Organization Smorganization
I have never been a person who owns a home with a lot of clutter. You will never walk into my home and think, "Good Lord, it must take forever to do a good dusting!" Rob and I are actually quite minimalistic, but not the sort of minimalistic you see in a West Elm catalog. So the fact I have committed myself to organizing my house stumps me a bit since there isn't a ton of clutter. BUT, we do have closets and a new child with a lot of toys!
When I returned home from Houston and our Christmas vacation I decided my kitchen cupboards and drawers needed to be sorted out. It wasn't a massive task but it's always nice to get everything out and try to see if you can make a room more cohesive and I definitely accomplised that. I found dishes I forgot I owned and will now get many usages out of! With the kitchen done I figured why not do a room by room organization, that would be fun!
I started with my upstairs closet in our office/spare bedroom/catch-all room. The closet is where I keep all my gift-wrap and after Christmas the place looked like it exploded in all it's red and green colored glory with a bit of silver thrown in for effect. I went to Linen 'N Things to get organizers for the wrapping paper and also for all the ribbon I like to collect (I'm not a big believer in regular bows, all packages must be finished off with hand tied bows made of beautiful ribbon!) It took me almost two hours (many thanks to Avery for a killer nap) to get the closet organized but it is finally finished and I have told my husband he is not allowed to go in and touch it for fear if anyone even breathes air in that small space it will destroy all of it's organized perfection.
I have now moved on to Avery's room and this is where my biggest projects lay ahead of me. My first duty of business was to empty her closet of all clothes that no longer fit her. This task was so painful for me that I called my mother on the phone so she could share in my pain, the pain that knowing my little baby girl will never fit into the 3-6 month sized dress that was so cute last Easter. I physically ached as I looked at every piece of clothing that she won't be able to wear again because it seemed as though it was official in the way that I am no longer a parent to a baby, but to a toddler. I truly have no idea where this past year has went because I think it flew by so fast it seems I wasn't there for a lot of it, even though I was there for every, single, itty-bitty second and that includes the seconds that turned into minutes and hours of me being completely out of it due to lack of sleep. Either way, the emptying of her closet had to be done because I had no more hangers to hang up some new clothing I have bought for her (this child has more clothes than is really necessary but girlie clothes are so much fun to buy!) I am happy to say Avery's closet is now very organized and all of her old clothes have been laundered, tissue papered and put into boxes for the next child. Now I get to have great fun in filling the closet back up!
I also needed to get some control over Avery's toys. The child has been thoroughly spoiled between Christmas and her Birthday, so much so that her toys have now taken over our living room and we look like we live at Babies R Us. I went to Target and bought some wonderful storage bins and have now organized her toys into four different categories, they are: stuffed animals, books, general toys and a living room toys category. I have put three bins into her armoire in her room and the 'living room toys' bin into our entertainment center, hidden away. The bin in the entertainment center will have toys that are routinely changed with different objects from the other three bins so that it seems to her that she is always having something new to play with. I did everything this way on purpose because it seems that if you just leave all of her toys to her disposal she's not that hip with taking some time to play with one or two, like the amount of options overwhelm her. We've noticed if we bring something out she hasn't played with in a while, she will spend quite some time just playing with that toy. Hopefully, this will work and I won't have to keep on pulling her out of my kitchen cabinets to stop her from getting to the espresso machine utensils, which I am quite certain if they were in her toy pile she would have no interest in them at all!
So, that has been my organization bit as of late, I am now onto our bathroom cabinets as it always seems things get completely out of control underneath the sink. So many lotions, potions, hair gadgets, brushes and perfumes to sort out. My goal is that if I can have all of the spaces organized by spring I will be able to skip the "Spring Cleaning" all together!
You are probably all thinking, "what a sad commentary of one's life" but it's so nice to know that everything in my house is organized and everything has it's place. I'm not the most put together of people so knowing that the house is completely organized brings a lot of peace to the mind. Who needs yoga?
