Week Three, Zone Three

I finished up the kitchen Sunday morning. Now let's see how long it will stay nice and tidy.

This week I'm moving into Zone 3 which is the bathrooms and "one extra area." Two of our bathrooms are rarely used so didn't need much other than restocking and refilling. The master bathroom, though, took some time. It didn't, however, take as long as I thought and I had it finished by 5:00 pm Sunday night.

Now I'm faced with the question of which "extra area" to tackle. Closets or craft area? The closets would be pretty quick since the girls' just needs a bit of tidying and a quick check for too small clothing. My closet needs a bit more, but not much. The craft area is pretty neat inside the cabinets but the counter needs help.

I'm going to try to get both of them done, but I'm going to start with the closet.

Wish me luck!

Week Two, Zone Two

Week one went well. Check out my nice, newly organized art closet. I found some stuff I had forgotten I had and discovered that I only have two glue sticks left.

This week I head to the kitchen. The kitchen is a hub in our home and stuff seems to accumulate everywhere in there. Egg cartons and a bucket of change for tzedakah on top of the fridge, office stuff on the freezer, miscellaneous stuff on the table, appliances, dishes and junk on the counters.

Decluttering will be hard because I love my kitchen gadgets and I can find a use for all of the serving pieces. It is going to take some serious soul searching to decide which pieces will be leaving us. I am considering taking some of the serving pieces, kashering them and then packing them away for Pesah. That does seem a little bit like putting it off until later, though.

I cannot believe I'm posting these pictures of my kitchen on the internet for all to see.

Week One, Zone One, Attempt...too many to count

I'm restarting a variation of FlyLady that I was doing successfully for many years until I got too pregnant to move much. Since giving birth I have tried to restart what I was doing and contiually fell flat. It finally occurred to me that i need to revamp what I was doing. I no longer want much less can spend a couple hours on decluttering and cleaning a day. (This stage lasts a couple months until we get to the point where a holding pattern and I can do everything in 20-30 minutes.)

The house is pretty well clean. It is just full of stuff and in need of a little organizational revamping. Diapers, woolies and baby carriers need to find new homes. The kitchen needs a little reshuffling so that the girls have a cabinet for their stuff. The girls need their closet re-shelved again to fit their new clothing habits. On top of all of that, we just have too much stuff. I have scrapbooking supplies to last me a lifetime, yet I'm doing digital scrapbooking. I have a box of fabric and patterns yet I haven't taken my sewing machine out in ages.

So I'm spending the month focusing solely on decluttering in "the zone" for the week. Next month I'll be able to divide out the extra spaces and B"H we will start 2010 with a tidy home and much less stuff!

Art Closet and Bookcase, before

This week is Zone 1 (Entrance, Front Porch and Dining Room). Really, I could get this done in a day as we have no front porch, the entrance holds a stroller only and my dining room is pretty well under control. I'm adding in the landing where we have a clutter-magnet bookcase and the art closet.

Dining Room, before

We'll see how this attempt at Flying again goes.

Flutter, flutter, flap, flap, flap

Ahhh, I'm back. It has been so long, but I am back to flying. Well, I guess I'm still in the fluttering stage. But it feels wonderful and I can't wait to soar again!

no clue what I'm talking about? www.flylady.net

Some hate it, others love it. I fall into the latter category and love the freedom Flylady gives me. Now, before anyone starts wondering, let me clarify that I am not a hard-core flybaby. I don't wear shoes in the house all the time. My kids are often not dressed and I've been known to hang out in PJs late into the day. I'm also not on the Flylady email list because it gets overwhelming with all the emails.

What I do love is the routine. I have a set order in which things are done throughout the day. The girls and I have a set wake-up time, lunch time and dinner time. The rest is a fluid movement from point A to B to C.

I also love cutting huge tasks into small, manageable chunks of time. Cleaning out the garage overwhelming? Then each day go out and clean for 15 minutes. If you have the time and motivation, add another 15. As soon as you start feeling the burnout coming, clean up and return the next day.

Then there are the set times for household chores. Laundry? Monday and Thursday. Fridge? Monday day night. Girls' toys? Sunday night after they go to bed. Outside? Tuesday nights. And every night I walk through the living areas and just grab the stuff that doesn't belong in those rooms.

I don't clean everything. I don't spend hours obsessing over sofa cushions or Barbies. I just look in the living room and grab the shoes, cup and magazine. I move the mail from the buffet to where it belongs. It helps prevent that moment when you stand in the doorway and wish you could just move. Pack what you want to keep and leave the rest without care for your security deposit.

And now, my children have decided it is yogurt time and Shira is threatening to turn off the computer. So I suppose this marks the end of blog time and the beginning of dessert. Followed by quiet time and bed for the girls. Then, seeing as how it is Monday, I have a load of laundry and the fridge to tackle. Then it is knitting while Aba and I watch a Harry Potter (his pick) or Masterpiece Theater (my pick).

Good night and happy Monday all! (I'll be working on photographing some knitting and scanning some scrapbooking pages tomorrow.)