I took some time over the weekend to get my sorted and refocussed on what I want to get achieved each day. This includes not just stuff to do around the house, but what fun things I want to do (like scrapbooking) and how I want to feel about myself (eating healthy, getting in my exercise, dressing decent and putting on make-up even if I’m not leaving the house).  In order to make this happen I reworked my daily routine.

I tried to be fairly detailed, esp with the time as this is where I’m really failing at the moment. I made to schedule in computer time – Amy thought it was a lot but if I stick to this I have 1.5 hours which I’m sure is a lot less than what I’ve been spending. I also need to work on not using the computer at night when Kevin is home as he’s been feeling a bit neglected. I’m sure having it all written in black (or in this case blue) and white and stuck on the fridge will help me stick to it. I also planned exercise and meal/snack breaks which hopefully keep me out of the kitchen in between . The basic premise is work in the morning, craft time after lunch, a few more chores after girls get home and then time with Kevin after dinner. I will give this new routine a go for a few weeks then make any chances that are required.

Amy also made up routines for herself and Christy which they have to complete in order to get some pocket money each week.

The next thing I needed to do in order to be organised for the week was do a menu plan.

At times I have done this monthly but usually find a weekly basis works best for me. I try to put in one or two new recipes each week and make sure to plan easy dinners on late nights or busy days.

I also took time to go over the detailed zone cleaning list (al la Flylady.net) – the last one I had was written a few years back when the girls had a lot more toys. Wish me luck getting back into my groove .

Yes, that’s what I’ve been named on the fantastic blog – Crafty Storage. Go check it out!

I’ve been working on going through everything in the scrapbook room the last couple of weeks and getting rid of old products that I’m just not going to use. I’ve tried to be fairly ruthless and have a box full of stuff to donate. Doing this has made me realize a lot of my stuff doesn’t get used because I can’t see it so I’ve re-organised my room yet again and decided to make a new purchase – which arrived today.

And it is everything I’d hoped. Here’s my main work area before…

and after with my new love….

These new drawers are way better than what I had before. And I was able to empty what was left (after the declutter) of two my drawers into these new drawers. I think the fact that I can see everything so easily will really help me get things onto layouts – which is why we buy them afterall. I found quite a few items I had totally forgotten about .

I moved all the boxes of stamps over to the ladder…

and organised all my prettys .

I need to finish sorting through photos then the room will be 100% done – just in time for my new goodies (ordered from the USA) to arrive so I can start playing once more.

One of my blog readers, Briget, was asking how I manage to keep my house looking so nice and I promised her I’d do a post on it.

I do have the advantage of liking (and needing) a neat, tidy home. As a child my bedroom was spick and span and I knew where EVERYTHING was. I could even tell if someone had played with my Barbies because I’d know they weren’t where I left them.  However, I married a rather messy, untidy man and with the addition of kids (who are more like him than me) my standards have dropped somewhat but they are a level I can live (and cope) with.

Things reached crises point for me when Christy was a baby and Amy a preschooler. They had so much stuff and looking after them and keeping the house the way I like was hard. To cope with this we went out – a lot! It was around this time I found Flylady, whom I still love and base a lot of my housekeeping on. I so wish I’d taken her advice of the lace shoes – then I would have probably avoided 18 months of heel spur agony! My other household model is Anthea Turner. Anthea’s way of living is definitely what I aspire to.

I believe the biggest key to keeping an organised, tidy home is to have a home for EVERYTHING! You know the saying – a home for everything and everything in it’s place! If something doesn’t have a home how does anyone know where to put it or where to look for it when it’s needed. This is so hard to teach my children!

Today I am all about keeping on top of things and trying to do things now, rather than later. I do have a basic routine but other than cleaning house on a Monday morning and doing a load of clothes every day, everything else is flexible – goodness it has to be with kids doesn’t it?

Okay, so I’ll start by sharing what gets done every morning – not necessarily in order -

Air, and then make bed

Empty dishwasher

Feed & water all animals

Put a load of washing on (I alternated the girls and Kevin & my clothes, doing towels as needed)

I try to leave the kitchen tidy after the girls make their lunches & we have breakfast. I would love to sweep the floor every day but that hardly ever happens

These are all things I pretty much do without thinking about them.

My big cleaning day is Monday. I used to do downstairs one day and upstairs the next, but now that I don’t need to spend so much time tidying before cleaning, I can get it all done in under 2 hours.

I go through the house room by room -tidying (hopefully already done), dusting, cleaning glass ,vaccuming and washing floors.

Then I nominated one other morning each week to spend a couple of hours in one room – decluttering and doing a detailed clean. This is still something I’m working on as I can easily put it off if I’m not in the mood or have a busy week. So while I’m a tidy person I’m not necessarily a REALLY clean one .

TUESDAY is my day to go grocery shopping (after I have menu planned either on Sunday or Monday). I also try to run any erands I need to while I’m out as these day I’d rather be at home.

My goal is to spend the morning working on the home, have lunch, then spend a couple of hours scrapbooking or doing something fun, then dinner, ironing, etc when the girls get home from school. When I clean I like to listen to podcasts – usually Flylady – as it keeps me motiavted and inspired. As does watching shows like Perfect Housewife and Cleanaholics.

Another thing I’ve really had to work on is getting the girls to tidy up after themselves. They are to make their beds and keep their rooms tidy. Here’s Christy room at the moment – not quite as tidy as I’d like but the lego can just be pushed under her bed.

They also need to keep their computer area and the family room tidy. Not really a lot if you ask me but it’s still a challenge. They are very much like their father and are inclined to drop things wherever they happen to be. I encourage them to watch show like Perfect Housewife and Hoarders so they can see what happens if things aren’t put away and looked after.

To give you an idea of how I’ve been tidy over the years, here’s a quick tour of some of my bedrooms …

as a young girl (excuse the blurry photo)…

as a teenager – around 14yrs – I chose all the colours, wall paper, etc…

into my twenties (and Uni years)… wall paper in place when we bought the house..

study…

and my bedroom when we first moved into this home….

Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time will know that I am far from perfect and constantly working on my organisation and cleaning. I really believe the secret is having a basic plan of attack and trying to do little things right away rather than put them off – often things don’t take nearly as long as you think they will.

Hope I haven’t bored you all to tears . If you’ve got any questions, or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you.

Seems to me I spend a LOT of time organising my photos. Much as I love digital photography things were much easier before. You take photos, take film to camera shop to be developed, pick up photos and place in photo albums – all done easy as pie!

Now that I need photos both for my blog and to scrapbook, things are a bit more complicated.

Once I take the photos I download them into i-photo on the Mac. I usually do this daily. I then flag the photos I want to print or put on my blog, and upload any for the blog to Flickr.

Once in Flickr they need to be labelled, tagged and placed into sets – usually I’ll do this every couple of weeks.

Photos to be scrapbooked are uploaded to Snapfish and printed at the end of every month. If I need any in between I can print them on my Selphi. When the photos arrive I place them into these albums – organised by seaons. For those of you familiar with Stacy Julians‘ Library of Memories system – this is what I use.

From here I can select photos to scrapbook. After a while I will move some of the photos into the drawers (in my case a Creative Memories organiser) – sorted by Us, People we love, Places we go and Things we do – the same systems as my scrapbook albums.

As I’m doing LOM again this year I’ve been going through both my binders and drawers and removing those photos I am NEVER going to scrapbook (like those old fat photos!) .

Must run…looks like I still have some work to do…

A couple of days ago I tidied up the small linen cupboard.

Before: Stuffed to the gills and overflowing

After: Donated most of the books from the bottom and some of the linen we no longer use.

The top shelf has stuff for our king size bed.

Second shelf – Christy quilt, cover and spare sheets (Amy had room in her own cupboard to store her own)

Third shelf – Guest linen for our sofa bed

Forth shelf – Two cushions I’m hoping to knit/crochet covers for, and a container with some of my clothes

Bottom shelf/floor – a spare pillow

Can’t say I want to do the big linen cupboard – full of Christmas decoration containers, books, and other assorted junk that has no home!

Well, it’s been nearly a year since I last sorted out my recipe folder so it was definitely time.

I currently have 3 folders – one for meals, soups, etc; one for cakes and deserts, and one for recipes to try. I usually also have a pile of new recipes recently printed or torn from a mag.Then a nice blue folder with my very fav. ones.

I decided to condense 3 folders into one with labels – soups & salads, main meals, main meals to try, cakes & deserts and cakes & deserts to try. I might try and get some more dividers and make a few more categories.

These fit in very nicely in the space beside my microwave. It’s funny I bought this folder not knowing what I planned to do with it (I just loved it) but look how perfect it goes in my kitchen.

Next up trying to get rid of a couple more recipe books…

I’ve also started using springpadit to flag any recipes I come across online. I can leave them there until I’m ready to try them, then print them out.

How do you keep track of and sort your recipes?

Somewhere in the land of blogs I came across a review of It’s All Too Much – a DVD by Peter Walsh. The preview looked good and I’m always on the lookout for extra organising hints so I decided to order it. At $30 AU (shipped from the USA) I felt it a reasonable price. It arrived last week. I’ve already watched it twice. It’s very good – well put together – and I even got a few ideas. Definitely worth checking out if you get the chance.

I might be odd but I actually look forward to my Monday morning cleaning sessions or weekly home blessings (c/o flylady) as I call it. It’s really pretty straight forward. I like to go room by room around downstairs, then move upstairs.

First thing is to put on cleaning apron so I’m in “work” mode…

and collect my supplies…enjo cloths and a flylady duster.

In each room, I dust and clean any glass tables, then vacuum…

and mop the lino and tile floors…

It usually takes around 1.5 hrs to do downstairs as I tend to get sidetracked and about an hour upstairs. I’ll take a break in between so all up around 3 hours.

However, today I learned that if I’m motivated and the house is already picked up (something the girls and I have been working on) I can get the WHOLE HOUSE done in under 1.5 hours!!!! Todays motivation – watching the Olympics. I knew not the put the TV on until I was done .

During the week I’ll try and find a few hours minimum to do detailed cleaning in one room but other than basic maintainence that’s it for the week as far as cleaning goes. Having a clean and tidy house makes me VERY HAPPY!!!

Oh boy, I did not realize quite what a big job this would be. Normally I just scan through my clothes and try on a few I’m not sure about. Today I tried on almost everything and was rather ruthless with what I donated. I’ve still got quite a few clothes that are just a little too tight but I wanted to box them up and get out of my wardrobe so I don’t have to see them on a daily basis. Feels good knowing EVERYTHING in there fits and makes me HAPPY!

As you can see it was very tiring for Rosie…

The bags ready to take to the donation center…