"Shoot! I know I JUST saw it..." This is a phrase that is used in my home a bit too often. While it's frustrating when something is just plain lost, it can be equally as frustrating when you have that kind of hazy mental image of some place, somewhere in your home, where you kind of remember seeing it. What a feeling of sweet relief when you finally (hopefully!) find what you're looking for. Imagine having that feeling with every item you look for! In theory, that's what de-cluttering and organization does. Everything has a place, and thus you know everything's place. Doesn't this sound like a magical land? The land where everything is perfectly stored and no object is left lingering in a free-zone. No important papers doubling as cup-holders, no keys laying snug between two couch cushions, and no toys laying perfectly aligned between a midnight bathroom walk and your feet.
These lands
do exist. For me, they just lay within other people's homes. Well, I think it's time we become "those people!" In the small areas that I
have created successful storage and organization, I can vouch for what a stress relief it is. I encourage my daughter to play with the toys that I KNOW are going somewhere. Her "homeless toys" on the other hand, make me cringe at every use. They are kind of my push around toys. I just keep pushing them around hoping they'll settle somewhere and look like they belong. Unfortunately, many of the push around items are my Husband and I's (i.e. a gym bag that my husband uses as a filing cabinet, closet, and office) he needs to be able to access it quickly and with ease, but a gray and black duffel bag doesn't really go with my curtains. I am just as guilty with books I keep meaning to read, clothes I keep meaning to fold and sort, and my Husbands biggest pet peeve: bobby pins that I leave in creepy places throughout the house for fear I may have to walk to the bathroom if I need one.
So let's do it! Let's get organized this spring. The amount of time that will be opened up with easy clean ups and shortened search parties will leave you more time to do what you really enjoy (anything besides cleaning!) Think about it, would you rather clean for 5 minutes (at your leisure), or spend even 30 seconds looking for a missing item (typically in a frantic rush trying to get out the door)? You have my word, I WILL get my home more organized, and I will actually write on that cute little notepad collecting dust on top of my fridge, no need to save it for the world's most important note.
Here are some links with ideas to help you get organized and lose that clutter!
FROM CLUTTER TO ORGANIZED
HGTV's TWO CENTS
A WHOLE WEBSITE DEDICATED TO THE CAUSE
I was going to attach lots of pictures of home organizations, but they are hard to relate to. It's kind of like when you pick a new comforter out from a magazine and can't figure out why your bedroom isn't instantly transformed into a King's estate, or serene paradise. So instead here are bit and pieces of organization ideas I thought were cute.
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| diyideas.com |
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| images.meredith.com |
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If you come in from your garage through your kitchen!
s6.thisnext.com |
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| Any old cookie tray would do! |
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| blissfullydomestic.com |
As TV characters become the people in our lives we're rooting for, and "friends" becomes a term for how many people you have added on an internet website, it's easy to see how our view of human interaction has changed. This is not going to be a technology bashing essay, if anything, technology has increased interaction between many people that you would have lost touch with, or had a hard time keeping in touch with prior. It is ironic that something that is such a massive "meeting place" for people all over the globe can also create such a wedge of distance in "real life" relationships. As most of us find, the more technology advances, the more we find our lives centralling around it. Whether it's a huge part of your job, or a main outlet of "escape" from the stresses of the day, most people are finding themselves more and more dependent upon what used to be optional. With "phones" that now make you constantly available to an innumerous amount of ways to be reached, it is hard to make a difinitive line of escape from social media.
