An update on the house cleaning/purge – which might be boring for you to read, but will make me feel so much better to have it written down. If you are short on time (or just can’t handle how ridiculously organized I am becoming), scroll down to the bottom of the page at just read the last paragraph or two as I saved the best for last.

I did join the Fly Lady community, and have been taking baby steps at getting a cleaning routine in place. They send out an email every day with reminders of what section of the house you are to be working on that week, and your task for the day. And to my surprise, I have often recently done exactly what the task was… which means I’m not really staying on task for what they say I should be doing, but I am doing stuff… just in a different order. That makes me feel pretty good!

I have organized my en-suite completely – top to bottom. For those of you have have had the horror privilege of using this bathroom in my home, well, you know it tended to be the last room that would get cleaned. Which really sucked because it is the first and last room I use every day. And it is tiny, tiny! Like, Darren and I can’t both fit in there at the same time to brush our teeth together (unless one of us stands sideways). So, you might be wondering, how hard could that have been to clean? It took me HOURS! Not because it was so dirty (although it was pretty neglected), but there was just so much junk beneath the sink, in the baskets beneath, beneath the sink (it’s an old house), and in the medicine cabinet. I guess when you have less space, it’s harder to organize. Regardless, that room is successfully staying very clean and organized now and I don’t have to cringe when someone has a reason to use it. YAY!!

I have gone through my bedroom from top to bottom. The closet (again TINY – but so messy from lack of space… and your husband owns a closet organizer company you say? Don’t go there…), all our dressers and drawers… I think the only thing left is my nightstand drawer which will take me 5 min. Something I have discovered is; that now that everything has a place, I don’t get so stressed out when my room gets messy – because it only takes me a few minutes to put things back where they belong. Before, there were so many things in my room that didn’t belong there that it just felt overwhelming.

Our basement storage room – I have gone through every single box. I switched a lot of items from one storage room to another and now have all the girl’s clothing in one room. The items for Giselle that Amara has outgrown, and the clothes for Amara that I have collected on sale for when she is older. I even have a clothes hanger for next season’s items which allows me to see at a glance how many of a particular item they have for this summer, and what they might still need. I still have work to do in the storage rooms, but they have come a long way!

Yikes!

it's hard to see here, but that middle shelf is sagging in the middle

I organized my pantry yesterday. I was so excited about the baskets I bought at Cost*co  that I just HAD to organize something, so the pantry fell prey to my mad skills. Also, my bookcase is now completely organized down to labels on boxes.

And last but not least… the HUGEST burden on my mind the last few months – actually since our renovation last summer, has been all the trim on my main floor still needing to be painted. I just couldn’t figure out how to manage it with the kids around. So, I humbled myself and asked for help. Rebekah and a few other friends were AMAZING and painted our house while/after the renovation last summer, but the trim wasn’t finished until last minute so they didn’t get to paint that. I asked her if she would PLEASE come help me with the trim, and she so kindly came today and helped me. Actually I helped her. As much as I could. While I corralled children, finished making lunch, drove Kylar to his gymnastics, and put Amara down for her nap I managed to get some time to work with her, but through it all she just steadily kept going. During Amara’s nap we ate lunch, then back to work… and we got two coats of paint on all the trim except the living room baseboard which will be really easy for me to do on my own. What a humongous blessing! This one thing has been just a nagging weight and it is gone! Done! She didn’t like how the hallway was painted so she and her sister in law are coming next week to do it again – which is also a huge blessing because I decided to change the colour and now they will paint it the new colour – and I don’t have to worry about how to paint it while keeping little fingerprints out of it. YAY!! Thanks so much Bekah! Plus we had great chats all day – this young women inspires me every time I’m with her.

I still have a long way to go, but I feel encouraged at the progress so far. I do have this nagging fear of getting everything done and ready, then Giselle’s file takes a REALLY long time to get through the next stage and I will go crazy with nothing to occupy my mind in the waiting. Silly me. I’ll be running around trying to KEEP the house organized until she comes and it all falls to ruins again. I can’t wait!