8 Weeks to a Happier Home

Everything has been driving me crazy lately.  I’m frustrated with nearly every aspect of life and it’s made me a little less than eager to do things, anything really.  There is so much I COULD be doing, but instead I focus on just getting by: Are the kids fed?  Are the kids clean?  Am I fed?  Am I clean?  Is hubby fed?  Is everyone where they need to be when they need to be?  Is Honeybun’s schoolwork done?  Will child protective services deem my home “clean enough”?  And in that order…

Well, enough is enough and I’m ready to snap out of it.  If you can’t get rid of it, fix it, right?  Things aren’t changing as I’ve hoped (or as quickly, anyway) so I might as well make the most of what is here and now.

We’ve been in our house nearly 2 years and have not yet done a lot with it.  We’ve done lots of little sweeps and cleans but never gone through EVERYTHING to purge and reorganize (truthfully, before by the 2 year mark we’ve been preparing to move!)  Add a tough pregnancy, another kid, starting work, starting school and you’ve got a mess!  So, I devised a plan: 8 Weeks to a Happier Home (#8w2aHaHo in all future posts)

The plan is simple: clean, organize and better our home little by little over time.  Why 8 weeks?  Our house has basically 8 “zones”:

• Master Bedroom and Bath
• Dining Room and Entry Way
• Living Room
• Doodle’s Room and Laundry Room
• Guest Room (and Honeybun’s napping room) and Guest Bath
• Kitchen
• Play Room
• Girls’ Room and Bath

I figure by breaking it down, it will seem more manageable.  And by giving myself a week for each zone, I won’t have to give up my social life to get it done.

I’m realistic though and know it will probably become a cycle.  When I finish with Zone 8, I’m sure Zone 1 will need attending again but it shouldn’t be so bad the next time around.

I’ve had this idea for a few days now and planned to start today but yesterday turned into an impromptu Garage Cleaning day (which wasn’t one of my zones anyway!)  As we’ve acquired more bikes and scooters (and a lawn mower), our third garage space  has become more and more chaotic, challenging and irritating (the first two spots have been and always will be reserved for cars–we live in hurricane country, I’m not leaving my cars out on the driveway!)  It was time for a change.  We didn’t really purge anything (other than a few expired car seat bases) but were able to rearrange things to make the space more functional and give the kids more space for their stuff so they don’t stack it on top of ours.  It was such a sudden decision to clean, I unfortunately didn’t get a before picture, but here is the after (hoping to add a small bike stand for the girls’ bikes to make them easier to store as well):

So that makes 1 area down, 8 Zones to go and 8 weeks to get it done!  Up first: Master Bedroom and Bath