Hospitality, Friendship, Encouragement

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Ordinary Days

Today we are having an ordinary day. School in the morning, bowling this afternoon. I will get my 30 minutes in on our recumbant bike in the basement.

I am really trying to get organized and to simplify. I find so much frustration in clutter. When you have a sizeable family, the clutter is only increased! We have been blessed greatly, but enough is enough. I want the things my kids have to be important to them and that they will treasure them and care for them.

I have been working on deep cleaning the kitchen, sorting out cupboard by cupboard. What do I really need/use? Can someone else make use of this or should it go in the trash, etc...

I want to do the storage area of the basement next. I want to do the girls closet, and then maybe repaint their room and bathroom.

I love walking into clean uncluttered spaces. I don't like paper and toys all over. We have approximately 1400 sq feet, not including the basement. That is a decent amount of space, but it does mean we must be careful, as it is so easy to become overwhelmed with things.

I have heard that a way to decide if you need something is to ask yourself "have I used this in the last year?" Somethings of course are just treasures and you keep those. But items that have been in boxes in the basement for YEARS are good candidates for new homes!

I will try to keep you posted about all this. And take pictures. However, I find in order to really do these things, I need blocks of time, which is difficult to find. Especially when I would rather be blogging or checking out my friends blogs!

8 comments:

  1. You need the Ryan Machine!!!!

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  2. I know it! Emily has those skills hidden away! And I think Kyle might be like that. He always has to put his toys in their "right" box! I love it!

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  3. Lets support each other through our sorts and purges. I must let some things go...With hubby leaving soon for a couple of weeks on business...it is my chance to see how much I can get through before he gets back.
    Becky K.

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  4. I'm doing my kitchen this week. I've been going through my cupboards and donating things we don't use, dumping food that's beyond its expiration date and generally sprucing. I've done a little every day. I thought I'd be done tomorrow but looks like I'll need the rest of the week to finish up. Keep us posted!

    Manuela

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  5. you have a recumbant bike - and room for it...? i'm green with envy.

    my day consists of tidying, paperwork (school), organizing and purging. El completes her last set of lectures this afternoon and will call the semester *done*. huge accomplishment! ;o)

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  6. Congrats to the Princess! I like how she is doing college!

    We purchased our recumbant bike for a joint Christmas present. We have it downstairs in the finished basement. Yesterday I listened to Tim's mP3 player, lots of praise and worship. I often just read.

    I am working on consistency, and going for 30 minutes each time and as I progress I will work on speed! It is pretty fun.

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  7. Hi Becky!!!

    Haha that is so funny what Paula said! I think you do need my husband!! He is so crazy about clean clean clean!

    Good luck with all this, I definitely know it feels so good when you walk into a very clean room!!! Its such a sigh of relief!

    I stand by the same rule of the one year. I try to always throw things out but it does get hard!!

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  8. Hi auntie dee!! Sorry, about saying it was to becky...I am a little out of it today!! I just hop through the blogs and oopps!

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