My Newest Thing: Organization

So, anyone who knows me probably knows that I'm a pretty organized person. As anyone who knows me really well could attest: I'm probably borderline OCD when it comes to organization. I loosened up a little when I got married and realized that I'd rather have Carey help out with chores, even if they weren't done "my way," rather than do everything myself while Carey relaxed on the couch. (Thankfully, my hubby is wonderful. He is always willing to help out and has learned to do almost every house-related chore very well. Two exceptions: loading the dishwasher and cleaning toilets. These remain in the realm of "Kristen will continue to do these tasks, but thank you for offering, wonderful husband-of-mine.") The OCD organization loosened up even more once we had Abigail. At first, I was just too tired to worry about keeping things neat and organized. Then, once Abby started sleeping through the night and I left the world of the walking zombies and returned to "real life," I just didn't have the same desire to spend hours cleaning and organizing. After all, when you have this face around, who wants to sort through your kitchen cabinets???


Well, over the past few days and weeks, I have found myself with a deep desire to get myself back on track. I would still rather spend my time with Abby and Carey, but now that Abby goes to bed at 8:00 and Carey is often doing work for the office at nights, I find myself sitting in the living room, wondering what task I should start on next. I'm big on lists, so I find myself writing down everything I'd like to do around the house, from completely doable tasks, like washing the windows and ironing laundry, to the pie-in-the-sky, if-we-ever-have-enough-money-I'd-love-to-do-this kind of tasks, like having new siding put on the house and replacing the cabinets and counter-top in my kitchen.

I realized that there are lots of things that I can do now to get myself on track with these goals, both the short term, completely attainable goals AND the long-term, not-so-easy to attain goals. I need to get organized and I need to get my house in order. Why? Seeing that I am a huge list person, let me list some of my reasons:

• If I take the time to organize my home a little every day, like cleaning up messes as they happen and sorting through mail as it arrives, the small jobs won't pile up into big ones. Case in point: Carey and I are big "shredder" people. Being married to someone who used to work in Identify Theft Investigations at the Manhattan District Attorney's office means that our home is more conscious than most regarding personal information and making sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. While we are big people on shredding in theory, I'm afraid that we weren't real big on shredding in practice: we literally have two boxes filled with stuff that needs to be shredded. Now, if we had just stayed current with our shredding, we might have to spend 15 minutes per week, shredding and then emptying our shredder. Job done, case closed, identity safe-guarded. Instead, we might be caught up on our shredding by the time Abigail enters kindergarten.
• If I keep my home organized, I will know exactly what I have - I won't waste food by letting it spoil or buy more toilet paper, thinking that we'd run out, when we actually had six more rolls in the downstairs cupboards. Really, this is just smart stewardship. God has blessed us with the income required to buy what we need (and some of what we want) to live, so it is my job to be responsible with those gifts and utilize them to the best of my ability. Throwing out half a bag of grapes because I'd forgotten we had them and they became moldy is not a good use of our funds.
• When I tackle jobs as they arise or schedule tasks like cleaning and grocery shopping throughout the week, rather than leaving everything for the weekend, I get to spend more time, and more quality time, with two of the people who mean the most to me in the whole world. On Saturday afternoon, I love that I can spend time giving Abby piggyback rides or taking her to our local park, all without worrying that I have to finish the laundry, clean the bathroom, change the sheets on our bed, defrost the meat for tomorrow night's dinner, etc. (You get the idea.) Abby and Carey deserve my whole attention. I know this isn't always possible (my mind tends to run on its own sometimes, no matter how much I try to reign it in), but I can at least remove as many distractions as possible to give my over-active brain less to think about.
• Carey and I would like to have more kids. We're hoping it will happen soon, but we know that we're on God's time, not ours, so we're waiting patiently. But, if we are eventually blessed with more little Ngs running around the house, won't we be better off if I take the time now to get my house (and my family and myself) in order, rather than trying to do it with a newborn around? (Just to be clear: I am not pregnant yet. Let's not get that rumor started...)
  
• And frankly, it just feels nice when you're organized. When you can find the prescription information for your daughter's vitamins without spending 35 minutes sorting through paperwork in the office, it feels good. When you realize that you don't need to buy kidney beans for that chili you want to make because you picked up a can two weeks ago when they were on sale, it feels good. When you can spend all afternoon playing with the cutest little munchkin in the world without worrying about the remaining chores on your "To Do" list, it feels good. When you don't have to spend four hours speed-cleaning and acting like a crazy person to make sure your house is in order before company arrives, it feels good. I want my home to make me feel good. I already have pictures of my beautiful daughter, my handsome husband, and the rest of my amazing family on the walls in my home, and that makes me feel comfortable and loved and like I'm home. How much more at ease will I feel when I know that there is a place for everything and everything in its place?

So, what is my plan? Well, it's still in the early stages. But, briefly, here it is:

• Plan out specific household tasks to be done each night, rather than saving all cleaning for the weekend. (Example: Monday: dust; Tuesday: shredding; Wednesday: mop the floors; etc.) It's going to be challenging to motivate ourselves to work around the house after working all day and taking care of Abby at night, but it will be worth it. These chores will not be onerous - maybe 20-30 minutes max, so they're definitely doable in the time between when Abby goes to bed and the time that we go to bed. Plus, some of them can be completed while doing something else. (We usually watch "24" together on Monday nights. If Carey and I each grab a microfiber cloth, we can dust our living room and dining room while watching the show, and hit the other rooms during commercials.) I honestly believe that, if we can get ourselves on this schedule and really stick to it for a few weeks, we'll get into the habit and it will become a non-issue. (Plus, I think a few weekends of having very little housework to do and lots of time to spend with Abby and Carey will be all the motivation that I need!)
• Do a better job planning out our meals and shopping accordingly. We receive our grocery stores' sale ads on Thursday, so I have Friday and Saturday morning to compare prices and plan our food shopping. (We usually go shopping on Saturday afternoon - the grocery stores in our area begin their sales on Friday.) In conjunction with better planning (in terms of shopping and cooking), I also plan to work out some kind of system of better record-keeping in terms of what we have in our kitchen (fridge, freezer, and pantry). We're forever finding stuff that we forgot we had, and that really bothers me.
• I'm also going to become the coupon-clipping maven that I know I was meant to be. Right now, I would consider myself a coupon amateur. I clip what we find in the Sunday papers, and I subscribe to a few online coupon services. But I need to be more proactive about finding coupons for items that we use often and adjusting our expectations, menus, etc. to better fit with what we can find on sale. This also includes being a bit more frugal when it comes to Abigail. While we use Target diapers (which we find are inexpensive and reliable), I will purchase snacks, juice, etc. for Abigail without paying attention to price. There are enough coupons for baby items out there that I should have no problem finding all sorts of yummy things for my munchkin without spending a fortune. (Thankfully, while Abby still does love her Earth's Best Organic Smiley Snacks (they are delicious and they have Elmo AND Abby Cadabby on the box), she is also becoming more interested in the snacks that Carey and I eat, like pretzels and crackers, and will often eat these instead of "toddler-specific" snacks.) We remain big proponents of 100% juice only (which we still water down for Abby) and we've found that Abby loves the Gerber Harvest Juice Apple Carrot Blend, which is 100% juice and contains fruit and veggie juices. (Considering that Abigail has some days when she just refuses to even touch her vegetables, at least we know that she is getting some carroty goodness with this juice.) So, I'll make a point of looking for coupons and sales on these two items, as well as any other food items that Abby enjoys.

As I said, right now, I'm organizing my organizational plan (ha ha, didn't I tell you I was OCD???). I hope to have everything mapped out within the next week, so I can review it with Carey, tweak it as necessary, and then begin implementing it. Since I am a person who needs deadlines, I plan to have this new organizational system in place by April 1st. I'll post occasional updates on our progress, as well as what works and what doesn't. Until then, pardon me while I get my act together!