SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

I was reading a book about how to organize your house (because although I'm not organized, I enjoy reading about how I could be if I bought a label maker, got rid of 50% of our possessions, and didn't have children, or had children who were more like robots...)and I came across this little list. I liked it, at first. Here. Read it. You'll probably like it too.

Common Practices of Good Housekeepers

1. Find a happy medium where everybody is comfortable.
2. Pick things up as you go.
3. Avoid putting things down temporarily.
4. "A place for everything and everything in its place."
5. Mental list of small jobs to do in a few minutes.
6. Stay busy; don't allow things to get ahead of you.
7. Believe it is important to live in a peaceful, uncluttered environment.
8. Love, need, and use everything in your home.
9. Buy fewer, but higher quality, things.
10. Do it now or don't do it.
( Ellen Sandbeck, Organic Housekeeping)

"A Happy Medium"

Then I started thinking about rule practice #1: "Find a happy medium where everybody is comfortable."

Allow me to describe the everybody and how they are comfortable.

1. The husband. Packrat, visionary, creative, tends to accumulate tools (large) and projects. Swings between a perfectionist attention to detail (due to German ancestry) and a spontaneous, committed-to-the-moment unawareness of the mounds of mess accumulating as a result of "the moment." I have a feeling that my lack of organization bothers him but he's too sweet to complain.
2. The daughter, 3 1/2. Nothing makes her happier than cutting one big piece of paper into a thousand tiny pieces of paper, or rolling one big lump of play-dough into a thousand tiny lumps of play-dough.
3. The son, 2. The more trains, the better. The more trucks, the better. The more cars, the better. The more tractors, the better. The more blocks, the better. The more tools, the better. The more floor space covered by aforementioned trains, trucks, cars, tractors, blocks, and tools, the better.
4. The baby, 9 months. His motto: "It's not really a meal unless there's as much on the floor and as much on your face as there is in your belly."

So I'm just going to admit here and now that when it comes to a happy medium, the only person whose comfort concerns me is ME. Is that wrong? Selfish? Short-sighted? Unfair?

Nah. Because there's one common practice missing from that list. It's not a practice so much as a truth. My Daddy used to say this, and he's a wise man. My husband says this, and he is also a wise man.

#11: If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Furthermore, I think we should all agree that #11 trumps all the other 10 rules practices.

The End.

Image courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt.

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I have an almost three year old (Mara) and a fifteen month old (Wick). They share a lot of toys, such as blocks, cars and trucks, and stuffed animals, but some toys Mars have lots of little pieces and aren't good for Wick. So I bought a bunch of $1 plastic shoeboxes and separated her "big girl" toys out. She can open the lids, but Wick can't quite figure out how. Now she can big out the box she wants to play with, and she knows that she plays with the toys in the boxes up on the table, not on the floor. She has to put one box away before she gets another out, so it also helps me not end up with a million tiny toys scattered all over the house.

Cookbook Give Away!

Win Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book, her biggest collection yet. It includes over 300 pages of 30-minute meals, dinners for one, kosher meals, vegetarian meals, appetizers, and holiday meals. Click on the image at right to go to the Give Away. All you have to do is leave a comment! Drawing on Friday, Feb. 27!

Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. George Washington Carver

Update (Friday): 20 minutes cardio (aerobics); 10 minutes stretching.

I am really starting to enjoy the stretching. It's getting to me. I feel... well... stretched. (Profound.)

Resources: I recently read Organizing for Success by Kenneth Zeigler. I'm addicted to organizing books. I should get help, but I don't know of any group called "Organizing Books Addicts Anonymous." Maybe I should start the first OBAA. We can have a sheep (with glasses, and a book, and paper for taking notes, and a selection of pens, pencils, and highlighters, and file folder just in case) as our mascot.

My personal problems aside, I recommend this book if you are a fellow potential member of OBAA or if you actually just need help organizing. It deals with time management, work, productivity, and some good habits to incorporate whether you are the CEO of a corporation or a household, or both.

A couple of my favorite concepts from the book:

• The Veggie Principle: A veggie is a task, activity, or project that is good for you (work or personal) but that you have a hard time "eating," as Zeigler puts it. The Veggie Principle is simple: eat your veggies first. "The fastest way to improve productivity," Zeigler says, "is to start each day with a veggie and actually try to get two accomplished before lunch."
• Friday Planning: Zeigler recommends taking half an hour or so every Friday afternoon to review your week, note what you accomplished and what you didn't get to, figure out why (if you're unsure), put together a "Master List" for the upcoming week, jot in your appointments and scheduled events, and wrap up any loose ends. I've taken to doing this, usually on Sunday rather than Friday, and I enjoy having a larger view of what the last week was like and what the coming week needs to be like.

Tip: Eat a veggie. Then have dessert.

Challenge Update: I am feeling more in control of my day without a governing list than I was with one. I have forgotten a couple of items here and there that normally I would have put down for that particular day; but they aren't major and can easily be taken care of the next day. I seem to be finding a more natural rhythm for getting things done. Again, there is the feeling of being busy but not being rushed.

Start Building: Pick one spot every day and spend 5 to 10 minutes decluttering. Set a timer if you need to, and stop when the time is up. Just a little progress encourages and helps you keep up with your effort. Clutter wastes your time and saps your energy. Get rid of it, a little every day!

Challenge Update: Monday, the first "working" day without a to do list, was good. I am still using my planner but only for my routine checklist and for appointments. The routine I pretty much have memorized but I like checking it off. It gives me that feeling of accomplishment.

I feel a lot less pressure during the day. I am still running around like crazy, doing stuff, but it seems to be flowing in a more logical order rather than starting a project, remembering I have something else on the list of the day, stopping to do the thing on the list, etc. I am starting and completing things in a more streamlined way. I feel busy but not rushed. I also stopped a couple of times to just play with the kids or take care of them and wasn't trying to multitask as I usually am. I struggle with giving myself time to just be a Mommy when I have an uncompleted list over my head.

Start Building: A Master Task List is simply a place to put all those things you need to do. Anything from "Remodel the kitchen" to "Write thank you note to Aunt Nina" goes on the list. You can periodically check it over and cross off the things you've completed, or that have become irrelevant. You can also set a certain day each week, or a certain amount of time each day, to do as much as you can off the list. Alternately, pick one item from the list to accomplish each week, and work on it whenever you have time. It's best, when you want to tackle the major projects on the list, to break them down into smaller task. So, "Remodel the kitchen" would become "Clean out cabinets," "Paint kitchen," "Shop for new refrigerator," etc.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

Lately our major project has been the basement: a huge, unfinished area full of all the stuff we didn't know what to do with. There's a floor-to-ceiling stack of servers and processors, a row of old computer monitors, multiple boxes of smaller computer parts, and stacks of computer books. That's just my husband's stuff. Then there's mine: two sets of dishes that I have no room for in my kitchen, fondue sets, vases, material scraps, old files and notebooks and papers, boxed-up baby clothes from 0-3 months to 3 years, my "before the first pregnancy" clothes, maternity clothes, and "in between the first and second pregnancy" clothes, and stacks of other, non-computer books. Then there is all the stuff we have accumulated for and from ongoing projects, such as countertop remnants, scrap lumber, unused 2x4s, dismantled shelving, a roll of insulation, a half-used bucket of drywall plaster, and many small drywall pieces.

I never pondered the idea of inanimate objects procreating until we had this basement. It - and all the stuff in it - has a life of its own. We've given away clothes and books, had a garage sale and donated the leftovers, sold furniture and household stuff online, and hauled away many loads of trash. Still the stuff just fills the space. Everytime I walked down the stairs to do laundry I just tried to overlook it. It has been so overwhelming to think about clearing out this space into something usable... until now.

I had to get frustrated enough with the mess and the waste before I was willing to take on the scary beast of a basement. It seemed such an enormous project that I felt like I needed to schedule hours and hours to it, and it is hard to find lots of excess hours just sitting around. Finally, driven by frustration to action of any kind, I just started tackling one small pile at a time. Joe set up some cabinets on one end of the largest room, and one by one I hauled out boxes, sorted through them, took out the nasty, worthless stuff, organized and arranged the good stuff, and put it all away in a cabinet or a nicely labeled box. Slowly I cleared out the storage space off the bedroom and returned my sorted and labeled boxes to it. Slowly I worked my way through the piles of stuff in the bedroom itself until I could see almost the entire floor again. Everyday a little more order appeared, a little more space, a little more progress.

Two days ago, with the help of a friend, I attacked the last of the bedroom to get it completely emptied and ready for use as an actual bedroom. It took us twenty minutes to clear out the rest of the clutter, remove the lumber remnants, hang a curtain over the storage area entrance, wipe down the walls, hang a curtain over the window, and sweep the floor. Twenty minutes!

Yesterday Joe was off work all day so we decided to set up the bed in the newly emptied bedroom. It morphed into an afternoon-long workaholic's dream, but after five hours of hard work we had the bedroom ready for a guest, moved Joe's workspace over close to mine so we have a dual office, and transformed our previously cluttered and junked office/extra room into a clean and cozy library/lounge. One afternoon!

I started seriously working on the basement, one box at a time, only about three weeks ago. There's still a lot to do. The floors are rough, unfinished concrete. The walls need to be sanded and painted. The light fixtures are an eyesore. The piles of lumber and building materials are still there. Our half-installed bathroom is still half-installed as we get the necessary time and money (and a plumber!) to finish installing it. But progress is beautiful and inspires more progress. Overcoming a box or two that first day led to overcoming two or three boxes the next day, and from there we have made these giant leaps into two habitable rooms and a working office. No, not perfect, but better. Much better.

"Desire fulfilled is a tree of life." A tree bears fruit; it produces something beautiful and useful. Seeing our desires fulfilled, even in small pieces, is the push, the fertilization and water and nutrients and sunshine necessary to get that tree bearing good fruit. The more we let projects and goals sit around, untouched and overwhelming, the sicker and sicker our hearts become over them.

Make a move toward a big goal or project, just one small move. If you want to organize that dreaded clutter beast in your home, just get one empty box - a small one, maybe - and fill it up and throw it out. If you want to schedule your days and use your time better, get a notebook and start making a list of things to do and appointments to keep. If you want to be a better friend, pick up the phone and call, even if you only leave a message. Start. It can be a small start, it can seem insignificant, but the energy it provides from even the small amount of progress you see will push you on toward the next step and more progress. The wonderful thing about making progress is that it is cumulative: each day's progress builds on the progress of the day before, and you get to look back at that valley of hope deferred from a higher and higher distance.