My Ever Present Foe

How horrible to describe my prayed for and wonderful blessing of a house in that manner. Yes, I will admit to being a messy; you know there are some people who are tidy and have well-kept homes and then there are "messies" (a term coined by someone I heard speaking on Focus on the Family). I grew up with a wonderful, loving mom who made me do chores but kept the rest of the house very well put together. When Matthew and I married and bought our first house, I thought to myself, "Now where is the person who is supposed to keep this house clean?" Yes, I struggled through clutter for 8 years in that house before renting a storage unit, throwing half of our belongings in it, and living in perfect harmony for four months while "showing" that house. I did really like how it looked and felt. Fast forward almost a year...

We moved into this brand new, beautiful home and I had an emotional meltdown. On top of not knowing where to put anything (and then not knowing where anything was once placed), that storage unit vomitted its contents back into our lives and now it seems every closet in this bigger house is almost full. How does that happen? Let me just say "Thank Heavens for Summer!"

We struggled through setting up house amidst our first year of home school. Philip and I were both overjoyed with the end of K-4 even though it astounds me how much he developed emotionally and intellectually. I now have mornings free and a renewed excitement to finish unpacking those few boxes and tackle the mini-projects I've decided on. Between visiting my sister-in-law Lori over Memorial Day and gleaning from her home management wisdom and stopping by my friend and neighbor Greta's beautiful home (it always looks ready to show and they're not moving!), I'm reinspired to keep my nose to the grindstone and tackle my house on a daily basis.

Some of you readers will laugh to yourselves when I say I happily invited Flylady to my email inbox again. Today I wiped down my kitchen cupboards and my kitchen sink currently holds one single cutting board. In addition to the norm, my summer project list included the following:

- Decorate the kids' bathroom (paint and new curtain/fixtures)
- Hang shelves in kitchen (DONE!)
- Buy storage items to organize school material (DONE!)
- Create chalkboard on bonus room wall
- Find a small table and round rug for entry way
- Paint Braewyn's headboard white with her name
- Paint stairway wall with brick faux finish
- Install curtain over jet tub window (Rod installed, curtains tomorrow!)
- Hang Grand Canyon / Walt Disney photos
- Clean out master bed boxes
- Purchase new desk for computer
- Rearrange Braewyn's room (changing table in closet)
- Rearrange bonus room room to be half school / half play
- Add shelves to the bonus room for more toy storage

Well, that's my June schedule.