"No reading at the breakfast table"

Our de-cluttered dining space I am (still) reading Peter's Walsh book on de-cluttering 'It's all too much'.  It's worth a read by the way - even if you're pretty good at de-cluttering it has helped me think more carefully about what I'm doing with my stuff. Last week I was inspired by his idea of creating 'zones' for your possessions.  That you allocate specific areas for specific tasks.  So you work out what each part of your house is used for, and then stick to that.  I was particularly inspired by his chapter on the master bedroom.  He's big on keeping the master bedroom for sleeping and clothes and nothing else.  Not the unsorted washing.  Not the kid's toys.  Not the junk that doesn't fit anywhere else.  He reckons that by separating out sections of our space that we will be able to sleep and relax better. While I was reading this I was sitting on my bed.  I had a look around at my room.  I don't have a study so I could...

 Here's the question that has challenged me the most regularly in this whole decluttering blitz.  What do you do with your stuff once you've sorted through it and decided that you don't need it anymore?  I think this is one of the big challenges of decluttering because you don't want to create more landfill.  And I have to admit that I am really hopeless at thinking creatively about the removal of my stuff (beyond 'that can go in the recycling bin') so I'm just starting to think carefully through this for myself. In my head I have a list of questions I ask myself when I have things I'd like to get rid of.  Could I SHARE this with someone?  Could I GIVE it to someone?  Could I SELL this item? Can I REUSE this item for another purpose (and an immediate purpose, not a 'I might one day make something with that'), can it be RECYCLED, then landfill if desperate.  I have signed up for Freecycle to get rid of a few items but I am yet to try it out....

Not everything  much I write on this blog is very exciting and today is going to be one of those days.  Since this is my YEAR of less is more, it's a long road ahead as I think through de-cluttering life. One of the hard things about this process is that when you read the book , get all excited , manage to pull off one big job like the books , you then lie there in bed at night boring your husband to death with statements like:  'Yes, I need to work through that hallway cupboard' (big job) and 'And that cupboard in the kid's room with all my craft stuff ' (scary, scary job) and 'Yes, there's that cupboard of random sporting stuff - and that old broom that I never use - in the laundry' (mind numbingly boring job).  It's all very clear what needs to happen, but when the choice is 'Do something about that cupboard' or 'Anything else' it appears that even housework is winning. This week I'm putting the principle of starting w...

Ahh - I feel organised just looking at this So you've read the book , got inspired by my posts and you're all set to go.  You're psyched.  You're going to get ORGANISED.  At last you're going to get your stuff SORTED.  Unlike the last two times you got serious, you really are going to do it this time.  Because you went to IKEA this morning and got the right shelving and containers and boxes to help you DO IT! Hold on.  Stop - STOP … Do NOT go to the shops to help you declutter.  Don't buy more stuff to help you get sorted.  You're meant to be getting rid of stuff.  And those containers = more STUFF!!!! Storage containers help hide and tidy up stuff.  But they don't actually help declutter.  By storing my things I'm just hiding the clutter.  Sure it's not cluttering up my lounge room anymore, but it's still in my life and I still own it and will have to work out what to do with it at some point in time.  I'm actual...

Our kids books all laid out before we sorted them While a lot of my thinking and headspace has been taken up with decluttering our schedule, I've also been thinking a lot about decluttering our possessions. To be honest, I like getting rid of things and I find it freeing to declutter our house. But my house is far from a minimalist paradise. Seven people live in our three bedroom house and part of the motivation for decluttering is actually so that we can cope with living in our house.  I think if you can keep the clutter to a minimum it makes you more content with the space you have, instead of a constant feeling that what you have isn't big enough. But I have failed miserably with our books. I'm a librarian. And I'm not just a librarian, I'm a children's librarian with five reading offspring. So we have A LOT of children's books. We also have a lot of other books. I really wanted to do a cull of the books but I couldn't even consider do...

I suspect not - I've seen old ladies at the shops.  Many of them.  I'm guessing they've been traipsing the aisles for many a year now.   If you are a long term reader you might remember that I am not an avid fan of shopping.  But I have to do a lot of it.  It just about k i l l s me (could be the florescent lighting messing with my mind).  And in the past I have been very inefficient and consequently totally ineffective (read all about it here ). However, you will be pleased to know that working four days a week last year forced my hand.  I actually menu planned and wrote a comprehensive shopping list and wait for it - went back and got an item if I discovered I had missed it when I got to the check out (past usual practice:  optimistically believing I would be OK without toilet paper, not bother to tramp back for it and of course discovering at 1:00 am on a Tuesday morning that this was NEVER going to work out well). The whole once a week...

This is my best friend in the school holidays because it deals many times a time with an astounding pile of washing up that accumulates.

Since our youngest started school this year the playroom has become a desert of rolling tumbleweed (well, actually, carpet with leaves that blow in from outside the back door).  The kids don't use it much, the cat likes sleeping there, I dump all my clean washing in there.  I have been starting to ponder what to do with this room because it's not a proper room - it's an indoor/outdoor type room. And the toy cupboard that I have enjoyed for years since I had two little ones, is now haunting me at night.  It is full of unsorted bits of toys that hardly get touched.  I need to do a big cull come the next school holidays. Toy cupboard of my nightmares What's happened is that the chaos of the playroom that ended each of my long days at home with little kids, has now been replaced by the sight of two disgustingly messy bedrooms.  See exhibit A and exhibit B below (great work Team Kemp - not). Exhibit A (nice work girls) Exhibit B (top effort guys) ...

Earlier this year I employed a cleaner to come and clean our house once a fortnight.  I was desperate.  I couldn't get my head around cleaning on top of coping with working four days a week and I was exhausted.  It seemed like an easy solution to a big problem. But it wasn't the solution.  With seven people in our house there is just so much TIDYING to do.  It could be a full time occupation.  Cleaning proved to be the least of our worries.  Picking up all the stuff is massive.  Cleaning is not so massive.  Picking up all the stuff has to happen every day, or at least more often than once a fortnight.  Otherwise we could not open the front door and leave the house each morning.  Cleaning does not actually take all that much time (once the tidying is done). So tidying up for the cleaner was proving to be a big stress and on a weekday morning when I was working, it just became a bit nightmarish.  Plus if most of the job is ...

I felt a little like this today! As the day ends I reflect on how many times I have loaded the dishwasher today - 3 times.  What is that about?  I think it's a combination of a wet weekend and the 11yo deciding to bake.  I didn't even cook anything interesting.  Plus washed up a few times. What else did I do today?  Worked out what we really needed to have washed out of the mountain of unwashed clothing.  And then tried out our new dryer (our old one stopped working just before 10 days of almost solid rain kicked in).  I normally only use it to dry emergency undie/sock/uniform washes. Took three of the kids shopping for a birthday present (which was thankfully chosen very quickly) and some cardboard for school projects.  One child had netball (she played in the rain and has been very sick for most the week with the flu - not thrilled about her playing) and another had a birthday party.  But my husband generously did all the driving a...

This is how I do it (in response to the question, 'How do you DO it all Jenny?').  No great secret.  Just my friend the freezer, plastic containers and a large pot.  I'm aiming to cook the base for 16 meals this week. Chilli con carne for nachos, burritos and tacos (Thursday night is 'Mexican' night at our place).  Bolognaise sauce for the Wednesday nights after piano lessons that finish at 6.30pm.  Marinated chicken for stirfrys (add veges) and rice paper rolls (add rice paper rolls/veges).  And curry.  Now I'm ahead with the cooking for the first few weeks of work. I've also been trying to think about what lunch box food I could cook ahead and freeze.  Any ideas?  I'm going to try and be much more diligent about what my kids are eating at school this year.  It all fell apart at the end of 2011.

If I was a proper mother I would shop at Aldi, trawl catalogues for bargains, visit a variety of supermarkets for said bargains, go to the fruit market every Saturday morning at the crack of dawn, shop at Costco for giant pizzas and bulk toilet paper, sew my children's clothes and shop at factory outlets. Instead, I hate shopping , go to Coles, buy it all there (including the expensive, but nasty fruit and veg), buy some children's clothes when desperate (most are hand me downs - lovely because it involves no shopping), can't be bothered driving all the way to factory outlets/Costco/fruit market and never look at a supermarket catalogue.  I've given shopping around a go in the past but I like people better.  They are more interesting than shops and if I have a choice I'd much prefer a chat than a shop. Just thought I needed to get that off my chest.  Sorry.  I'm just a fake dressed up in Mum clothes.

All my dirty secrets are aired.  Here we at the finale.  It's been a long hard road of consistent blogging on a topic (although, not surprisingly, here I am a few days late).  A tough three weeks... Just a few thoughts.  Part of why I wrote these posts is because there is a tendency out there to celebrate the women who are routine type people.  They are the women who do caring for their families 'properly'.  They are the women on the TV ads for cleaning products.  Not a bit of clutter, dirt, unwashed dishes in sight.  I have friends who are great at housekeeping.  I envy those women.  I want to be more organised, have more predictable systems and routines.  I've tried many times to be that person.  But it is hard, and frankly, I'm just not great at it. So where am I now?  As always, coming to terms with the limitations of being 'me'.  I'll always have to work hard at keeping on top of housework.  I like havin...

'Failing at getting kids to do chores' is the title of this episode.  (And btw.  Wow. Episode 3.  This is very unlike me.) One of the common assumptions about large families is that of course my children will help me.  That by somehow being in a largish family, their desire to serve one another will be stronger than other kids.  It's not true.  They're as lazy and self focused as everyone else. So I still have to work hard to get them to help out and contribute.  Which is a problem, when you're as haphazard and disorganised as me.  So they'll make their beds diligently for a few weeks and then I'll run out of 'hassle-puff' (as I call it) and the whole thing collapses again. Is it possible to get them to do housework without the charts and chore list? I think so.  As they've got older it's become a norm that if Mum asks for help, you need to be obedient and contribute.  So they do actually do lots of housework, but it still re...

So here's episode 2 - let's see if episode 3 ever appears.  A series is a struggle for me.  I'm not much of a routine person, which is, of course, what this series is actually about! Episode 2: 'The Visible Dirt Line (VDL)'.  This is all about my haphazard cleaning strategies.  As I was cleaning the bath last week, I realised that I was motivated by (a) the visible line of dirt decorating the bath and (b) we were going to have a guest to stay.  So the dirt line motivated me to clean because I could see it and more importantly someone ELSE was going to see it.  Same goes for the mould in the shower, the footprints all over the bathroom floor and the toothpaste squirted all over the side of the basin. I also swept the kitchen floor because it was crunchy and I was concerned I might slip and kill myself while swanning around the kitchen in my Ugg boots. I tend not to preventative clean - it is reactive.  This is probably freaking out all my readers...

My partner in crime As I was driving into an empty car park at the shops at 7:36pm last night I thought 'last time I was here it was also empty because I was here at 7:11 am, what is my problem? Why can't I shop like a normal person?' I also pick up a shopping basket, rather than a trolley, since hey, I only have to get a few things. $50 and a half broken, displaced back later (since I couldn't resist the cheap toilet paper and I can't buy anything less than 2kg of self raising flour), I'm starting to acknowledge the need for therapy or at least a better shopping routine. Oh no. But there's that word again. Routine. The bane of my life. I don't like shopping. I find it tedious and draining. Which is a problem with so many people in my family who are only getting bigger and eating more and going through vast quantities of toilet paper. And we get our milk, bread and veges delivered so it shouldn't be that bad. Yet I'm always at the sho...

In February we did a lot of hospitality . We tried to have as many people from Rowan's staff team over individually for a meal. It is always so worthwhile, encouraging and great for strengthening relationships. But being honest, (and hi guys, we do love you all!) February did almost kill me! And as a result I've been pretty burnt out and slack. It's not just the time, it's the shopping beforehand, the cooking and the cleaning. All in the middle of the rest of life. So chatting to a minister's wife from a large church on the weekend, I asked how she managed to do all the hospitality she does. She suggested doing supper instead of dinner. This little suggestion was so liberating. Why? Less shopping. Less food preparation. Less washing up. Less stress juggling the guests and the children at the dinner table. Easier to have guests on the evenings I work because I don't have to worry about preparing a full meal the night before. All I have to do now is work out...

Here's a couple of things I actually HAVE learnt along the way about housework. - You do get more efficient the longer you do it - and more strategic. 'What do I need to do to make it feel OKish?' - There is hope for those at home with toddlers.  It gets easier to keep the house clean as they get older, simply because my kids aren't actually in the house during the day when they are at school.  I do find that the house gets pretty messy on the weekends/school holidays, but we usually do a big clean-up on Sunday afternoon - they get allocated a 'space' each - watching a favourite TV show is usually the incentive. - The kid's bedrooms are the worst mess now.  It's where they keep all their 'precious' things (aka bits of junk, bits of craft, bits of whatever), the girls get changed multiple times a day and I'm reluctant to go through their stuff without them being around.  I feel like it's the only space they have any control over so I...

I've been thinking about housework quite a lot over the past few weeks.  I like having a tidy house and do enjoy the washing being put away (I even managed it again today).  But I don't spend hours and hours on it every day.  I find other things - well, being truthful - mostly anything else - more interesting. If I could justify it, I'd pay a cleaner with money from my new job (but, I obviously can't, because I'm saving up for that holiday ). Anyway ... here's a couple of questions for you, my friends in blog land, to answer for me: 1.  Do those of you who spend many hours a day doing housework, really enjoy doing it? 2.  Would those of you who have very neat houses find coming to my less-than-perfect house stressful?  Would you be quietly thinking to yourself, 'gee, if only she spent a bit less time on her blog, and more time on this house...'? Just curious (and you can be anonymous - I won't make fun of you).

So am feeling like a total legend because today I actually put OUT the washing, brought IN the washing, FOLDED the washing and by some amazing super power that is not normal for me, PUT IT AWAY. Now, this may not be shocking to you.  In fact, this may be quite a normal process for you, but I just cannot get that last step done. So I'm momentarily enjoying the washing free playroom and the empty washing basket. Very satisfying. Now if I could only do it all again tomorrow, I'd be on a definite roll!