The Christmas Manifesto

Family.

There's the four of us under this roof. Then there's my Mother and my nephew. And my daughter's friends. Some of my best memories of Christmas involve my daughter, a friend and me baking and decorating cookies in the kitchen. I think a baking party with her two best friends would be wonderful.

Together.

I love spending time with everyone all together, all at once. It can be tough, these days. Maybe this will be the year we finally read the Settlers of Cataan instructions and figure out how to play it?

Peace and Joy.

Of course. But it means more. It means--stress free. Relax. Take a chill pill. It means that anyone can tell anyone else: give me a minute. Let me calm down. I want you to calm down. I'm sorry. I'll get right on that.

please

Self-explanatory. With two teenagers who don't get along at the best of time, a Mom adjusting to working at a job, outside the home, for the first time since becoming a Mom 16 years ago, and a Dad who probably will work lots of hours everyday and without a day off a physically demanding job between now and Christmas eve, it will be a challenge to keep this family cheerfully doing things together in an atmosphere of peace and joy.


But, that's the goal.
Isn't it ever?

Being Real

My living room this afternoon. I'd just mopped the floor. Things echoed and I felt a strong urge to paint my walls.

I am so far behind in what I'd wanted to get done for today's post, that I considered not even posting at all. But, what use is that to anyone?

Time management is a precious skill--and I am still learning that my time is not my own 24/7 anymore. Between work, the kids, my husband, and the house, it seems I use all my "free" time for sleeping!

I had thought I would do my fall cleaning this month--in the living room and the kitchen. I sent the living room rug out to be cleaned--and it came back last week. Yes. Last week. We have been tripping over it for exactly seven days.

I did get my living room windows cleaned and the screens vacuumed before our first snowfall, thank goodness.

The view from my living room window, Nov 4, 2013. This snow will stay.

But, I haven't yet got the storm windows up and the screens down at the back of the house. It's really cold by those windows. (I usually put plastic up on the inside, too, to help insulate them.) Let's just say you don't really want to linger long in that downstairs bathroom.

But, the worst thing of all? Yesterday, I decided on a whim, just to pull out everything that looked (or smelled) nasty from the fridge.

Isn't that awful?

All of that was festering while I wrote my "How to stay organized" series. I looked at that and felt like a fraud.

But that's life, isn't it?

I'm not upset. I am not stressed. And I'm certainly not a fraud. Some weeks are just better than others. I'll figure it out, soon, I hope. I feel a bit frazzled to get the carpet down and the brown drapes up--I'm expecting a couple of service guys to come and clean our furnace soon.

Kinda sums up my two days off this week--and I sure do love that sunlight.

Joy.

 

But oddly enough, I am enjoying this season of busyness.

Well, this week. 

November: Getting Ready for Christmas

No, November 1st is not too early. Especially when you realise that I'm really getting ready to get ready.

The Living Room: Glitzy or Dusty?

a very messy --and dusty-- living room

I'll be focusing on giving my living room a thorough clean --just so the Christmas glitz doesn't have to fight its way through fields of dust. I am also going to try and tackle a sewing project-- recovering my POANG chair. I am very tired of the very tired green cover. Besides, it's really the dog's chair--and I want a cover that's easy to remove so I can wash it before we invite humans to sit on it.

the ubiquitous IKEA POANG chair in olive green.

The Kitchen: where the party happens

As well, since Christmas actually happens in the kitchen (it just parks it gear in the living room, much like my daughter), I plan to give it a lick and a promise as well. Plus, my new range is coming --and I want the rest of the kitchen to meet it looking its best. I owe it that much, hardworking thing that it is, don't you think?


And in the Christmas Corner:

I will be working on a few things directly related to Christmas, too, of course. I have enrolled in Simplify 101's course: Get Organized for the Holidays. Tonight, the family is going to have a sit down, a rare face to face to talk about what we want out of Christmas this year. Funds are tight, so we all need to have our expectations aligned.

My Holiday Planner. Created in 2009.

Blog News:

I plan to reduce my blogging frequency from every day (yeesh! For a non-money making blog, that 31 Days of Staying Organized series sure was a lot of work!) to twice a week. I am aiming for Tuesdays and Fridays.

What do you think? Is it too early to get organized for Christmas? What are you up to this month?

Day 31: Just Say No.

Saying "no" to stuff you don't really need slows the inflow.

Saying "no" to hanging on to old things you no longer want or need speeds up the outflow.

Saying "no" to tasks and activities which interfere with other tasks and activities you value (even "non-tasks" and "non-activities" like reading for pleasure, or sleeping), you create breathing room.

Saying "no" is sometimes the best way to stay true to yourself. It can be the way to be kind to yourself.

For when you say "yes" to one thing, given we have finite time, finite resources, finite energy and, even, finite health, we are indirectly saying "no" to something else.

Like everything else, make that "no" be up front, direct and intentional.


Thanks for joining me for the 31 Days of Staying Organized. It was a bit intense, wasn't it?
What was your biggest take-away?

You can catch all the posts in the series here.

A huge thank-you to Aby Garvey at Simplify 101 whose course called "The Secrets of Staying Organized" was the inspiration for this series. The course is being offered again in a week. I highly recommend it.

Day 30: Make Staying Organized Part of the Family Culture

You know of my struggles in this area with my own family.

While my grandmother gave me the example of keeping a house clean and tidy, my mom did not. My Mom is not my grandmother's daughter, but her daughter-in-law. But, as Mom tells the story, even her own mother despaired of teaching my Mom how to keep house, and so, unlike her sisters, she wasn't taught.

And I'm not sure that if she had known she would have taught me. She was a career woman while I was growing up--and for most of it a single parent. As I am learning now, it takes a lot of energy to teach kids to do things they'd rather not do. If I could turn back the clock, I would. If I knew then what I know now about habits, I would have persisted better when they were younger and not worried so much about the whole issue of rewards and internal motivation.

But things are changing. I am no longer the chief cook and bottlewasher in my home--well, maybe I am the chief, but I have a crew (motely though they may be) now. Thank goodness.

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.

Day 29: Create Homes for Temporary Things

Do you work on projects and have them scattered about?

Or, do you stop yourself from working on projects because you have no place to keep them?

I used to do that.

Now, I have a sewing project basket here:

and some curtains I'm working on, here.

I need a better place to keep returns, though.

Have you got clutter because of temporary things?
Think about creating homes for them.

Christmas is coming. That's a huge influx of all kinds of temporary things. Not just gifts, (and the on-going process of hand made gifts, if any are on your lists) but baking items, pre-made food, part supplies, receipts, and so on.... If you think of places to put things, now, you'll have a much less cluttered Christmas.

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.

Day 28: Speed up the Outflow

I'd been avoiding it.

 

But when my daughter announced that she had "cleaned out her summer stuff" I knew I had to go downstairs and tackle it.

 

 

 

"It" is our donation station which is one of the single most important things I've ever set up to help us stay organized.

 

This is the place where everything goes if it is going to leave the house. It is here, under my folding table, in the laundry room because most of what we donate is clothing. It's handy to just take it straight from the dryer and put it here.

 

We are on a local charity's call list. I try to always have something for them when they call to make a pick up--so, unfortunately, I do let things pile up a bit too much--but when it works, it works really well. Every time they called last year, I took it as a cue to declutter more and more areas of the house.

 

Now that I have some breathing room, I do my best to maintain the one-in, one-out rule. This is really effective with my daughter. Every time she asks for something new, I always ask her, "What are you going to get rid of to make room for this?" I am hoping that this will stop her pack ratting tendencies in their tracks some day.

 

Aby adds one more thing to the list of ways to speed up your outflow. She advises to stop looking for the perfect home for your things. It slows down the process too much.

 

So, how do you speed up the outflow?

1. Set up a donation bin.
2. Get on a charity's pick up list.
3. Follow the one-in, one-out rule.
4. Stop trying to find the perfect home.

 

Do you have any thing you are ready to donate/give away? 

 

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.