Resolutions...

I'm not going to share all my resolutions with my blog, but I will say that if you are a junk collector, I am purging a ton of junk! I have decided that I really hate how much mess we make at our house. It's just always a mess! I was inspired by the organization posts of an acquaintence's blog. I realized after reading what she shared about how she organizes and simplifies, that my problem is too much stuff...I'll call it all "junk" because I'm mad at it. If I had less junk, I would have less mess...and the messes would be easier to put away because everything would have a place (even if everything shared the same place, which will make sense to you if you read her stuff).

I started before the new year with seven junk drawers in my kitchen that all look like this. Just in this drawer, I see passports, piano flash cards, pacifiers that Bee won't suck on, a night light that needs to be returned to my mom's house, a chia pet that we won at a couple's party, garage openers, air fresheners, you get the picture. Junk.

I really wish I had taken the time to scrape the hideous drawer liners out of our kitchen drawers before we moved our stuff in, but I started on a few drawers, and let's just say that this stuff isn't going anywhere.

In the past, I have pulled all the junk out of the drawers, sorted it and put it in it's places throughout the house. I usually have plastic grocery sacks full for different parts of the house...there's the hair ties, brushes and barettes in the bathroom bag and the screwdrivers, nails and such in the garage bag...but then I leave the drawers empty, and guess what? Six months later, they are all back to full again.

This time, I decided I had to fill the drawers with something. After considering how heavy concrete is, I opted to put things in them that may have had other places, but would fill the drawers and prevent them from becoming junk drawers again.

Here is a drawer filled with our math manipulatives. This drawer was repurposed three months ago and looks just like this still today. YAY!

I had my spices in a cupboard filling three shelves. It was sooooo inconvenient, I always had to pull a ton of stuff out to see what spices were behind and 1/2 of them were out of my reach. It was an awful system. So I filled one drawer with my spices, and now i can easily see and reach all my spices!! You can't throw junk in the spice drawer, and no one has tried yet!

I guess you get the picture. I also filled a drawer with sprinkles, cupcake liners, candles, etc. Stuff that was just fine in a clear storage container in my pantry, but it fills the drawer just as well and there's no risk of it becoming a junk drawer again.

Another thing I decided was to give up on separating crayons from markers and pens from pencils. Basically, I have a huge drawer now that holds anything that can write. This tactic makes cleaning up writing utensils more of a "kids can do it right" job and not a mommy job.

Okay, so here is the schedule that I made up for my house dejunking...
January: Linen closet, white bathroom cabinets, toy room, office built-ins, tidy up dining room.
February: Family room built-ins, my closet. (Less this month due to a big vacation to pack and unpack for.)
March: Our bedroom, our bathroom pantry and cabinetry, laundry room built-in drawers and coat area      cubbies and Betsey’s closet.
April: kitchen drawers, small appliances, kitchen gadgets, dishes, cleaning supplies under sink, etc.
May: Kitchen pantry food, kitchen pantry linens, kitchen pantry art supplies, kitchen pantry hodge podge, organize/purge school supplies, materials and curriculum.
June: my closet (again), Ruby’s closet/dressers, Alice’s closet/dresser, Betsey‘s closet/dresser (get rid of winter clothing and things that don‘t fit).
July: Too hot in our house to do anything but try to maintain order and pack and unpack from vacations and camping trips.
August: same as July
September: Plan school year goals and calendar, office desk drawers, office bookshelves and purge Alice’s toys in prep for her birthday gain.
October: Clear out all summer clothing, assess what is needed for each child.
November: Purge Ruby’s toys, stuffed animals, collections, trinkets, random stuff in her     bedroom in preparation for her birthday gain

Okay, so that is one tiny part of my resolutions for a better me. I hope this year will be one that holds serious changes...but I'll report on those when they are realized, not just imagined.