Assessing the Damage

What am I up against? Let's see. Hhmm. At this very moment when you walk in the front door, there is a dresser covered in papers. The dresser is full of other stuff. Not just random junk, but stuff. There is a big difference you know. There are two small bookcases that are empty. They are leftover from decluttering my daughters room a month ago. I have not found anything to put on them, and I don't know where to put them, so there they sit, a mismatched pair. My oldest son loves to use them as a garage for his toys. Right now the shelves are empty and a pile of toys sits on the floor in front. The dresser turned into a catch all for the mail. And anything else to important to just set anywhere. Because anything left below four feet high can literally grow legs in this house, I have lots of places in my home that are up high and covered with things I don't want the toddler and the baby to get. In this tiny entryway I also have my full sized stroller opened and waiting to walk to school. It takes up loads of space and I trip over it all day. But that is where it belongs.

This is a peek into my home. Anyone who comes to the front door can see in through the window and size up my junk. It is not a first impression that I am proud of. I am rather embarassed by it.

My opponent has many faces. My two biggest problems are toys and clothes. Followed closely by paperwork. I think anyone with small kids can relate.

The toys. They breed. I swear that when the lights go out at night they are having parties and doing unmentionable things all over the house. I'd like to say they do it only in the toy box, but the toys are everywhere. In the bathroom, the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, the entry, the stinky room, the back porch, spilling out onto the lawn. Amazingly there are even some in the playroom, and my kids' rooms. But the one place that really annoys me to find toys is in MY room. Where did all these toys come from? Where are they going to go? My kids are too young to take care of them all. They are very overwhelmed with the prospect of having to pick them all up at once. Even if by some small miracle they did pick them all up at once, we do not have a place set aside for all the toys. Except in the shed. I just shivered and broke out in hives thinking about the toys in the shed. They have their own corner out there. And when I say corner, it is a 12 X 12 area, covered in toys two feet deep. Gah.

The clothes. I know that in order to conquer this mess, I must take responsibility for it. But I swear I can blame this one on everyone but me. When I buy my kids clothes, we go to the local thrift store, and I am very picky. It needs to last, it needs to fit right, and it has to be modest. This is not the case with some well meaning relatives. They go to a department store in a larger city and the store happens to be having a GREAT sale. They assume that my kids are in need of clothes because whenever we see them, the kids clothes are ill fitting or dirty because I have 20 loads of laundry to do at home, and they scrounged their own that morning. Anyway, they decide that this is the sale of the century and they begin to shop. I am just a victim here. No joke, my daughter got 8 pairs of shorts this way once. Some were identical. My sons have 12 pairs of pants in the size 2t from these shopping excursions. The list goes on and on. For awhile I thought it was great. They were nice clothes for no money, clothes that I could pass down from kid to kid. Now I am beginning to see the light. I have five to six large rubbermaid bins of clothes waiting for the next kid to grow into. I don't even have another daughter yet and I am still saving clothes for her. (My girl is my oldest). I feel like I can't give the clothes away. I tried to once. I had a nice big box of clothes to go to goodwill. The relative stopped by and I asked her to take the box to Goodwill because she was headed there anyway. She looked through the box and I believe she took the whole thing home. No need to waste perfectly good clothes! Have I mentioned that my kids are the only kids she knows that are little enough for these clothes? And then there is the couch buried with clothes in the shed. *Shiver*

The paperwork. I have oodles of stacks of papers. Reciepts, bills, artwork from my kids. Recipes, phone numbers, brochures. Lists, product inserts, warranties. Stacks. All over my house. One giant stack by the microwave. One giant stack on aforementioned dresser. One meduim stack beginning to bury the computer monitor. One meduim stack on top of the fridge. An entire bookcase in the playroom from my business. One small one on top of the dryer from my husbands pocket emptying ritual. Another on his dresser for the same reason. My daughter has a a whole box of papers from last school year under her bed. Let's not forget the shed. We moved boxes of important papers. Large moving boxes full. Papers. My head is starting to hurt.

This list is by no means inclusive. I think if I can get a grip on these things, that I would have more time to attack the other problem areas. For example the kitchen, my sewing and the movies.

Although I am not fond of the Flylady system, the principles behind it are sound. You cannot organize clutter. You must clean a little bit everyday. You must form habits of efficient living. Habits. Ick.