that must be completed every day. 1 will focus on ME. I haven't done that often enough in the past three years and it's killed an important part of me (time for a resurrection!) 2 will be one mandatory part of maintaining my home. 3 will be focused on the relationships that are most important in my life (IE: call mom, family outing, date night with the hubby) I will also have the days meal plan written out on my dtd-d as well as part of a health regime for myself. Don't worry, it won't include exercise. I get enough of that. Hopefully I can find some friends to motivate to join my task. It makes me so angry to know that somewhere out there, there is someone who is sitting on the couch watching tv while her husband works and the kids are crying while the house is a mess. What's the point of staying home if you are worthless in the home? Take care of your kids, provide a positive learning environment, clean (NO ONE likes this but it must be done), and cook. If you can't do all of those things all day, every day then you shouldn't be at home. You should be employed somewhere trying to benefit your family. When I tell people I'm a stay at home mom I generally get a flicker of disgust before some shmoozed comment. It's people like the aforementioned that give us a bad image. I work my tail off for my husband and my kids. I don't get sick days. Ever.... Ever.

Now that I'm off of my tangent, this organization helps me to keep pace with the workload of life and I think with a little more definition, my daily outline can help me de-stress. I'll post a final product when I get it finished... after I finish putting away 3 more loads of laundry, do a load of dishes, and clean the master bathroom. I need to start dinner soon too....

Thursday is Garbage Day

No, really... it is "Garbage Day" in my neighborhood. However, it is also figurative "Garbage Day" as well. For a few months I had fallen out of my routine and not only did my house cleanliness and nutritious meals slip a little, my self confidence, my ability to be the best mom possible, and my overall happiness slid a little as well. Today I am tossing out any bad habits that I had picked up and am returning to the way things used to be done. I have my "Work Book" (I bought a new one at the store today) and tomorrow morning I am picking up the mail sales ads to search for necessities to complete my menu plan - which also needed to be set back on track. I had resorted to trying to come up with last minute meals at the end of each night. That just added to my stress.

Today I speed cleaned the play room and Aiden's room in preparation for the new mattress set that was scheduled to arrive for Aiden. He and I left at 6:30am to go to Walmart and pick out a few new sheet sets as well. He loves his new bed so much! As soon as it was all set up, he ran around looking for stuffed animals and babies to "put to bed" and it was adorable. I've got to say, it's pretty comfortable as well. As usual, I got an AWESOME deal on it too. It was a steal. We got the mattress and the box for $90. They even delivered, carried it upstairs and put it in his room for me. But wait - it gets better. They let me pay via COD and wouldn't even accept a tip! YAY! Once I got the mattress protector (the waterproof cloth kind) and the sheets on, I took on the task of dismantling Aiden's old crib-converted-to-toddler-bed and moved it to the third bedroom. Eventually I will have to trudge back upstairs and set it all back up for Aralynn when she is old enough to move from the cradle to a crib. Anyway, you will notice that I have two pictures posted right here. The top is of Aiden's new bed. The second picture is of the accent wall in his room. It has a cute little puppy decal on it. Ambria's room has a purple accent wall and flower decals (which we will be changing to butterflies in time) and the third room (which will be Aralynn's room will have a dark pink accent wall. Why did we do accent walls? 1) It's cheaper to only paint one wall. 2) Too much color becomes overwhelming and looks low-class to me for some reason. 3) The kids' taste will surely change so it's less to repaint later on.

I have been making a diligent effort to spend a little time nearly every day (except the days when Daddy gets to be home) to implement learning time and arts & crafts with the kids. Learning time is spent being read to, mastering manners, colors, shapes, animals and letters. Arts and crafts consists (so far) of coloring and drawing. Their toys are also (painstakingly) categorized into boxes and although I do have a "fun" box pulled out into the loft, they also ALWAYS have the educational box. Will this make them child geniuses? Probably not. But it might help give them a leg up and hopefully teach them an appreciation for learning. It really is paying off though. Aiden (26 months) can identify all the letters of the alphabet, sing the alphabet, count to 5, knows all of his basic colors, knows tons of animals and the sounds they make and knows a couple shapes. Ambria (16 months) is also learning. She can (kind of) sing her alphabet, knows many animals and the sounds they make, can identify a circle and can count to 2! Aralynn (2 months) doesn't have dedicated learning time but at this point, everything is a learning experience for her. She can sit supported, smiles when talked to, and holds her self up with her arms. It's all going by so fast but I'm enjoying almost every minute of it.

In store for tomorrow:

MORE ORGANIZATION!

Afterthoughts

Wrapping paper is finally tossed out and only bits and pieces are left from what was once an over-abundance of desserts. Sometime this week I am hoping to make it to the store to exchange some of the things I purchased for Ian and the kids. I'm dreading it though. I can only imagine how long the customer service/gift return lines will be. I also need to start working on my list of "To-dos" and one of those needs to be registration for classes. I need to use up the last of my grant. Unfortunately, I need to speak with an advisor before I can register because I should only have 1-2 classes left if I haven't graduated already. The last time I went to see an advisor, the wait was estimated to be nearly 3 hours. UGH! Hopefully I can get in last minute while no one else is there.. because that's plausible, right?

Merry Christmas Eve 2010

Well, the end of the year is upon us and my family has been blessed with the ability to provide our children with a very plentiful Christmas. I've never seen so many gifts under a single tree and I am so excited in anticipation of seeing their faces while they tear through my hours of wrapping work. Aralynn only has a few gifts since she is only 2 months old, but the other two have no less than 10 each. Ian has 5 or 6 under the tree and then there are the (about) 20 gifts that I've made for extended family as well as 15 dvds. Stockings (which I have conveniently pre-stuffed with goodies) are hung and cheer fills the air in the Casey house this week. Now I just have to carry out and survive our Christmas dinner! Merry Christmas!

Blogging Competitors

Thanks to my really cool Android phone and the many apps within its depths, I've come across several blogging options. I sure love my blogspot account and it works well enough for me, but are any of these competitors better than what I currently have? Is there any way to compare without spending the time to fully create a new blog? Have any of my followers or any passers by tried any of the following blogging websites?

-Tumblr

-Ameba

-Wordpress

-Any other sites?