I took 2 weeks of vacation over the Christmas and New Year’s break. We all got to sleep in and lounge around the house for 2 weeks and 3 weekends. It was so needed…I think we rented a dozen movies from Redbox and watched every Hallmark, Lifetime and UP TV Christmas movie ever made.
The first week was baking and getting ready for Christmas. By the second week we started to get into a routine of hanging out as a family, keeping the house straight and actually keeping the laundry up. So when I went back to work the Monday after New Year’s I was determined that I was actually going to get organized and attempt to keep the house straight and maybe even make dinner a couple of times a week.
If you know me, then you know that I don’t have any domestic abilities at all. Of course that is an exaggeration but keeping my house straight, let alone clean, is a major endeavor. Add on that I am a perfectionist who will procrastinate if I can’t do it all exactly perfect at one time so you can imagine how much dust has accumulated over time. Now I am the first to admit that I have done a horrible job of enlisting my children to help with the major housework. That’s a project and a post for another day.
And so I digress…I searched around the web for the perfect organization tool that will whip me in shape and get this house looking good all the time. It’s almost overwhelming all that is out there and how many experts there are to choose from. I really wanted to have the spiritual aspect to this so I ended up finding The Confident Mom. I had heard of her before and even bought the 2013 Weekly Household Planner but never used it. So I downloaded the 2014 version (it’s free by the way). For now I think it will work for me. I like it because it is broken down by the week and she gives you examples of activities to do over the week to help you get it all done in little bites. I know that I will have to adjust it to fit our lifestyle but’s that’s ok. It’s a place to start and I guess getting started is the hardest thing to do.
So I started today and one project that was way overdue is our master bathroom. Now when we built our house in 1999 we only had one child. The house has 2 full bathrooms and one half bath and another potential full bath in the basement if we ever get around to finishing it. We’ve since added two more kids who insist on using the master bath instead of their own. So that means 4 of us are trying to get ready in one bathroom every day. I cleaned off the entire surface and the cabinets underneath. I filled up half of a large trash bag. It was pretty gross. I can’t tell you how much dust there was. But here it is now and hopefully we can keep it that way. I should have taken a before picture but let’s just say that the left sink was completely filled with stuff so we could only actually use the right sink.
That gave me a small burst of energy and I cleaned out my bedside table. Threw a bunch of stuff away in there too. How does it all accumulate?
On a side note we did get out of the house a little over the break…2 movies (Frozen & Saving Mr. Banks, both excellent), the trains at Bevell’s Hardware (an annual tradition) and for the first time the Newport News Celebration of Lights. Our Christmas Eve service and New Year’s Day prayer service at church were very special too.