Reclaiming Time

Montre Molle au Moment

I must reclaim my time. That is my first resolution for the New Year.

Every year, I think things will get so much easier. Then I am shocked when I feel busier than ever. “After I stop homeschooling”…nope: our life filled up with extra-curricular activities. “After the little one goes to Kindergarten”…nope: my life filled up with coaching and volunteer activities at school. “After the cross country season”…nope: I took on so many freelance assignments I barely had time to floss my teeth. Not to mention travel softball which never stops, and Little League planning that goes on year round.

Now that my Christmas preparations are done and I decided not to take on any more work during the vacation, I am feeling so much more like myself. I hate rushing around! I hate crowds, I hate traffic, and I really hate having my life scheduled to the second. I really love just hanging around the house in comfortable clothes, letting it get a little messy, baking and enjoying my kids.

It seems to me there has got to be a problem when a stay-at-home mom has no free time. Is it society that pressures me to do more, or is it me? I’m sure it’s a whole lot of both. There are all these people who kept asking me what I was going to do with my time and, although I don’t feel like I have to prove anything to them, maybe I am still trying to prove to myself that what I do is valuable.

So somebody asks me to do something at the school and I think, well I have lots of things to do but no good excuses why I can’t come in…and there is one full afternoon gone. I get offers for work and I think, yes I have two unscheduled days so I can bid on two assignments…then both bids are accepted and I am rushing to meet deadlines, getting nothing done around the house.

Lack of boundaries is a big problem for many mothers. In the work place it is easy to set and maintain boundaries, but at home everything blurs together. When your work place is at home, and you have no defined office space or work hours, your physical and mental spaces are both going to get disorganized and difficult to maintain.

In spite of my love of spontaneity, to maintain my sanity I am going to have to lay out a weekly and daily schedule. Weekends belong to the family. One day a week I can volunteer at school. Then the school/workdays have to be subdivided into household chores, errands, and work. If I can do this then I can greet the kids with a smile every afternoon and enjoy my time with them, without worrying about all the stuff I still have to get done.

I’ll have to say NO much more often so I can say YES to my life.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers. If I meet this resolution you will be hearing from me much more often in the New Year.

Resolutions 2011: How to make chore lists for kids

My final Examiner post this year is on How to make chore lists for the kids. Happy New Year and here’s to helping our kids to become independent contributors to society…starting at home.

“Doing-it-all”: the Bare Minimum Approach

House Sparrows (Restrike Etching)

Today I am baking for my Christmas baby: a cake to celebrate at home, and cupcakes to bring to batting practice and school. With my four-year-old helping, I started pouring the first batch into the pans before realizing I had forgotten to put the eggs in. I went through a dozen eggs trying to make three batches of my egg white cake without getting any yolk in.

I didn’t make my Christmas houses this year – or my gingerbread – or my banana bread. And it’s okay. We finished our Nutcracker story ornaments and have been working on our Jesse tree symbols. Even that is touch-and-go. With sports after school, sometimes I can’t get the whole family together to do that, so on other days we will catch up by doing one scripture and symbol per child.

They also wrote their letters to St. Nicholas, which they put in their stockings on the eve of the Feast of St. Nicholas on December 6. Finally, we have our advent bead boxes. There are different colors to represent different types of good deeds; the children tell us what they did and they get beads to put in their boxes, which they offer to Jesus by placing them under the tree on Christmas Eve.

The older the kids and I get, the more I realize that you can leave a lot of stuff out – it is in the way that you do things that really matters. I can’t bake for every class party, but if I do I do it out of love. I can’t be at every one of their sporting events – now that they are all at different places doing different things – but they know I do my best to see each of them do their thing, and when I am there I am completely “present”, eating up every pitch, play, or move they make.

It’s also tricky toeing the line on how visible they want me to be, although they all want me there. My four-year-old wants me at the door of her ballet class watching every step, often photographing and videotaping. My nine-year-old is okay if I’m not there, but he prefers knowing that either his dad or I saw it if he had a good hit or pitched a great game. My twelve-year-old won’t admit that she cares if we are there or not, but she does. My fourteen-year-old can now go to sporting events on the school bus, but she begs me to go see her if I can. She smiles when she sees me show up, but then shoos me away, signaling for me to keep my distance.

“Doing it all” suddenly becomes a lot more doable when you aren’t really doing it all – just doing the really essential things right (or as close to right as you can make it).

Luke 12: 25-26
Can any of you by worrying add a moment to your lifespan?
If even the smallest things are beyond your control, why are you anxious about the rest?

When Mommies Make Mistakes

The school yard

Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player. ~Author Unknown

I thought I was having a really great Mommy weekend. I managed to spend individual one-on-one time with each of my children. My 3-year-old and I planted some bulbs. I took my 8- and 10-year olds on separate library trips. I played a full-court, no-foul, no-boundaries, no-time-outs, one-on-one basketball game with my twelve-year-old and let her beat me 22-0. We all went out to Friendly’s for dinner and ice cream.

Sunday night I took my two older girls out to buy Thanksgiving outfits. We aren’t big clothes hogs in this house, but for special holidays I like to make sure everyone has something beautiful to wear. They each picked out something gorgeous and I was trying on a flattering red blouse with scarf.

“Maybe I’ll wear this to my son’s Thanksgiving play,” I thought to myself, “When is that again? Friday? Wait, we have off this Friday, which means..it..must..have..been..this..past..Friday…OMG…OMG…OMG…”

I got home and ran to my son before my daughters could open their big mouths. He was playing Battleship with my husband. “Did you already have your Thanksgiving play?” I burst out. “Yeah,” he said, nonchalantly. The look of horror on my face told all to my husband. I ran upstairs to have a good cry.

I pride myself on keeping our complicated schedules in order. I have my little book in my pocketbook, which gets written on a large dry erase calendar in the laundry room. Around that are corkboards where the important flyers hang. But something went wrong with my system in this one particular case, and I was never going get back the chance to attend my son’s Thanksgiving play.

I emailed an apology to the teacher, asking if she knew of any parents who had videotaped the play. She wrote me back a nice note saying not to beat myself up over it and gave me a name. I emailed the person, who sent me a nice picture and promised to copy the video for me. So I will eventually get the chance to sit and watch the play with my son. In the meantime, I will be taking him out for lots and lots of ice cream.

I woke up still feeling bad, and was glad to find this quote by Henry David Thoreau : “One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors; for to dwell upon them is to add to the offense.”

I also liked Sophia Loren’s “Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.” And how about F. Wikzek’s “If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.”

I was thinking that I couldn’t go on writing this blog when I couldn’t do something really basic like attend a school play. Then I read Niels Bohr’s quote, “An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.”

And finally, from Alexander Pope, in Swift, Miscellanies, “A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”

We are responsible for so much as mothers, and when we mess up the best thing to do is say “I’m sorry”, take a look at our priority list, and move forward.

Fabric Covered Shelves: An Accidental Project

I accidentally covered my linen closet shelves with fabric this weekend. How did that happen, you might ask?

The linen closet next to my master bath was something I overlooked the first few weeks of living here. One day I turned around and said, “Wow! I have another closet!” It became a place for stashing miscellaneous items.

I have a ton of sewing materials stowed away in shoeboxes and bins in various closets around the house. I actually have stopped sewing because I could not find anything I needed for my projects. If only I could get them all together in one place! Recently I decided to empty out my extra linen closet and use it only to store linens and sewing material.

I started by completely emptying out the middle three shelves. (The top and bottom shelves contain books that I will need to find homes for another day.) I cleaned off the old wooden shelves and decided to cover them with contact paper.

Here is where the serendipitous accident occurred. I grabbed what I thought was patterned contact paper, cut it to size, and started to peel off the backing. Then I discovered that it was actually a clear contact paper, which I use to cover the children’s school workbooks.

Then I thought: how nice it would be to have a pretty paper or fabric underneath! I took out a thin gauzy material that was unsuitable for any sewing projects, cut it to size, attached it underneath with masking tape, and covered it with the clear contact paper.



The result is a pretty pattern on my shelves that are destined for storing materials. This will serve as a constant reminder that I am only to use this space for that purpose. As I go through the contents of other closets and come across more material, I have a place in which to store them.



As soon as I had covered a shelf and put it in its place, I had a pile of curtains ready to go there. My covering is not perfect either, and the paint is original to the house. I am not Martha Stewart, nor do I wish to be. These are real pictures of a real closet in a real house, belonging to a real mom with real kids. I hope I have inspired you to do something fun and different with your fabric today!

An Explosion of Activity

In the dead of winter, when there is time to write, the ideas eventually start to peter out. I wonder if I will run out of things to write about. Then spring comes and – BOOM! – there is an explosion of activity, with ideas speeding around my head like a group of electrons threatening to collide, and there is no time to write!

Things have gotten worse in regards to my schedule. I am having very un-Christian thoughts about the people who decided it would be a good idea to have all the grades have their science fair on the same date this year. However, I am wishing I hadn’t gotten myself all stressed out by worrying in advance. Everything is getting done, although I am losing my cool more often than usual.

I keep having wrenches thrown in the works. Like a jury summons. In order to request an excusal, I had to write a letter explaining that I am the primary caregiver to four minors, enclosing copies of birth certificates as proof, and explaining why I could not get someone else to watch them. Just one more thing to add to the long list of things to do this week.

Things are coming together for my son’s First Communion. We got the hardest part of the banner done today. He picked out the symbols he wanted and I cut them out and glued them on. I may add some embellishments later, but the basics are done. Most of the food shopping has been done, and the order placed for heroes and salads. His hair was freshly cut and he looks adorable.

I spent the day cleaning his room. On a daily and weekly basis, this is his own responsibility, but once a year or so it becomes necessary to really get in there and do a thorough revamping. A glance behind a dresser reveals a wealth of socks, legos, and other small items that have fallen back there. All furniture must be moved, dusted, and vacuumed behind. As my husband left for work, I joked about being like the Holy Spirit who restored order to the Earth that was void.

Several hours later, my son arrived home to find all his toys sorted. Cars, legos, Lincoln logs, assorted figurines, blocks, marbles, baseball cards, and miscellaneous small items. He really does enjoy having things organized like this, but things do tend to get out of control when several creative children live in the house! (I also did this for my ten-year-old last month, while she was at a sleepover, but my almost-twelve-year-old has gotten the hang of it, and values her privacy, so I let her room be.)

Here is where you may think I am a little crazy. I spent a good part of the weekend out in the rain watching my girls try out for the summer travel softball team. Why, oh why, would you want to extend the season for several more weeks, you might ask. This is where I agree with my mother-in-law, who likes to cite a study in which people were asked to select a problem they would like to have in lieu of their own; most people chose their own problems.

I am not trying to boast here when I say my kids have athletic ability. All kids have some kind of God-given talent and it is up to us to nurture that. This travel team is professionally run by a group of soft-hearted guys who really teach the girls how to play ball, and display good sportswomanship. The girls they play with are really terrific kids, and I would love for my girls to get to bond with them before high school.

I am having a problem wrapping this up, so I’ll leave you with this helpful list.

Tips for coping in times of stress:
Don’t stress out if it’s not going to be helpful.
Remember to pray throughout the day.
Carry a pocket devotional with you – there are always periods of waiting when you can get two minutes of soul food in.
Carry nuts (if not allergic), granola bars, water, and baby wipes in the car.
Never rush in and out of the car even when in a hurry – this is when driveway accidents happen.
Close the day with prayer and time with God’s Word.

“The Creation” by Matthaeus Merian the Elder, 1625-30

Small Things

The Game Of Marbles

I spent much of Easter break involved with small things.

Small school assignments: small book reports, small research reports, baby steps towards the completion of three science fair projects.

Small yard projects: small leaves to be raked out from the borders, small leaves to be dredged out of the pool cover, multiple small balls to be also plucked out from the same, small flowers to be planted, small insects to be dealt with.

And small things to be sorted: marbles, doll shoes, beads, puzzle pieces, legos, cabin logs. This last project is one that has been in the making for several years. While homeschooling, it was impossible to keep all of these things in order. Thinking that all girls love to organize things (because I did when I was little), I containerized the clutter, thinking that when they were six or seven they would love to sort all the objects. This never happened. What did happen is that my children learned my habit of containerizing clutter. The result is an uncountable number of containers of unsorted small objects throughout the house.

Many mothers will throw out games that are missing parts. When sweeping, they will throw out beads, game pieces, and other small objects along with the dirt. You might think I’m a glutton for punishment, but I believe I am showing my optimistic spirit when I pick up these small pieces, believing that one day I will get them together with their partners.

If you are shaking your head in disbelief, you do not know the joy I found when attacking my second large bin of clutter in one week and finally putting together all the pieces of a Winnie the Pooh matching game! And with what happiness my toddler is now carrying around a small collection of hearts (“t-tines”, her word for Valentines) and flowers in her pocket. Finally, my eleven-year-old, who recently found a love of small containers for the purpose of keeping like-with-like small objects, has her small baseball beads and gemstone collection back. And my son has more legos and cabin logs with which to build. I also painstakingly matched up dozens of pairs of baby socks, who had been separated for many months from their twins, and brought smiles to the faces of the ladies at the local Birth Right center.

If you walked into my house you would not know how many hours were spent in these small details. It does not look any cleaner (except that I just steam-cleaned the living rug after the dog threw up her lamb chops) or more organized. If you open up my closets, you will see that I have a huge amount of stuff yet to go through. I will, bit by bit, and with love.

“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
Mother Teresa

Resolutions for the Kids

We rang in the New Year with little pomp and circumstance. What a meanie I am: I made the kids go to bed at 10:00. Our friends who were going to come over canceled due to the icy road conditions, and I thought we might as well rest up after the illness we just went through this weekend. My husband and I watched an hour-long drama and I switched over to Dick Clark’s Rocking New Year at 12:01.

“I missed the ball dropping!” I exclaimed, waiting for a replay.

“They don’t replay it – that’s why you’ve got to watch the countdown,” my husband teased me.

Watching Dick Clark was very strange. He looked so unreal it was scary. I turned it off, wished my husband a happy new year, and went to bed. We slept straight through almost to noon and missed Mass. “We’ll have to do a family rosary later to make up for it,” I mused.

Today is a leisurely day spent at home, with a backyard beautifully covered in snow. The littlest one is on a Madeline kick, snuggling on the couch with Madeline videos and her new Madeline doll. She is now recovered from her stomach virus, but has a sniffly nose and is not allowed out in the cold with her older siblings. They were irritable, repeatedly opening the door to let me know of their squabbles. One was wearing the other’s new gloves. My son was putting snow on the girls’ faces.

I cleared out all the leftovers from Christmas dinner from the fridge. Then I made a chocolate pudding pie, and easy and scrumptious dessert. Just beat up the pudding mix with milk and pour it into a chocolate graham crust.

My resolutions are neatly laid out in outline-fashion in my journal. This is the most organized list I have made so far, and I promise to revisit it on a monthly basis.

One of my goals is to keep the kids on target with their daily chores, so I don’t have to nag them, constantly check up on them, or deal with the chaos that results from not following up on them. I have written several posts on various systems I have tried: the demerit system and the FLY system were two.

The checklist was another, which always did work, until I got tired of making the weekly printouts for each child. Since that worked as long as I kept up with it, I am going to go back to it. Disciplinary systems for children are just like the self-displinary systems we set up (as in dieting); just pick one and stick with it, and it will work.

I use a spreadsheet program to create a list for each child. It has the child’s name on top, in his or her favorite color. The columns read Sunday through Saturday. The rows identify the child’s chores, divided into morning, afternoon, and evening. The bottom rows are reserved for chores that only need to be done once per week. There are also “bonus rows”, which allow the children to earn extra rewards for over-the-top duties performed.

If all the required rows are checked off, the kids receive a reward for that day. If not, they can make up for it by doing extra the next day. They really enjoy checking things off on their lists! The thing is to have a store of sheets made up. Otherwise, if you are too tired on the weekend to make it up for the next week, the whole family will fall off the bandwagon.

Here’s to Family Resolutions That Work, and Sticking To Them!

Painting of Nativity by Unknown Flemish Master, 1400s

Towards a Better Resolution

I have been making birthday and New Years’ Resolutions ever since I started keeping journals, at the age of eight. Although I have been refining the process through my lifetime, they tend to always be formed along the same theme. Since I keep doing it, and enjoying it, I think I have a pretty good system in place. Here are the parameters for my resolution-making formula.

I make 10 general resolutions. These address all areas of life: spiritual, physical, psychological, and social. They also cover the JOY spectrum I learned in Sunday School: my relationships with Jesus first, then Others, then Self. They tend to cover the same areas of priorities and personal development that have been important throughout my life: family, prayer life, personal fitness, housekeeping projects (gardening, building, decluttering), skills development (piano, art, writing), and career advancement (publishing).

Making general resolutions is important in defining what is most important to me at this moment in my life, before making more specific ones. The more specific goals are those that outline exactly how I am going to meet each resolution. For example, here is one item that appears on most adults’ list: personal fitness. How many minutes per day will I exercise? What forms of exercise will I use? In looking back on the year, one might say, “Okay, I can still stand to lose 5 pounds, but I did manage to weight train twice a week and increase my muscle to fat ratio.” So even if you have to work more on the same resolution next year, you can say you did not fail. You were successful in part of the goals.

Always on my list is Writing More and Getting Published. Under that goal, I can say: write x minutes per day, submit one proposal per month, submit to y publisher of z magazine, etc. If I fail at publishing in print, at least I can say I wrote everyday and self-published on my blog.

Sometimes I can kill two birds with one stone. The specifics of two different general goals can work toward both ends. Decluttering has been quite popularized of late. Last year, under the general resolution of “organize house”, I made it a sub-goal to donate one-third of my books to my public library. I did it, and was able to use my new-found shelf space to organize our home office, which was another of my sub-goals. (In all fairness, I must admit that my garage is still a mess; however, I did take 5 minutes per day throughout the fall to organize small sections of it.)

On my birthday, Aug. 30, I revisit my goals. I put a check mark under the ones that I have made progress on, making notes on what I have done and what could be done better, and refine. Then I make a new list of goals, building on the ones I had made earlier in the year. I keep my resolutions in my journal. Others might find it easier to keep a notebook just for this purpose. A mini-notebook can be used for a daily log of exercise to keep you on track.

Do you keep your resolutions private, or make them public? This depends on you. Some people find that confiding their goals in someone help them to keep them better. Others find this a hindrance. I have a few writing friends that I have confided my publishing goals in, but in general keep those private. My spiritual and personal fitness goals are completely private. My organizational goals are public; they make for good conversation.

Obviously, resolutions must be reasonable, or they will be given up within a week. Only you know what is possible for you.

Happy New Year to you and yours, and if you make resolutions, resolve to keep them!

Tips for Staying Sane This Week

I am not sure how much writing I will be able to do this week. On the flip side, my readers may be too busy to read my blog this week! So I will keep my posts short and sweet.

Today I had to go food shopping with several major events in mind, other than our normal meals. My daughter’s tenth birthday, Christmas, class parties, and guests expected to drop in. Today I had to bake cupcakes for two of my children’s classes. (I hear public schools no longer allow sweets of any kind, so I am thankful that I am allowed to send them in!) I still have to go downstairs and ice them and figure out how best to pack them.

We had to get ready all the little cards and (handmade) gifts for all the teachers. Tomorrow I will make my famous Hershey's chocolate cake for our own family to eat on my daughter’s birthday. It takes a bit of time but is outrageous. Then I will do a really good cleaning and waxing of my kitchen floor. That will do it for the week, other than the sweeping that is necessary twice a day.

Tips for Staying Sane Include:

1. Posting detailed lists on the fridge and checking off items when they are done. This gives me a great sense of satisfaction.

2. Lighting my Advent Candles every night at dinner. It makes the mood festive and peaceful.

3. Keeping reasonable expectations of myself and my children.

4. Getting enough sleep.

5. Eating enough fruits and veggies.

6. Taking a B-complex vitamin for energy.

7. Having stuff done ahead of time, as much as possible. If you didn’t do that this year, vow to do it next year.

8. Saying no to unreasonable requests.

9. Rewarding the kids for being good. If they have been good and have cleaned their rooms, St. Nick leaves candy canes or chocolates in their stockings that night.

10. Taking time for yourself at the end of the day. Do whatever makes you feel relaxed.

God bless you as you enter the final days of preparation!

Christmas Scene, 1820, Franz Xaver Frh vom Paumgartten

Who Needs a Stud?

Are you tired of nagging your husband to put up some shelves in the garage, pantry, or closet? You don’t need a man to do this job for you. Any gal worth her salt can find a stud and get this job done in a jiffy. All you need for your working partners are your level and your stud finder.

Get yourself over to Home Depot and buy the materials to get started. Bring along the measurements of the height, width, and depth of the shelving you desire. Purchase two uprights for each set of shelves. Figure they will be about 18 inches apart to decide how many sets you will need. If you want to store really heavy stuff you will need double uprights. For medium weight stuff, a single standard will do. The standards come in zinc, brown, and white. How deep do you want your shelf? Pick out the brackets to go with your uprights. If you need to buy the actual shelf, those are available in pre-finished, pre-cut boards in white or brown. You would buy a ten-inch wide shelf to go with a ten-inch wide bracket. Make sure all the parts fit together properly.

You will also need a pencil, stud finder, yardstick, level, and screws, 1 ½ to 2 inches long. You can use a drill or Phillips Head screwdriver.

Starting on the left side of the wall, use the stud finder or the old hammer trick to find the first stud. This can be anywhere between 14 and 18 inches from the start of the wall. Make several marks down the line of where the first upright will go. If they all seem to line up, you should have found the correct location of the stud.

Now decide how far from the ceiling you want the upright to start. Remember if you are too close to the ceiling those slots will be useless. I decided on 6 inches for mine. Measure the distance down from the ceiling and draw a small straight line.

Take your upright and line it up with the stud marks. Put a level next to the upright and shift it until the bubble on the level is in between the two center marks. Do not use your eye or the ceiling as your guide. No building is ever completely level.

Drill a screw into the central hole on the upright first. Check to make sure the upright is still vertically level. Then put in the other screws. You will know you are hitting a stud when you feel and hear the screw twisting into hard wood.

Now find the next stud. Again, this can be between 14 and 18 inches from your first stud. Put the level horizontally on top of the first upright and draw a line where the top of the second upright should go. Repeat steps for installing the upright.

Repeat all steps until you have installed all of the uprights.

Now decide how high you want each of the shelves to go. Put the brackets into the slats and give a few downward taps with the hammer to install. On my shelves, I still have room for two rows of shelves on top; I need to purchase 8 more brackets.

Finally, put the shelves on your brackets and you are ready to go! I happen to have enough scrap wood in my shed that I can cut the shelves to fit and save myself some money. After I purchase the remaining brackets, this project will have cost me approximately $30.

Above is a picture of the standards I installed today, complete with the spiders on the ceiling, pencil marks, and a wayward hole from a mistake I made in finding a stud. From start to finish, this took 45 minutes. This is a great starter project because deciding where to make a hole is not the life-or-death decision it would be in your living room.

Teach Your Kids to FLY!

Thinking back to my childhood, I seemed to have been born with an organizational system in my head. My room was kept beautifully. All my collections were kept together in a way that made sense. If Mom asked me to organize the pantry, or Dad needed help sorting screws in the garage, I was all too happy to dive into the project and see it to completion.

An only child for 11 years, I was the definition of a perfectionist. This quality was of a great advantage in academics, and would have been the key to success in a worldly career. But in family life, where the tending of primary relationships is key, it is a hindrance.

Weaning myself away from perfectionism was a process that took several years, and many major life changes. Marriage was a first step, birth an important second. However, I was still cleaning my floors every day when my first child was a newborn. It took a second child to make me tired enough not to care so much. Spic-and-span changed to clean-enough.

I first heard about FLY LADY when I started homeschooling. A quite vibrant young mother with several children told about how Fly Lady’s system had gotten her in control of her house and her life. I was skeptical, thinking everyone needs to come up with her own system of organization.

Hearing about setting timers was a real turn-off to me. After constantly wearing a watch through my twenty-fifth year, I found that the ability to go without one was like taking off one’s fetters. I could appreciate the minutes and all the lovely baby things that could be encompassed within them.

In hindsight, if I had followed Fly Lady’s tips during my homeschooling years, I would never have gotten into the spot I am now in. While my main living areas are in good order, my drawers and closets are filled with unsorted collections of things (“clutter”).

My most organized friend congratulated me on all the strategies I have been following to keep clutter at a minimum in the common living areas. I blushed reading her e-mail, wondering what she would think of my garage. In my post, I was focusing on my successes so I could push forward with the improvements needed.

My biggest problem is with my children’s rooms. I barely have the time to check if they have made their beds, and they get out of control really quickly. Fly Lady has a section just for kids, to make cleaning fun and doable. I just loved her Student Control Journal. I printed out three copies, put them into binders, and presented them to the children. They pored through them, set the kitchen timer for fifteen minutes, and went through the zone of the day. I could not believe what a difference such a short time span could make.

My friend thought I must have been processing something mental, and I denied it. But really, this all came on immediately after hearing the election results. I watched a show called “Neat” (on The Fitness Channel), in which a book lover had to narrow her beloved books from four shelves to one. I immediately went to my bookshelves and filled a box with books to donate.

A week later, I am still in de-cluttering mode, fully aware that I am trying to process the enormous implications of the election results for our country. I had been so anxious about it – and was managing my mental let-down through cleaning and sorting.

I can see how constant cleaning could be a coping mechanism for those with obsessive-compulsive disorder. And that is why I am begging people to take this system with a grain of salt. If your home is in total disarray, you need a system. If just certain areas are in disorder, hit those areas – but do not let it take over your life. If everything is in relatively good order, please do not start wrapping up your sheets with ribbons Martha Stewart style. Take your kids for a walk and enjoy the wildly divine order of nature.

FLY stands for Finally Love Yourself. If you want to teach your kids how to FLY, you need to teach them balance. They need to respect their home and environment, but also feel free to be messy and creative and unfettered by time restraints. For everything there is a time.

And for everything there is a season. For me, the pendulum had to take me further center. It had to swing a little farther to the left for me to get there. Life is a constant ebb of change requiring us to focus on our ultimate goals and constantly adjust our schedules, habits, and expectations to follow God’s will for our paths.

Painting above: Renoir's "Charpentier and Her Children"

Elizabeth’s Anti-Clutter Techniques for Larger Families

We have had a few rainy days, leading me to spring into my fall de-cluttering. I immediately hit my worst hot spot, the home office, where I have many piles of paper to sort through. I packed up forty-three books in genres I no longer read, and which I have no desire to pass along to my children.

While there, I picked up a few books from the library on de-cluttering. I skimmed through these during commercial breaks, while watching the evening news with my husband. I really learned nothing new. But I did discover that I could skip whole sections because many of the zones in my house are clutter-free! I decided to pat myself on the back for that and proceed with what needed to be done.

The most painful books to give away were a set of four “Story of the World” books by Susan Wise Bauer. These had been a rare brand-new purchase I had made, with the intention of incorporating them into my homeschooling curriculum. Even after I had enrolled the children into school, I always thought I would supplement their education by reading these books to them. A few years later, I had still only gotten halfway through the first book. A good homeschooling friend of mine who is using this series was a happy recipient of these. While painful, it was also the most fulfilling book giveaway I had made.

While sorting through school papers in the kitchen this morning, I discovered that I actually have several systems in place that I have incorporated over the years. I found none of these tips in books or magazines, and several are unique for larger families.

1. Have a ready-to-go center at your front door.
In the coat closet by the front door, I keep a baby bag stocked and ready to go at a moment’s notice. My keys and pocketbook are kept on a coat rack, which is installed on the wall. There is a small table with one drawer, in which I keep all my coupons and one-day-store passes. I remove expired coupons on a regular basis.

2. Keep a clutter basket in your kitchen.
Junk drawers are useless, but kitchen clutter does happen, especially with a family of six. Everyone knows they can feel free to toss in miscellaneous small objects in the basket. Once it gets half full, I can carry the basket around the house and put things where they belong.

3. Keep multiple tools together.
I think large families should be exempt from the “keep one each” rule most expert organizers tout. If you cook and bake with your daughters, for instance, you will need several of the same kitchen tools. If father and son like to build together, they will need more than one hammer and screwdriver. Just keep the same types of tools together.

4. Support your local library!
Once a season I fill a diaper box with books I know I will never have use for again. I bring it to my library and receive a donation slip.
I also have made friends with the children’s program director, who happily takes off my hands empty baby jars for use in storing paint and other craft supplies.

5. Jesus told his disciples to keep only one coat, and give away the second.
This policy prevents clothing clutter from every happening. If I buy a pair of jeans, I donate one pair. One pair of black shoes in, one pair out. When I store clothing to pass on to the next child, I make sure to keep only half, and donate the rest.

6. Use a pad rather than scraps of paper.
I keep all of my lists and idea on little yellow pads so I can always find them. Once I use my ideas to write out a post, I tear out the page and throw it out. When cleaning out my pocketbook, I know all the folded-up yellow pages are shopping lists that I can throw away.

7. Keep a school and art work collection box.
With multiple children, it is absolutely impossible for me to sort through all the pages that come in a daily basis. I have the children empty out their folders into a box. On a weekly basis, I can go through the box and sort the papers I want to keep into appropriate folders.

8. Get everyone to put their own laundry away.
I fold laundry in one of two places, depending on where my toddler is at the moment.
If I fold on the dining room table, where the children do their homework together, the children are told to put away their own piles before doing homework.
If I fold on my bed, they have to put away their piles before going to bed. I must put away my own pile before climbing into bed.

9. Pin-up visual reference clutter behind kitchen cabinet doors.
For easy reference, I know which cabinet to open and find any of the following:
Doctor and business cards
Calendar of birthdays and anniversaries
Sports schedules
First-aid poster
A Mapquest of our area (in case someone needs directions to our house or gets lost on their way)
Often-referenced recipes
Important church numbers, cut out from the church bulletin
Postcards from a loved-one who travels often
Health articles for inspiration
Inspirational quotes
School and class numbers

10. Create “way-stations” for things to be put away.
By the garage door I might put a pile of things to put away in the garage. When I fill up the dog food bowl, I take the pile in with me.
At the bottom of the stairs is a pile of things to be brought up, and vice-versa. Everyone is trained to “not waste a trip”; they must bring the things up or down, and then deposit them in the rooms of their owners.

This last tip is similar to one I found in the book , LIGHTEN UP! Free Yourself From Clutter (HarperCollins), by Michelle Passoff. Rather than being stuck on everything going straight to its home, she suggests everything be put on its right path to its final destination. You can find out about her books and sign up for her tips at http://www.freefromclutter.com/

The Muddy Room

For the first time in months, my now-two-year-old went to bed crying last night.

“Room. . .muddy” she whimpered.

“Muddy?” I wondered to myself.

Muddy applies to puddles that may gather anywhere on the ground.

Muddy applies to large patches of dirt that might get her new white sneakers dirty.

Now, her room might have been messy, but it certainly was clean.

So how did the term “muddy” apply to her precious space?

I had been busy at work rearranging furniture all evening. In order to fit a new (“new” for us, anyway) book shelf into her room, I had had to move half of the other pieces around, throwing books and toys out of my way as I worked.

Although I was not satisfied with any kind of finality to the layout, I had to bring the evening’s work to an end so that she could go to bed. So I straightened out her floor and turned the crib so that it would be jutting out into the middle of her room, rather than against the wall, as it had been for her entire life thus far.

This would not do at all. As she looked confusedly out of her crib, I tried to see the world through her perspective. She was on an island in a sea of disorder. Previously, being “attached” to the wall, the crib had been more like a peninsula. A mess could be overlooked from this position.

She had been able to sleep successfully at relatives’ homes while visiting, but she understood those were temporary places of residence. I had disturbed her little castle, the place she had come to understand was “hers”.

But it was too late to start rearranging again, so I did my best to soothe her and she had to go to bed a little upset. This morning she woke up cheerily, and I was able to set things to right before her naptime.

She is not upset at all right now. But neither does she sound as if she is sleepy. She is having a regular ball in her crib! Back in her peninsula, things are safe and orderly now, albeit a bit different. They make sense, and she is playing out her own little drama of the change without the necessity of moving.

“The Lord is king; let the earth rejoice; let the many islands be glad.”
Psalm 97:1

Sand Shadows is a painting of a Long Island beach by Rick Mundy at rickmundy.com

Cleanliness, Inside and Out

We accomplished so many things in the past week that it feels like a whole month has gone by! I hardly noticed that the kids had started school again, because I was still working on a spur-of-the-moment weekend home improvement project.

My Mom arrived for her visit last Wednesday night. I had spent all day straightening out the house. My brother had also helped me to get the kids’ rooms in order, so everything appeared to be clean and organized.

On Thursday we prepared for my son’s seventh birthday party, a Whiz Bang! Science Experiment Party. I was a little nervous about the experiments, because I had never gotten around to trying them out myself. Here on Long Island, most class parties are held at a professional party place, so kids are used to being entertained. I always feel like I have to meet a certain standard to keep their attention. But everything went smoothly, and the kids had a blast. We even got a little whiffle-ball in. I was very relieved to have it over with.

During the party, we grew some crystals. I got out some food dye to color the crystals and asked each child what his or her favorite color was. When my nine-year-old said GREEN my Mom carefully noted the change from her long-standing old favorite color, PINK.

“Why is her room still pink? Let’s paint it green!”

I agreed, not knowing what I was getting myself into.

On Friday, Mom took my nine- and ten- year-old girls out for a day of beauty. They got hair and nails done. They stopped at Walmart for color chips. We picked out a shade we could all concur on, and Mom went back to pick up two gallons.

“We’re not going to start today though?” I half stated, half asked, “They have their dress rehearsal at 5:00.”

“I’ll just do a little cutting in,” said Mom, “It’ll be a cinch.”

I dropped the girls off at the church and returned. Before I knew it, Mom had all the furniture moved away from the wall. I cringed because I knew what was lurking there.

Bags and boxes full of miscellaneous girly stuff. Doll clothes, hair thingies, game pieces, play jewelry, markers, old cards and papers, all in a jumble. She started to put things in bags.

“Just clear out behind the headboard and we’re done,” she said.

I was overwhelmed by all the stuff. I needed time to sort through everything. I misplaced a bag that had her precious American Girl Kirsten’s Noah’s Ark set in it. I went to inspect the garbage in the street but could not find it. I burst into tears. I left Mom with the gargantuous chore and went to catch the end of the girls’ dress rehearsal.

Mom painted all day Saturday, and we went to the see my daughters perform in The Sound of Music that night. It was absolutely beautiful.

On Sunday, we went to Mass, came back home, had lunch, and put the baby to bed. I brought the girls back to the parish hall, saved our seats, went to Home Depot for new blinds and Stop ‘n’ Shop for flowers, and back to the church to meet my in-laws for the matinee performance. My husband and son met us there. Mom stayed home with the baby. She did the white trim and put everything back in place.

My daughter was absolutely delighted with her new room. Mind you, I still had all of her STUFF in my study and could not even get to my computer until I sorted through it all and carted out the unneeded boxes.

So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning after the kids went off to school, Mom worked on an academic article, I worked on sorting through the stuff, and together we took care of my toddler. The time flew! And then she flew away.

An hour ago, I got through the last shoebox full of stuff and put the sorted under-the-bed boxes where they belonged. We decided which pictures to keep, and they went up on the wall. It’s the cleanest room in the house. I have always thought the best way to clean out a room is to paint it!

It got me thinking about how our secret thoughts can be like all the dusty stuff lurking behind my daughter’s furniture. We might look and act like “nice people”, but we know all the prejudicial, judgmental, complaining, non-loving thoughts that we might harbor in our hearts. The only way to get rid of those spiritual dust mites are through prayer, confession, reading God’s Word, and filling our minds with Godly thoughts. Then we can look clean and actually BE clean.

“How good God is to the upright, the Lord, to those who are clean of heart!”
Psalm 73:1

The Miller Christmas Spreadsheet

Since childhood, I have always been a list maker. I have always had so many projects in my head, with all the mini-steps leading to completion. In college I would take my deadlines, write them on my calendar, and work my way backwards from that date to set mini-goals toward the end result. I always tried to get things done a few days early in case of unforeseeable circumstances. (I remember one year in high school, having trouble with the dot-matrix printer at 2:00 in the morning when a paper was due in the morning. My father was not happy! It never happened again.)

Now with four children, I would truly feel lost if I did not get it all down on paper. Tomorrow ends the cross-country season, which will allow me more time to prepare for Christmas. I am presently getting my spreadsheets ready for all the holiday preparations. This really helps me to organize myself with all the multitasking required. The major tasks are in bold, with all the mini-steps listed underneath.

For example, for Christmas cards, I need to (1) buy cards, (2) find Christmas outfits for the children, (3) buy a tree, (4) put up the tree, (5) decorate the tree, (6) dress the children for a picture, (7) take a picture, (8) print out wallets, (9) write out the cards, (10) buy stamps, (11) put the cards in the mail, and finally (12) record changes of address and new family members as cards from others come in.

When I see my spreadsheet printed out on my refrigerator, I derive a real sense of satisfaction from seeing little checkmarks next to the various and sundry tasks. Hence Christmas does not become this big, overwhelming monster that takes over the month of December. Rather, Advent is a time in which little goals can be accomplished - and enjoyed - in spare moments that can be found, leaving me with a sense of peace so spiritually I can prepare myself and my family for the celebration of the birth of Christ.

“A voice cries out:
In the desert prepare the way of the Lord!
Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!”
Isaiah 40:3

Recommended blog: The True Meaning of Christmas